Apparently XF Is Like Android And Hacked Up To Pieces

[Paul B]

I would give up devices before joining the apple cult.

 

[djbaxter]

Really? I still miss my Bold at times, the best of the three Berries I carried for work before we switched to Android. Not that I dislike the Samsung Galaxy S phones I've been packing for the last five years or so, but touch screens and I have never got on very well compared to the BB thumbboards.

The Blackberry keyboard was one of the things I hated most. That and the fact that in order to reboot the device you had to take the back off and remove the battery. Low tech all the way, baby!

What it did have was its own secure network, which is why governments and industry loved it.

I find it curious that you would move from the most secure device to the least secure but people have all sorts of reasons for their personal choices and it's nice to have options.

 

[Paul B]

 

[Kevin]

What it did have was its own secure network, which is why governments and industry loved it.

Entities that hosted their own BESs loved it.

 

[Mendalla]

I find it curious that you would move from the most secure device to the least secure but people have all sorts of reasons for their personal choices and it's nice to have options.

We use an MDM that works with Samsung Knox security to lock things down. Forces encryption, lets us control apps and push apps, manages mail flow similar to BES, provides a VPN for data connectivity to our corporate systems. Android can be secured, just takes more work. After all, the last generation of Blackberry phones made by TCL ran a Blackberry shell over Android.

 

[Paul B]

Risky post. Might delete later.

Not risky at all and no need to delete it.

We welcome feedback, even if it is critical, and don't censor our members' opinions.

In much the same way we don't denigrate other software developers.

We're better than that.

 

[Mendalla]

Entities that hosted their own BESs loved it.

We actually piggybacked on our parent company's BES, but yeah.

 

[Mouth]

It's well over a year old, so I hope that this is still true.

Shutting down discussion, with a promise to improve, but delivering nothing over 12 months later. That's a whimsical hope I would think.
This issue, above all, is what constrains xF. It amuses me when they disparage Apple in the Push Notification regard, but IMHO, are equal in the negligence and customer demand sense, for not providing better 3rd party integration/vendor safety awareness for customers.

 

[Chris D]

Shutting down discussion, with a promise to improve, but delivering nothing over 12 months later.

Plans were afoot at the time, they still are, but we had to make way for other things - not least XF 2.2.

 

[Lawrence]

So do I! Almost as much as I used to hate Blackberry.

and Blackberry is making a comeback in 2021: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/blackberry-5g-1.5692088

Now if only Amiga would...

Well back to hacking (IPS Lindy would be so proud)

 

[Mouth]

Plans were afoot at the time, they still are

And will they still be another 12 months from now? You can understand the skepticism right?

 

[Chris D]

I perhaps understand the skepticism but then you're perhaps calling me a liar, but I wouldn't understand what would give you the impression that I would be dishonest.

Frankly it may still be the case 12 months from now. I'm not going to put a date on it. In fact, it's possible that the plans may change entirely and we don't do what I originally had in mind. Maybe we'd do something else entirely, or nothing at all.

But what I will say is we've heard the feedback (which I should add is actually from a very small vocal minority) and we've thought about an approach that could work, and some work was done towards that. Having more developers, as we now do, may make it easier to implement.

But ultimately we still have to prioritise the product itself, and we have a bunch of other things in the pipeline, so we'll do what we can. If it becomes a bigger problem, it will become a bigger priority.

 

[Alpha1]

I don't think there is any form of dishonesty at play. I don't think XF really grasps the scope of the problem. The XF software is great. And there are also awesome addons, developers and other great people here. Yet, people do flee to other platforms. They flee from the massive headache and impossible situation that is the logical result of XF not having the situation under control at all. I may be wrong but there seems to be significant ignorance on this topic. I do not mean any offense by saying this because I know the XF team is great, hard working and has the best intentions. It just seems that the problem is gravely underestimated. My advise to anyone is to not hire anyone on XF, except for a small group of good people who always have a full agenda for the next 6 months. The horde of people who should ever be allowed to advertise their services and products here, is too large. Especially the 0 post club that only does business by conversation.

To expand on that, here is a shocking quote from IPS staff which I think the XF staff should think about:

I can tell you that since IPS started conducting code audits, there have absolutely been cases where developers were not only delisted, but forcefully removed due to serious breaches. So yes, less developers.

Those same devs are actively selling in other ecosystems. You can keep them, and their variety, and their competition; we don't want them back.

Out of all the things you listed, you skipped over the two factors that matter the most to serious community owners: trust and quality. That only comes from having a curated, managed marketplace. And if that means the lowest subset of files and developers get removed, thats a trade off any Invision client is willing to make.

Source:

4.5: Buy and install Marketplace apps from the Admin CP

As of Invision Community 4.5, you can buy and install Marketplace apps, themes and plugins right from your own ACP! https://invisioncommunity.com/news/product-updates/45-one-more-thing-r1204/

www.theadminzone.com

 

[Mouth]

I perhaps understand the skepticism but then you're perhaps calling me a liar, but I wouldn't understand what would give you the impression that I would be dishonest.

No, not a liar or dishonest. I have no doubt you had, and have, plans. My skepticism is on whether any of those plans will become outcomes within another 12 months. The 3 years ago locked thread (@Alpha1 posted on previous page) demonstrates this is not a new issue or customer complaint, and there's many other threads discussing, or being impacted by, poor 3rd party add-on's and developers with minimal, if any, reliable methods for customers to gauge quality or responsibility. To say it's a very small minority is, IMHO, denial at the impact this causes

 

[Dnyan]

Small Question on my Mind, what IPS Lindy gonna do when
Developer wont update the code or somehow code creates problem due to conflict with other addon.

Is IPS going to release updates and bug fixes in cases where original dev goes off.
If such addon makes serious damages, does IPS gonna take responsibility and settle the claim?

If not then to just make more money addons are going to be charged to get it reviewed and certified by IPS.

I do not like to see advertisement in my ACP, i prefer to watch resources, their discussions, reviews etc. before installing even its offered for free.

after reading this thread visited the IPS community and gone through all post in that thread, it was very funny.

I do not like IPS because its Forum Looks like a some kids forum trying to show something fancy on forum list (my personal opinion and off course others may have different opinion base on there tests).

I still say, look at my signature

 

[RobParker]

The owner of a competing company being snarky isn't unexpected, the main topic being discussed in that thread by contrast is a bit surprising and is annoying a few of their own customers.

TLDR for anybody else, IPS is changing how their "marketplace" works to prevent customers from downloading marketplace 3rd-party add-ons directly, instead you have to associate your install to a license (yes, even your localhost test installs) and then install the 3rd-party add-ons via the Marketplace within the IPS ACP. A 3rd-party vendor disappear on you and you want to update the code yourself? Too bad. You normally do test installs on a localhost that might not even be connected to the net? Too bad. Your normally have your own guys do a code review before installing on your production server? Too bad. If any vendors choose to allow direct purchases from them, instead of going through the IPS "marketplace", then you're good to go but IPS is really wanting vendors to go through them.

In the long run IPS really is moving themselves towards the closed paywall garden model of Apple along with their own app/marketplace store. It's just too bad I can't give away my IPS licenses even if I wanted to.

Competing?

 

[Slavik]

Competing?

Could there be code review, sure why not, but is it that big of an issue, not really. I think something along the lines of optional accreditation would be a better option where the devs can opt into and pay for XF dev time to review the code and have an accredited addon.

 

[RobinHood]

There have been more than a few events which gave me the impression that they read the XF suggestion forums even more than the XF team themselves.

And even if they have, inherently there's nothing wrong with that, and can be a good thing. If I were an IPS customer I'd feel their failing me if they didn't do this.

If there's a competing product, service or company, you should always be looking to see what they're doing well that you're not. See if there's any features they have that you don't that gives them an edge or provide a better user experience.

Then decide if that's a feature your users would benefit from, or something the market demands that you missed out on, and if so, try to execute and implement and improve upon it to stay in the game. You don't pretend they don't exist.

That's not to say you can't still innovate on your own. For example, I love the new media gallery mirroring feature of XF. I think it's a great idea, quite innovative, new and something I've not seen before, and it helps solves a long standing media problem with classic forum based platforms with threads that are media heavy. However XF still has an inferior overall gallery experience IMO. The upgrade to XF2 introduced a worse lightbox than XF1, and it took 2 years to sort it. This is crazy, especially in a time when mobile growth has been exploding.

Now we're at a point where a new, much more capable lightbox is about to be rolled out, with potential for great UX, and a really cool new media mirroring feature, but the core experience is still poor compared to the competition. Whether that's IPS, FB, Twitter, Insta or an XF1 3rd party plugin. It seems the lightbox itself is restricted to load just from the gallery index. You can't even load it from the individual media page or react or do other basic stuff from within the lightbox, stuff that you've been able to to do for years on other platforms and stuff that makes the gallery experience much better on those platforms as a result.

Sometimes I wish XF would look more at the competition to see what works, and integrate some of those basics aspects better into their own product, either as is, or in a more highly polished or innovative manner. Just ignoring the way it works well elsewhere though, makes the [gallery in this example] experience worse when you compare them.

It's always balancing act between innovating, keeping up with the competition and maintaining your core features. But in the end the core features need to always need to be solid and feel tightly integrated. And in that respect I do feel XF excels on the pure forum front (How IPS can still get this so wrong with such a large suite baffles me). But there is still so much room for growth in terms of core features such as media integration/usability, add on install and management integration, and better cross platform usability (native app or otherwise) compared to the competition out there in 2020.

 

[Chris D]

It seems the lightbox itself is restricted to load just from the gallery index.

Any index. Media index, category index, album index.

You can't even load it from the individual media page

We have, for several years, already got a way of navigating from media item to media item with the built-in film strip. The lightbox adds very little benefit when you're already viewing the full media.

or react or do other basic stuff from within the lightbox

You can react through the lightbox, so that's an unfounded comment.

or do other basic stuff from within the lightbox

Such as? You can do almost if not everything.The comments within the lightbox are going to change slightly which should mostly complete the experience.

 

[Dad.]

and pay for XF dev time to review the code and have an accredited addon

We'd support this, or any other plan. It might even be nice to get some constructive feedback and make addons better.