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

[qnkov]

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 I understand that some may find this nostalgic, but it looks incredibly outdated and is not visually appealing.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.

 

[AjayJunkies]

Never, in our experience. Don't paint every forum with the broad "the Internet overwhelmingly collectively leaving forums" brush, as it's simply not true.

Most of our members complain that users on social media are, basically, either the less enlightened who have nothing useful to say, or prone to start arguments just to get others worked up. Just comparing the niches on the forums I'm an admin for, social media groups are dumbed-down versions of the topics our forums discuss, and are also full of argumentative individuals. Reddit only takes those same attitudes and amplifies them; Reddit is also overrun with AI-generated posts (generally rage bait) in some of its most popular subs.

Even on the few forums I participate in, where I'm not on the staff, the same holds true. Memberships are growing, and members often mention they're happy to be there as opposed to the stupidity they see on the greater Internet.

We gain and retain users from social media because of this intelligence, moderation, and common decency we offer in forums. IMHO the greater Internet (especially social media and Reddit) is a mess of anonymous opinions with algorithms pushing content at visitors that will gain them the most advertising dollars. A select number of those who will want something beyond everyday stupidity and rage bait (and being targeted by algorithms and Big Tech) once they've gotten fed up with circular arguments and being subjected to flame wars. We want no part of that crowd, but we'll gladly take those in who want serious discussion without the side dish of rage bait and bull.

I've been in this for decades. The oldest forum I admin (and own) dates back to 1996. The busiest I manage started in 2002, and is growing faster than staff can keep up with it, with tens of millions posts. I've been moderating forums since before the general public even heard of the Internet, and were using dial-up for services like CompuServe, GEnie, etc., long before AOL came along, or even the private "bulletin boards" accessible via dialup, back when 1200 baud was the blazing fast new technology. Even Usenet functioned as a forum of sorts, but its "open" platform allowed anyone to post, including spambots, and it quickly lost its usefulness once that happened.

If forums were as dead as some here are suggesting, XenForo wouldn't even bother existing. They've been around in one form or another since before a few on this board were even born. One might even joke that the forum discussion format is the cockroach of the Internet--nothing seems to kill it, and the number keeps on multiplying.

I'm bowing out of this conversation, as I'm tired of repeating myself.

Carry on.

You are confounding individual exceptions with aggregate experience.

Yes, individual forums can and do thrive. In no way did I intend to impose the same stroke of failure on every forum. But in aggregate? We cannot pretend that every forum is doing better than they were ten years ago. The overwhelming online experience and vast majority of conversations have moved to social engagement platforms. That needs to be recognized.

There's always that one forum owner who waves his hand and says "but me! I'm doing peachy and fine and therefore no one shouldn't ever evolve or do anything different."Well, okay. Don't do anything different. We aren't worried about you. Some of us are looking at the aggregate, and there are some of us who recognize that the online experience is constantly changing.

 

[smallwheels]

The overwhelming online experience and vast majority of conversations have moved to social engagement platforms. That needs to be recognized.

If you want to be social media and like social media and all you are interested in is user numbers and posts per day you will probably always be unhappy als facebook, reddit and alike use techniques you don't have and never will have and have more money to spend on a single feature than you earn with your day job per year.
If you focus on what forums can do better like quality content, real trustful communities and other things like that you will always win. No doubt XF is somewhat oldfashioned and clearly they are in many aspects years behind any modern standards - but if you expect that to change you will realistically always be unhappy as this is not going to happen.

 

[Feline Forums]

So older users don't mean crap to the Internet anymore?

Nice. Really nice. Good way to spew more hatred in these divisive times.

I believe @rdn gave a valid critique by pointing out the clash between the older and younger generation. That's not spewing hatred. On the other hand, your emotional response demonstrates the very hatred you complain about. I don't think anyone is immune to such basic criticism.

I've been working in web forums since 1997. Was with Compuserve several years prior, some of that time as a sysop. Don't tell me what works and what doesn't.

Just because you were successful in prehistoric times doesn't mean you will be successful now. This is especially true on the internet, which is ever changing and adapting. The internet of 1997 is a completely different world than that of 2025. Heck, that was almost a decade before I was born (2006). I'm sure the Greatest Generstion could say the same thing to you about paper letters - they worked, so why upgrade to email?

It's the clueless dolts from social media who can't use a forum. And no forum wants that level of stupidity visiting their community...the ones who can only write in acronyms and end every sentence with "lol" instead of punctuation they learned in effing grade school, and ask questions without doing the most rudimentary of searches.

You shouldn't gatekeep forums from social media users or be hostile to them. In fact, welcoming them into your community would probably offset the decline of forums. As long as social users follow the rules you have set in place, you might be surprised to see how well they contribute. Also, we use acronyms to save time in casual conversation, not because we're stupid.

--

To most people of my age, xenforo simply isn't modern. I don't want to go into depth about this specifically because it's getting close to bedtime. But if we find a middle ground by modernizing aspects of forums while keeping the aesthetic, I think everyone will be happy. And if not, you could choose to not upgrade to XF 3.0. Granted, I don't have much skin in the game. My forum was just a novelty project I made at age 14. But I thought I'd share my nuanced perspective, even if I get down voted to oblivion.

 

[Suzanne O]

@Feline Forums i generally hop on to your forum which is great.
Because i can talk about my cat on there without being trolled.
Yet if i joined a facebook group that was about cats i'd get trolled, suspended from the group and bullied from others who are terrible.
Why do i like forums better? Because i don't get trolled as much.
I post on social media. I am not a fan of social media because of the constant nasty comments i get from trolls.
So maybe if you opened a facebook group or a reddit group and it was on cats you'd cop more crap on there than you would on your great forum.

 

[Mr Lucky]

But if we find a middle ground by modernizing aspects of forums while keeping the aesthetic,

I must have asked this before but what would make a forum modern? And what about those people who do want or like those modernisations?

 

[beerForo]

I must have asked this before but what would make a forum modern? And what about those people who do want or like those modernisations?

For me they are little things that improve the UX. Like when I click to "View more..." threads, the whole page reloads and you have to read from the top again, instead of it dropping down and adding more threads. It would be nice to not have to refresh the DMs page to see a reply if you are involved in a back and forth convo. It would be nice to not have to use the Back button in search, and a bunch of other dated functions (not features) that could be modernized. I am not going to even mention infinite scroll as that is too controversial. But seriously. It's about functions, and the way things operate, and not features, for me.

 

[Alpha1]

Like when I click to "View more..." threads, the whole page reloads and you have to read from the top again, instead of it dropping down and adding more threads.

I cannot get used to this. Its counterintuitive. From a users perspective it seems like the page reloads. While in reality it switches pages and functionality.

 

[beerForo]

It's horrible.

 

[beerForo]

From a users perspective it seems like the page reloads. While in reality it switches pages and functionality.

Yes! It redirects to pagination. And if you have say 40 threads in What's New and you click "View more..." you actually view LESS!

This certainly could be "modernized" and those that do not want modernization would appreciate it I'm sure.

 

[smallwheels]

I must have asked this before but what would make a forum modern?

I would assume this has been discussed somewhere over the last 16 pages of this thread (and apart from that in countless threads on this forum countless times). Did you check?

And what about those people who do want or like those modernisations?

First: What are "those modernisations"? W/o knowing that, how would you be able to discuss this question?

In general they have three possibilities:

• Expect the unrealistic (that XF will in no time chance to a modern social media platform and keep pace with their development). As this is unrealistic as a consequence those will be unhappy and continue to moan.
• Stay realistic and live with what XenForo offers (including various extensions via add ons)
• Stay realistic and switch horses if what XF offers, will offer and is able to offer does not meet your wishes and expectations.

That was easy.

 

[Mr Lucky]

I would assume this has been discussed somewhere over the last 16 pages of this thread (and apart from that in countless threads on this forum countless times). Did you check?

I was asking in response to a specific post by a specific member, so I don’t understand the point in checking other posts in the thread which I’ve already seen, and so are not relevant to my question.

First: What are "those modernisations"? W/o knowing that, how would you be able to discuss this question?

Er, that’s exactly why I asked the question about people who may or may not want the modernisations which were alluded to in post #303.

If you go back and read what I said it should make sense, otherwise I’ll freely admit I was not very good at articulating my queries. If Wong be the first time.

 

[beerForo]

I was asking in response to a specific post by a specific member, so I don’t understand the point in checking other posts in the thread which I’ve already seen, and so are not relevant to my question.

Probably because you started with "I must have asked this before but..." which made it sound like it could be retrieved in this thread somewhere.

 

[Mr Lucky]

Probably because you started with "I must have asked this before but..." which made it sound like it could be retrieved in this thread somewhere.

Not really because I think different people have different ideas, ie I didn't think there’s one definitive answer. I may have asked different people but that isn’t really relevant to me asking again of someone else.

 

[Dad.]

The best defense we have against ai killing humanity is threads like this here. Keep it going

 

[ES Dev Team]

View attachment 328305

link: https://xenforo.com/community/whats-new/

Xenforo 3 needs to rid itself of excessive tabs. The excessive tab problem gets MUCH worse when you install some addons.

This is the responsibility of Xenforo Inc, not an addon developer, because it's core infrastructure than needs to be stable.

..no kidding.. we simplified it down a ton.. nobody uses over half of that functionality.. this took a decent amount of work to improve on, but shouldn't.

 

[mjda]

I have a question about XF3, if any of the XF devs want to expound on this a bit. I do understand that things were delayed, for reasons that aren't really important to my question, but we were initially told that XF3 would just be a style release. We were also told that release was mostly finalized and would release shortly after XF2.3. Clearly that's changed as XF2.4 is looking to be released first, as stated by Chris. Anyways, my question...is XF3 still just going to be a style update, or is there something more planned for that release? Is that why it's been delayed further, or is it simply because there are still other things (to be released in 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, etc) that y'all want to be included before XF3 is released?

Please note I'm not asking for timelines or specific details. I'm just curious as to what happened with the original plan to release XF3 after XF2.3. Considering it was supposedly mostly finalized years ago, and we still haven't even seen a HYS has me curious. Also, sorry if this is a question that's been answered somewhere and I just missed it.

 

[smallwheels]

we were initially told that XF3 would just be a style release. We were also told that release was mostly finalized and would release shortly after XF2.3. Clearly that's changed as XF2.4 is looking to be released first, as stated by Chris. Anyways, my question...is XF3 still just going to be a style update, or is there something more planned for that release? Is that why it's been delayed further, or is it simply because there are still other things (to be released in 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, etc) that y'all want to be included before XF3 is released?

Please note I'm not asking for timelines or specific details. I'm just curious as to what happened with the original plan to release XF3 after XF2.3. Considering it was supposedly mostly finalized years ago, and we still haven't even seen a HYS has me curious. Also, sorry if this is a question that's been answered somewhere and I just missed it.

It has been answered probably countless times, i.e. in the various HYS threads. Back then the statments were:

Sept. 19th 2023:

A first look at XF 2.3​

It's been a long time coming, and for various reasons that we will go into later, it has changed quite a bit from what we had originally intended it to be, but it's finally ready to start showing you what's new. (...)

This is not XenForo 3.0​

This is not the big design overhaul that was originally targeted for 2.3, which included sweeping changes to the template system and introduced a range of new technologies to provide a significant improvement to many areas of XenForo.

When it became clear that the new design would introduce unresolvable backward-compatibility issues, the decision was made to back out the new design and reserve it for a version of XenForo we will call 3.0. Instead, we decided to ship the new functionality that we have built for 2.3 without the new design, so that existing users can gain access to all the new features without worrying about a major maintenance job to get it integrated.

Some of the new systems that we built to support the 3.0 design have been adapted to work with the 2.3 system, and support for dark mode is one of them.

Sept. 13th, 2024:

Coming soon: XenForo 2.4​

We are excited to announce the upcoming release of XenForo 2.4, bringing you exciting new features and improvements!

While XenForo 3.0 continues to be developed behind the scenes, we've decided to harness the team's enthusiasm and momentum to deliver an interim update that will enhance your XenForo experience sooner than you might have expected. This approach allows us to provide you with valuable improvements without waiting for the full style overhaul that 3.0 will bring.

XenForo 2.4 will focus on quality-of-life enhancements for admins, moderators, and users alike. We're dedicated to making these improvements while minimizing backwards compatibility issues, ensuring a smooth upgrade process for all our customers. As we have done with previous releases, we will be looking towards popular suggestions when finalizing the feature set.

While we don't yet have a full feature-set to announce, we are excited to reveal that XenForo 2.4 will feature a new rich-text editor powered by Tiptap. This was originally slated for XenForo 3.0 but it makes sense to get this into your hands sooner rather than later.

So what was intended to be 2.3 became a future 3.0 in autumn 2023 and after 2.3 was released in summer 2024 parts of what was intended to be in 3.0 became 2.4, namely the new editor and a couple of quality of life improvements. No need to discuss the definition of "soon" again.

From what I remember 2.4 and 3.0 have been developed in parallel - however, it probably does not make too much sense to dive into 3.0 before 2.4 has been released as the main focus probably is 2.4 currently and whatever the past or current intentions for 3.0 may be regarding timeline and features may easily change for various reasons as it has been in the past.

 

[duderuud]

3.0 is far away. I'm more curious about 2.4. If it ever comes out at all

 

[mjda]

So what was intended to be 2.3 became a future 3.0 in autumn 2023 and after 2.3 was released in summer 2024 parts of what was intended to be in 3.0 became 2.4, namely the new editor and a couple of quality of life improvements. No need to discuss the definition of "soon" again.

Kier stated this back in July 2023. In the same post he said that the style was already finalized and integration had already started. He then stated that XF3 would release shortly after XF2.3, which would have been the first of their new release model where releases include single major features rather than waiting until development on multiple major features was finished. Granted, the devs admitted that this post was a bit premature and probably shouldn't have been posted, but that still leads me back to my original question...if the style was finalized years ago, what would be left to develop for XF3? I'm just curious if the plans for XF3 have changed to include more than just the style, if they're waiting to release XF3 after other major features (from 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, etc) are released, or if XF3 wasn't actually finalized back in 2023.

3.0 is far away. I'm more curious about 2.4. If it ever comes out at all

There's really no reason to think it won't come out at all. The devs have already shut down all those conspiracy theories and explained, probably in more detail than necessary, the reason for much of the delay.

My post wasn't to try to get timelines or specific details. A question was just brought up last week that had me thinking about the new style (XF3). Remembering the fact that it was originally finalized years ago, and was just going to be the style, made me curious as to why we haven't at least seen a HYS on the style yet.

 

[smallwheels]

if the style was finalized years ago, what would be left to develop for XF3? I'm just curious if the plans for XF3 have changed to include more than just the style, if they're waiting to release XF3 after other major features (from 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, etc) are released, or if XF3 wasn't actually finalized back in 2023.

It obviously wasn't finalized back in 2023, else they would not have written (as quoted above)

XenForo 3.0 continues to be developed behind the scenes

and even more to deliver 2.4 as an interims update with features originally intended for 3.0 - obvously as other parts of 3.0 were not ready yet. As I understood. 2.4 proved to take at least 1,5 years longer than expected/predicted, so possibly 3.0 is still not ready (else they could ditch 2.4 and include everything in 3.0 as initially planned). Also, 3.0 obviously builds on top of technology and features that are delivered with 2.3 and 2.4, so no sense in releasing it earlier. Also, the new editior in 2.4 possibly will have some conseqeuences, so it might be a good or at least valid idea to separate it into 2.4 instead of including it in 3.0. What they said (and this is probably where you got that "3.0 is just a style" from) was that 2.3 had breaking changes and 2.4 will have breaking changes. Both releases will require work from add on developers to stay compatible. However: Once those are done 3.0 won't be an issue as it is basically "just a style update" as the last step in the triple of releases.

Remembering the fact that it was originally finalized years ago, and was just going to be the style, made me curious as to why we haven't at least seen a HYS on the style yet.

Maybe the conception of the style was finished years ago but clearly not the implentation, let alone the necessary fundament within XF. Apart from that over the last three years the world did not stand still, so possibly the style ideas have been developed further in one direction or another.

It would make no sense at all to have a radily developed style update lying around that would be compatible with the existing codebase and could have been released three years ago and just not release it year after year because of not wanting to.