Lack of interest App Based Mod Install

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Anthony Parsons

Well-known member
Thinking about how apps are simply so painless nowadays, user friendly to simply find and click to install... then one thing that is still old school thinking with Xenforo, IMHO, is the ways modifications are installed into the system.

Both platforms already exist, being the xenforo.com website, and then the installed software at the users end.

Why not change the ACP and XF site, so that mods are uploaded in an app basis, which my understanding is simply a self install bundle... some simple XML installation instructions in one file telling the app to install. The user already has their forum URL, etc, entered, so it would install obviously based on the users already entered details.

How nice would it be, to simply go into your ACP, view an install page that talks with the xenforo.com site, providing a quick, clickable, list of all apps (mods) available for the version installed, click a link and it downloads from xenforo to the user server and installs itself!

Fantasy or possibility?

Everything about Xenforo is innovative, except modifications, which mimic decade old, and longer, thinking. The new world is app installation... click and go, ease of use... everything XF is, except when it comes to mod installation and control of mods, here at XF. Yes... I am aware you are already in development of cleaning up and enhancing a mod repository here.

Again, fantasy or possibility for the future of XF?
 
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Would xenforo benefit from an "Apps" store ?
Oct 31, 2010
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xenforo-com-add-ons-resources-system.7433/

For the better part of the last 2 years, it has been clear that an APPS Store Model is an increasingly effective way to distribute software. Everyone is copying Apple's APP store model. Everyone.

The goal of Xenforo 1.x was clearly to make a great forum package. That was clearly accomplished.
I think to have an "Apple" type of APPS store ... you have to build the core knowing you are going to distribute Apps like that. So if Xenforo (or any forum / internet software) is going to have an APP based model ... it would require being "all in" on the idea - especially if you want to do it well.

Before some "forum app dreamland" arrives, I think allowing addon makers to deliver paid Addons through xenforo.com would help ALOT ! KAM have already said that the upcoming Resources System will not allow for paid Addons on launch. I think that hinders Addon development. I don't think there are any difficult technical problems in distributing Paid Addons via xenforo.com.

Let's see what comes of the Resources System.
 
If we're emulating app/addon installs, Wordpress' upgrade and addon system is dead simple, easy, and fast. And making a tweak is *really* easy as well.

Any thoughts?

That could be a great incentive to having an active license. You gain access to an in-acp panel with addons published to some sort of central xenforo marketplace. It could feature single-click installing and uninstalling. Just require log-in credentials like when you access the download area to download a copy of xenforo.
 
Only issues are compatibility and add-on integrity.

If I install an app from xf.com and it corrupts my database who's at fault? Me, the writer of the app, or XF for telling me that the app is ok to install?

It is part of the reason that Apple verifies apps before being allowed in to the marketplace. They have testing routines to ensure nothing to unsavory can happen to your phone, i.e. delete all your contacts. Additionally apps on the iPhone are partially sandboxed to limit the amount of damage that an add-on can do. XF add-ons by nature are allowed complete access to the entire database.

Who's to say that an add-on doesn't have a drop table command buried in it?
 
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