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

qnkov

qnkov

New member
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 I understand that some may find this nostalgic, but it looks incredibly outdated and is not visually appealing.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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Does this user outline what people wants as a "more modern forum" ?
D

XF 2 Thread 'Custom Plugin Request for XenForo: X (Twitter)-Style Social Wall'

I'm looking for a developer who can build a custom plugin for XenForo that adds a social media-style wall (like X/Twitter). The goal is to create a modern, interactive social feed directly within the XenForo ecosystem.


Key Requirements:​


  1. Social Wall Interface (Main Feed)
    • The wall should mimic X/Twitter: each post displayed like a social media update (text, images, video, with like/comment/share buttons).
    • Users must be able to post directly from the wall, as if posting to a timeline.
    • Interactions should be visible: like counters, replies...
  • Like
 
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That would be an instant "I'm moving on" if I encountered that type of trainwreck on any forum. I would be ashamed if mine ever looked as chaotic as that full description reads! Our forum members want to participate in threads. Not wade through a sea of bull💩.

I think the only ones complaining about "onoz, forum not modern!" are the admins who like to play with things. The rest of us just quietly run the same forums we have for 20+ years without dumbing down to the mentality of typical social media users.

YMMV.
 
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Wildcat Media said:
Not wade through a sea of bull💩.
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It would be your own forum's content, and obviously you could restrict the feed to the type of content you want.

The main issue with these social media feeds is they will never have the best part about a social media feed: they give you what you want to see, without searching for it.

Xenforo does NOT target it's available information to the users that would want it because it doesn't track that type of information.

Social media makes content that you want to see easy to find. Xenforo, even when I take the time to search for information I know is on Xenforo.com ... it is hard to actually get to that information.

Demo: click on Resources, click search, type Xenporta.

1756493352391.webp

The first hit is a turkish translation.
ouch.
 
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Mr Lucky said:
Well, the thread is about being more modern though.
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Lee said:
Being better engaged is making steps to be more modern though...?
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It’s clear that XenForo’s design can be updated to something more “modern”—no one really doubts that. But I think what people are actually asking for when they say “modern” is better interaction and easier access to forum content from a single place.

Personally, I don’t call that “modern”; I call it accessible. That’s why I’ve spent a lot of time improving this aspect on my own forum. So why is there such a strong push for a social media-style wall? I believe it’s because most people are now familiar with how social media works, and those walls genuinely make content easier to access and engage with.
 
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Another issue is that most theme developers don’t go too deep into redesigning XenForo’s default layout. They usually focus on the homepage, navigation menu, and sidebar—but beyond that, many sections are left untouched. In my opinion, this is because redesigning those deeper areas requires a lot more effort and can easily be affected by third-party add-ons, making it a risky and time-consuming task.

Take the “What’s New” page, for example. It’s just a basic list of recent content. Couldn’t the XenForo developers have designed something more engaging or visually appealing here? It feels like a missed opportunity to improve user experience.

1756498020372.webp
 
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alfaNova said:
But I think what people are actually asking for when they say “modern” is better interaction
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I took the OP to mean manga and anime.

From the first post:

qnkov said:
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.
Click to expand...

Nothing about interaction.
 
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DragonByte Tech said:
I fail to see how requiring images to do gradients and using low-resolution images to create pill-shaped buttons, or abusing tables to orient content (e.g. vBulletin 3.0) is in any way, shape or form comparable to the current XenForo theme.
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I always loved the default style the vBulletin 3 series came with. So much so, that I never felt the need to change anything about it. If memory serves me right, it was designed by @Kier. I think for that time, it was a very solid, strong looking style.

Obviously the current XenForo default style is a day and night difference, in a good way. There was a time (years ago) where I also thought the Invision Powerboard default theme was quite appealing, probably more so than Xenforo's one. However, now that I checked Invision's community, I am unpleasantly surprised. They seem to have a different default style now and it's no good. In fact, it makes me appreciate XenForo's default theme even more 🙏.

XF's default style makes both reading and posting content a really pleasurable experience. I think it's designed really well, it's light, balanced (both in colour choices and use of graphical elements) and put's the focus on the content, which is always key. It will be a joy to upgrade my antique vBulletin 3.8.11 board to Xenforo... soon.
 
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While I do want to try and get users to come back to forums more that have strayed to facebook and other social media, I hope that "modern" changes don't lose what forums are all about -- information and intelligent discussion. Somehow I hope the "appeal" of modern social can be added to get members spending more time on forums again without losing the good parts of forum - discipline in threads, ability to find things, organization and hierarchy. With facebook, I death-scroll like everyone, but you can never find something again, and it's a huge waste of time reading a jumble of peoples thoughts. Somehow we need to add some "modern appeal" without losing the best of what forums offer.
 
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Digital Doctor said:
Forums are information wastelands.
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Only if they lack proper moderation. Apart from that: Many forums are not intended to be information treasuries but places to chat. It obviously depends from the character of the forum.
Digital Doctor said:
Even reddit has better information density.
Reddit threads get BETTER over time.
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I do have my doubts, based on my experience with reddit.
Digital Doctor said:
Xenforo chit chat threads are great for 1 maybe 2 pages.

This is page 13.
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If you - like here - have a thread that doubles or triples an existing topic, is placed in the wrong sub forum in the first place, there is no news or new information to share and still people post to the thread and then go wildly off topic then this is the outcome. You have been participating in that, so you should not complain about the outcome.
 
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smallwheels said:
Only if they lack proper moderation.
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Data has structure.
Xenforo does not even have Thread structure.
Xenforo's content structure is Unthreaded threads, or what I like to call chit-chat.

In a Xenforo discussion, YOU ARE forced to read all the posts.

This thread is a great example of a topic that shouldn't be a line - it needs to branch - as the topic itself is broad.

the big issue is xenforo discussion worsens over time - ESPECIALLY - when it comes to new discussion joiners - they don't (and shouldn't) read 13 walls of text (pages). Who are "new discussion joiners" ? Those are the rare google hits you get, that leave because the information density is so bad they feel they don't have time to read 13 pages of crap. Reddit discussion is threaded and they easily are able to skim over the major points.

If Xenforo can't use upvotes to bring the useful posts to the people who want to read them, then Xenforo admins need to be able to do it manually.

What could help this thread ?
Well ? New discussion joiners should be presented with the important points first - SORTED by votes.

https://xenforo.com/community/threa...-expect-modern-forum.229662/?order=vote_score
- but as opposed to seeing just the "best posts", they need to see the posts that responded to that excellent post (aka, the rest of the threaded thread).
 
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1759931871108.webp

Not to mention, when I want sort by votes, why is it forgotten ?
Makes zero sense.

EVERY GOOGLE hit needs to be SORT by VOTES, especially longer threads.

Xenforo's default discussion should be: Threaded threads, Sort by Votes.

That would help alot. And the "First page" needs to be the replies to the original question that were most highly voted (or maybe that forum sponsors paid a bit to get better ranking :p)

even youtube comments have one level of threadding.
 
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Digital Doctor said:
View attachment 328229

Not to mention, when I want sort by votes, why is it forgotten ?
Makes zero sense.

EVERY GOOGLE hit needs to be SORT by VOTES, especially longer threads.

Xenforo's default discussion should be: Threaded threads, Sort by Votes.

That would help alot. And the "First page" needs to be the replies to the original question that were most highly voted (or maybe that forum sponsors paid a bit to get better ranking :p)

even youtube comments have one level of threadding.
Click to expand...
* in your opinion.
 
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