Are there enough add-on developers for XF now?

[Renegade]

I am not really a prospect as I already own a license since a long time. My only gripe with XF has been the lack of custom add-on developers.

So what I want to know is whether the scene has improved now or is it still the same as before with no takers for even paid add-on requests?

I desperately need upgrades to one of my add-ons which I got done outside XF.com

 

[Floris]

If people are only whining about add-ons and features missing.
Rather than publishing them as requests, nobody is going to make them; And are only ignoring the whiners.

 

[jonsidneyb]

I am more than happy to pay for add-on's. I would feel guilty taking them for free.

It has already been mentioned that XenForo is still brand spanking new in the scheme of things.

Rome, was not built in a day.

There is something I want, some will say I don't need it but it is something I want.

I think I will likely not have more than 5 add-ons that people will see, the rest will be to make running the forum a little easier. I might actually disable more things than add-on.

 

[RobParker]

It does feel like a combination of the uncertainty over the court case and the imminent release of 1.1 has reduced the momentum somewhat. There seem to be lots of VB developers waiting to jump on board but who haven't quite made it yet.

If it weren't for a couple of very prolific add-on developers (Jaxel, Ragtek, etc) then the situation would be far worse.

 

[Renegade]

Unless I'm mistaken, I read it that Renegade is more than willing to hire someone for add-ons, but is finding a lack of developers willing to take paid work?

Thank you for being the only one who understood the question.

I'm not having a go at you, or your question but I know if I need an add-on I know I'll get exactly what i need by hiring somebody.

edit: i personally feel that there needs to be more commercial add-ons so that developers are enticed to create, build upon, expand and further update add-ons. I know for a fact, for me if i need an add-on and it's good quality I'll pay for it.

Thanks for the long post. I wanted and still want a paid add-on. And I agree to your 'edit'.

If you really need something done, like Shelley mentioned, you can definitely find coders-for-hire around here. If you're not finding something being done, I'd guess it's because no one knows you want it

There also seems to be a general idea that if you request it, it will be made for free which is simply not true, particularly when it comes to add-ons or other modifications that are unique to a particular site and would never be widely-used. There's even some cases where paid projects are posted, but at a lower price than a programmer would deem worth it, so it never gets comleted.

But to answer the question of there being "enough" XenForo developers? I think there's plenty.

Well sir, please tell me how to contact those plenty developers. I was open to price negotiation and I very much posted an add-on request a few months back. That did not fetch me a single reply. In fact so far the only helpful reply I got was from ragtek who was himself busy with his personal add-ons. What should be the format of my request so that developers take interest and at least show intent. I am sure you would agree that the price negotiation is the third step. Second being understanding the requirement.

My add-on is so specific for my site that I don't think anyone else will need it. So I don't expect anyone to code it for free. Though it did occur to me to kidnap Kier for a day but travelling to England would be costlier than gromming an XF developer. My only hope is that the add-on would be even cheaper.

So how is my question so unreasonable?

PS: Here is my thread in the add-on request section -> http://xenforo.com/community/thread...d-on-how-much-will-it-cost.15185/#post-199289

 

[Shelley]

Thank you for being the only one who understood the question.

Thanks for the long post. I wanted and still want a paid add-on. And I agree to your 'edit'.

Well sir, please tell me how to contact those plenty developers. I was open to price negotiation and I very much posted an add-on request a few months back. That did not fetch me a single reply. In fact so far the only helpful reply I got was from ragtek who was himself busy with his personal add-ons. What should be the format of my request so that developers take interest and at least show intent. I am sure you would agree that the price negotiation is the third step. Second being understanding the requirement.

My add-on is so specific for my site that I don't think anyone else will need it. So I don't expect anyone to code it for free. Though it did occur to me to kidnap Kier for a day but travelling to England would be costlier than gromming an XF developer. My only hope is that the add-on would be even cheaper.

So how is my question so unreasonable?

PS: Here is my thread in the add-on request section -> http://xenforo.com/community/thread...d-on-how-much-will-it-cost.15185/#post-199289

People Understood you clearly. I'm not saying you fall into the following category but if your one of these people that's expecting "everything" for a unique add-on to be coded and your offering next to "nothing" compared to the amount of work the project entails then any developer, coding for any software will turn their nose up at people wanting to get premium add-ons on the cheap. You never really stated what your offering? I'm suspecting that if you put a nice offer then somebody will entertain your request. Again, I'm not saying your one of those that fall into the "I want everything, but not paying the earth for it" group. If you are, then you may find yourself waiting a very long time.

And you're welcome, maybe it's not the response you wanted to hear but this doesn't say people didn't understand the questions, which imo was more of an assumption than an actual question. *shrugs*

 

[Renegade]

I'm suspecting that if you put a nice offer then somebody will entertain your request.

How do I decide I am not paying too much or too little. Isn't that best left for the developer to quote? For the developer to quote he must understand the requirement. The entire requirement cannot be specified in the thread for a bigger add-on.

 

[Shelley]

How do I decide I am not paying too much or too little. Isn't that best left for the developer to quote? For the developer to quote he must understand the requirement. The entire requirement cannot be specified in the thread for a bigger add-on.

First off, i understand you want and need an add-on so I'm not having a dig at you.

If I'm wanting an add-on, I'll mockup all the features, drawings etc I want and then research not just here but on other sites/forums what kind of work this entails, just so i know what the average costs will be. You'll get some kind of figure in your head compared to the work and feature list your wanting and then a coder can judge whether they want to take it on. Make you request post more appealing? Outline in bullets the features you want so at a glance a developer can read what your needing without reading long winded paragraphs. More often than not, requests may go without a reply because the person requesting doesn't actually know what they want and not giving enough information. Obviously as stated in my previous post, pricing or a ball part figure by conducting research will help both you and give your request a higher chance of being entertained.

Research is key here.

I knew when i requested an add-on i outline all features, mockup what i wanted and set a price i was willing to pay, we haggled for a little while and 48 hours the add-on was completed.

 

[ragtek]

I don't see why it should stop developers from developing anything. Most often if there are any incompatibilities, it wouldn't be some massive ordeal to get it to be compatible with XF 1.1.
I think it's a bit ridiculous that developers stop what they're doing and are waiting for the next version to come out.

Quick reply:

Because i can make an better plan for the needed/required add-ons.


For example "Thread Prefixes": I need something similar and i waited to see how they implement it to see if it's how i need it.
Now we have the video and some comments from kier & mike and now i know it's not how i need it=> so i know that i need still to implement my own "system"
Criteria system & profile fields => seems to be exactly how i need them.
So why spend own time with implementing something similar till xf 1.1 comes out.
If the project / add-on can wait, isn't it better to wait for xf 1.1 to continue the work and use the core features and use the time for an other add-on?

 

[Renegade]

First off, i understand you want and need an add-on so I'm not having a dig at you.

I am not taking it that way. I anyway wanted to know how to approach this. Well this time I already have a working add-on which needs modification so showing what it entails should not be a problem.

 

[RobParker]

Quick reply:

Because i can make an better plan for the needed/required add-ons.

For example "Thread Prefixes": I need something similar and i waited to see how they implement it to see if it's how i need it.
Now we have the video and some comments from kier & mike and now i know it's not how i need it=> so i know that i need still to implement my own "system"
Criteria system & profile fields => seems to be exactly how i need them.
So why spend own time with implementing something similar till xf 1.1 comes out.
If the project / add-on can wait, isn't it better to wait for xf 1.1 to continue the work and use the core features and use the time for an other add-on?

So you're saying a roadmap would allow you to know what features the developement community need to contribute as they won't be in the core?

 

[FloV]

No, it's not just about roadmap.

I guess what ragtek meant to say that he we had to know how things are getting implemented. For example Mike or Kier stated that we can use the new profile fields for individual settings. So why create an addon now where you need a couple of user settings, instead of waiting a couple of days / weeks / month for XF 1.1.

 

[jmurrayhead]

I can totally understand ragtek's point of view. From a developer's viewpoint, it's extremely helpful to know if a certain feature will be implemented, how it will be implemented, and how far off it will be so that they can decide whether or not it would be worth creating the addon in the first place OR if they can piggyback off of existing functionality to enhance it.

 

[ragtek]

The "how they will be implemented" is just a nice extra and i'm thankful that they replied to some of my threads

What i mean is the roadmap
Since may, 20 we know that feature x,y,z will be included in 1.1 and that the release is/was planed for summer.
With the help of this thread, i was able to make an better plan for add-on development & my migrating plans.
E.g. =>

My statistics add-on can be dropped, because it will not be necessary any more and the next big "missing features" before i can migrate

• Thread prefixes, definable at a per-forum and a per-user group basis
• Ability for members to ignore other members
• Custom user profile fields

are getting part of core, so i can spend time with other missing add-ons which will be probably part of xf 1.2 but until then i'll have mine....
And even some of the core features aren't as i need them, i didn't waste time with anything, because i've completed several other necessary add-ons.
Also there will be no pissed add-on customers, which wanted a add-on (in my case the feeder) and before i was able to finish it, it was included in the core=> my wasted time and no money for this...

All in all, thx for the roadmap and i hope that we will see a new one some time after the 1.1 release

My only suggestion to mike & kier for the next major release is a shorter roadmap without so many new features (and an shorter dev & release time ), but i'm getting offtopic

 

[Astrum]

Just out of curiosity, why is it that developers prefer to code the add-ons they want to code and then offer them for free instead of taking up requests for paid add-ons? I mean why not make some dough while you are at it.

I can only speak for myself, but I believe at least some of what I say is representative of some developers.

I do software engineering for a living, specifically contract work. There I have to deal with customer specifications, requests, third-party developers, managers, etc... Now I hold no ill-will towards any of these people, but it can become quite frustrating as a developer to deal with time tables, budgetary concerns, design changes, and other events which, for lack of a better way to put it, ruins my perfectly designed and implemented code (or what seems to me to be perfect ). So when I want to work on a personal project I want it to be interesting, challenging, or something that benefits me directly. So taking paid requests ends up being just like more work to me. This is exacerbated by the fact that there are so many other things that I would like to do. It's not that I don't want to get paid for something, I do love being able to afford new toys, it's just that I want it to be on my terms which are generally very different than anybody else.

For instance I am working on a rather large project right now which has some XenForo components to it. This will only be of interest to a very small minority here, but it is interesting and extremely challenging for me personally, which is why I am undertaking it. It will be free, possibly with a paid premium version with some extra functionality, but for the most part I'm doing this because I'm passionate about it, not because I want money.

 

[mauzao9]

Well Xenforo still new or not, the question is that is not enough MODs yet.
When Xenforo gets enough for me more FLEXIBLE surely the people who aren't choosing xenforo yet because it don't gots some things they need that (most of them) as already requested but only some realeased... When there are enough MODs people will come to xenforo more and more xD

But for now we still must wait, and wait, and wait for what we need for make our foruns 100% like we want it.

 

[Kainzo]

are most custom mods going to break on the upgrade to 1.1 ?

 

[Forsaken]

are most custom mods going to break on the upgrade to 1.1 ?

Unlikely, as there have been a few changes in the past that required modification, and Kier has always issued a warning before hand.

 

[Paul B]

There is a change with the attachment handler for 1.1 so any add-ons utilising it will need to be updated: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/attachment-handler-changes.19346/

Other than that, there are some changed phrases and templates, so the majority of add-ons should only need small updates at most (depending on whether they use hooks or not).
For any new hooks then add-on developers will want to utilise those, replace existing template edits.

Although the product is still relatively new and changing rapidly, it has been designed and coded in such a way to minimise the impact of upgrades.

 

[Paul]

Well Xenforo still new or not, the question is that is not enough MODs yet.
When Xenforo gets enough for me more FLEXIBLE surely the people who aren't choosing xenforo yet because it don't gots some things they need that (most of them) as already requested but only some realeased... When there are enough MODs people will come to xenforo more and more xD

But for now we still must wait, and wait, and wait for what we need for make our foruns 100% like we want it.

It's catch 22 - People holding off as some of the most common mods not currently available - and coders holding off because there isnt the "audience" and custom work pays better...

As for "are there enough coders" - erm - i know the mod i was looking for is fairly niche, however even after putting up £££ there's been no interest. So i would guess the few that there are are busy on other projects!!

 

[Onimua]

Quick reply:

Because i can make an better plan for the needed/required add-ons.

For example "Thread Prefixes": I need something similar and i waited to see how they implement it to see if it's how i need it.
Now we have the video and some comments from kier & mike and now i know it's not how i need it=> so i know that i need still to implement my own "system"
Criteria system & profile fields => seems to be exactly how i need them.
So why spend own time with implementing something similar till xf 1.1 comes out.
If the project / add-on can wait, isn't it better to wait for xf 1.1 to continue the work and use the core features and use the time for an other add-on?

If your add-on requires a feature that was announced as a key component, I can see waiting for XF 1.1. My point is that I'm seeing a lot more people just not update their add-ons because they're simply waiting for XF 1.1 for no reason other than the fact it's the newest version coming up. Next thing you know, people are claiming they can't develop add-ons because they don't know what's going to be in 1.2, so they don't feel like wasting time if something becomes part of the core. That's already happened before, shortly after 1.0 was released. Some developers were hesitant to create anything without knowing what was in 1.1.

Yes, it sucks that while working on an add-on you find a feature you were working on becomes part of the core. But guess what? That's one less aspect of your add-on you have to maintain heavily in the future, or perhaps you can continue developing your version because implementation/usage varies enough that it makes it worthwhile. Even better, your implementation of a feature influences Kier and Mike to rethink/adjust what they were planning to add it to the core. The short-lived bookmark add-on was a good example of that.

Otherwise, I don't see a reason to say "Looks like a new version of XenForo is coming out in the future that's still several weeks/months away, so I'll stop working on this add-on now and just wait for it to come out."