Any news about Xenforo 3.0, can we expect modern forum?

qnkov

qnkov

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Hello. For half a year, I have been looking for a modern forum system to start an anime/manga site with various features. For example, a video system for watching movies/episodes, a way to add manga/anime as pages with information about them, topics with posters, etc. I saw that all of this is possible with Invision Community.

I waited to see version 5, but it turned out that the self-hosted platform is extremely expensive and has functionality limits. They also changed the way we acquire add-ons, significantly restricting options, and almost no themes exist for their latest version.

On the other hand, XenForo seems like a better alternative in terms of user base and price, but the forum and themes, in general, look like they’re from the early 2000s. I understand that some may find this nostalgic, but it looks incredibly outdated and is not visually appealing.

That’s why I’m wondering what exactly to expect with version 3.0. Can we anticipate a modern interface similar to Invision Community? I really don't want to go to invision as they may drop self-hosted in next version, as they aim for big comapanies, not common users now.
 
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Yeah it's been five years, an insane number 😅, since we modeled and planned and formally constructed what I believe to have been a significant improvement to forum ux. At least for me I learned a lot just studying and researching.

Our core clients at Audentio, the ones we worked with closely, saw significant positive engagement metrics increase when we moved to Feeds and Ace, from say your run of the mill theme. Heck we still see people using Feeds all over the place (via tickets) and we never formally launched it. Crazy to think it was so impactful. Definitely a top five favorite thing we built -- especially that hot feed idea. One of my personal favorites.

It still works on at least a few dozen sites as well that I keep in touch with.

A lot of the ideas in this white paper I've transferred to my own community platform.

Gemma said:
I think Themehouse/Audentio almost got it right with their Feeds add-on, but unfortunately, they didn't quite execute it successfully, IMO. If the activity block looked something like this, where clicking on the checkbox updated the feed without requiring a refresh or pressing a button, it would have been much better. Instead, if memory serves me right, they limited the activity feed to specific content types: post, profile post, and thread.
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Ironically, it was both real-time and we supported all default content types and custom thread types and add-ons via custom feeds and filters. (see article for screenshots)
imno007 said:
Yeah, I actually really liked that Audentio addon myself, but for some reason couldn't get it working again after the last XF update, even though the addon had been updated. Gonna have to take another jab at it one day soon.
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If I may explain myself as to why we didn't officially support it, I hope you can understand our position.

(Edited this to keep it short haha) Xenforo kept us busy trying to keep everything that was getting replaced a good experience for all customers. Cruel life to live in hindsight. Was not sustainable so this was the last thing we built, interesting to see what's happened here since. 🤔

But I appreciate you giving it a shot, in the past or future. As far as I know it's still maintained internally though I'm not sure where you can download it from. We never charged for it directly. If you reach out to us somehow we can get you the latest copy to play with.

Gemma said:
And, I think their "card view" layout needed a better design to work with different thread types and themes.
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It worked with the default theme. I never said it would solve every forum's every need, it's impossible to claim that, particularly as a forum like yours has so many different content types it, innately, will be difficult to optimize for specific engagement kpis imo.

Ace was designed with communities that wanted to see growth, not as something that was designed to really be customized. In fact we tried to keep ace/feeds out of the box which it surprisingly made our lives and customer lives much easier to see to fruition those growth goals and to maintain the technology.

ETA: it is worth noting too though that what xenforo does is very difficult. It's a lot to maintain and get right. Taking that product and making it "modern" is perhaps not realistic in any short time line. And we should respect that situation, a very difficult one at that.
 
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Dad. said:
But I appreciate you giving it a shot, in the past or future. As far as I know it's still maintained internally though I'm not sure where you can download it from. We never charged for it directly. If you reach out to us somehow we can get you the latest copy to play with.
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Well, it is obvious what are the next steps. Many of us are trying to adapt our communities to the feeds style UX instead of browsing categories/nodes to read & provide our content. It would be a game changer if you bring back to the public the Feeds addon with support, updates and more customization possibilities (like multi prefix filtering, using custom templates to add in the tabs/feeds, per permission tabs maybe? etc). Obviously as a paid product, we understand the amount of work you have to put on it.

Please, we want to evolve!! :D
 
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Dad. said:
If you reach out to us somehow we can get you the latest copy to play with.
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I have version 1.4.0 Patch Level 1, from a couple months ago. If you know there to be a later version, please let me know and I'll try contacting you guys. Thank you.

Oh, never mind, a quick search revealed to me that you're up to at least "Level 4" now, so I'll see if I can't get anyone on the line, so to say. (y)
 
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imno007 said:
I have version 1.4.0 Patch Level 1, from a couple months ago. If you know there to be a later version, please let me know and I'll try contacting you guys. Thank you.

Oh, never mind, a quick search revealed to me that you're up to at least "Level 4" now, so I'll see if I can't get anyone on the line, so to say. (y)
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I'm interested in this, too. :)
 
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beerForo said:
The entire reason profile posts are not fully utilized is they get lost (are not bumped) and are in a widget.
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100%.
Profile posts should have the EXACT same forum wide exposure as threads. Or at least that should be an option. This is only a good idea if you WANT people to use PROFILE posting.

Merging them into a proper feed would increase discovery and activity.
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100%.

Do remember, that Xenforo Resources were released with no associated thread, so it suffered the same lack of exposure issue. Myself and others complained vehemently and later each Resource had an associated thread.
 
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Feeds is part of their Subscription Service that I was a part of. They have a recent update (Feb 2025) to level 5. Unfortunately, the annual cost of the subscription service is too much for my little forum.
 
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beerForo said:
The entire reason profile posts are not fully utilized is they get lost (are not bumped) and are in a widget. Merging them into a proper feed would increase discovery and activity.
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I really don't think having a feed of everything (basically this already exists, it just lacks some functionality) would signifcicantly increase the use of profile posts.

Why to I think so?

beerForo said:
A profile post is the closest thing to a post on social media [...] Imagine people blogging from their own page or creating personal threads that don't need to be on the forum but they appear in the feed.
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Many forums, including but not limited to xenforo.com, quite simply are not that kind of "social media".
I'd expect users here most certainly won't start blogging useless nonsense with a halflife < 24h like posts on X, Facebook, etc. just because of a feed.

The main purpose of this forum is support, not chit-chat - profile posts aren't really needed and therefore aren't used much.
 
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imno007 said:
I installed Feeds 1.4.0 Patch Level 4 and have the same problem with it, which is that as soon as I enable the Feeds I get a page not found error when trying to access the feeds. Might be some other issue on my end, so it would be good to get feedback from anyone else using it on XF 2.3.
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Feeds 1.4.0 Patch Lvl 4 worked fine when I tested it.

ArtG said:
Unfortunately, the annual cost of the subscription service is too much for my little forum.
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Yeah, I understand the subscription route they went down, but not viable for small sites with no income. I was quoted $900 (or something) when all I wanted was a couple of add-ons (they did actually give me a free addon, Thread Types Plus, but it wasn't compatible with XF2.3). Not a complaint though, just an observation - it is what it is (god, I hate that phrase :ROFLMAO:). Anyway, don't want to derail this thread so I'll shut up now.
 
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Kirby said:
The main purpose of this forum is support, not chit-chat - profile posts aren't really needed and therefore aren't used much.
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1. I don't run a support forum.
2. Why would a profile post have to be chit chat? If I run a beer forum why can't it be someone posting their homebrew?

That's the whole problem. Profile posts are misunderstood as chit chat.
 
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beerForo said:
1. I don't run a support forum.
2. Why would a profile post have to be chit chat? If I run a beer forum why can't it be someone posting their homebrew?

That's the whole problem. Profile posts are misunderstood as chit chat.
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Also profile posts make sense when a user is following the poster. I suspect including profile posts in the feed/activity area should be under this condition or at least give the option of [ following / all ] users. Or maybe just watch the poster? (like watch threads).
 
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Again I think the discussion is HOW to show the content in our feeds, not WHAT to include in our feeds. In the end is the admin's final decision what to include depending of the use case of the site.

In my, not so good, development opinion, I think the content entities should implement a "feedable" interface so we can tweak it from there as needed.
 
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I said it 5 years ago, I say it now. The moment we post the code, Im going to see a HYS video looool

But yeah Ill see if I can post it somewhere just for those who want to play a bit. We may delete later so use at your own risk if using free version, our supported version is, well, supported :D

Lee said:
I'm toying with feeds already @Dad. in a playground I have set up.

thelifespot.net

The Life Spot

thelifespot.net thelifespot.net

I think this feed based approach is the future of forum software too.
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Cheers, though I think it looks best when our theme is applied as itll do things like remove page jumps or other things that are not consistent on default theme, imo. Even works with decked out full ads haha

1744898870762.webp
 
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