Been using Zetaboards + Invisionfree for 6-7 years. Need a change.

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Knox1218

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Truly unsure as to whether or not to go with IPB or Xenforo. I was reading this thread about how he wanted to figure out which to change to from vBulletin, but honestly his needs are completely different from mine. I'm just a teenage college student who runs a forum for fun, and I have some extra money. It's not my profession or my life and it doesn't pay my bills like it does for the guy in the link.

Not entirely sure which to choose. Any advice could be cool.
 
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When choosing I think the most important thing to consider is what do you need and what solution can best meet your needs. You're obviously asking two biased sources--the IPB forums will tell you to go with IPB, we'll tell you to go with XenForo.

Look at what modifications you're using on your board (if any). Can you find equivalents for Xenforo? For IPB?

Try out the XF demo and the IPB demo. Which admin cp do you like best? Which interface do you think your users will like best? Depending on your community, you could always ask their input. At the end of the day, they're both excellent solutions. Personally? I prefer Xenforo, both for the interface and excellent support boards. But it's a decision we can't make for you.
 
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Your best bet is to try the Demo available here and at the other site and then once you've weighed up which product better suits your needs you'll be able to make a decision based upon your own set of criteria and needs.

For me xenforo is easier to work with
Styling is far superior
Updating styles takes a couple of minutes (even on major upgrades) 1.2 for example took me 5 minutes to update my style.

It depends what your board requires and what tools you are going to need to flesh out your community.
 
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I think you'll have more fun with XenForo. Out of the box it may not be as robust as IPB but I feel it's more forward-looking in terms of the codebase and what's been implemented as of late. Things like message drafts, the ability to drag and drop images to the editor, etc. The community here is great, you can probably find add-ons for anything IPB has that XF is missing.

I'd only go IPB these days for some of the non-forum functionality it offers. IPB has an entire suite of products ranging from eCommerce, to CMS and a gallery. You also get guaranteed support unlike with similar mods that may be available for XF. That's only really important if money is on the line though. You're not running your site as a business so can't see that being a factor for you.
 
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Well I'm really only looking for a forum which is why I'm leaning more towards Xenforo. One issue I had is with the styles. I perused through about 20 of them and couldn't find anything I'd want to use. They all look pretty boring and have the same rounded category / menu / border but with different colors essentially. Are there any innovative styles out there? Is it easy to make a Xenforo style as opposed to an IPB style or are they about the same?
 
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Knox1218 said:
Well I'm really only looking for a forum which is why I'm leaning more towards Xenforo. One issue I had is with the styles. I perused through about 20 of them and couldn't find anything I'd want to use. They all look pretty boring and have the same rounded category / menu / border but with different colors essentially. Are there any innovative styles out there? Is it easy to make a Xenforo style as opposed to an IPB style or are they about the same?
Click to expand...

It's much easier both to create styles and to update and maintain them when updates arrive.

If you are wanting to do differently shaped headers that is also easy and can be done via css and the TM. Below is different from your average shape I did and although not as good as other styles or innovative it shows you what can be done with an hour or so work.

Screenshot_1.webp
Screenshot_4.webp
 
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Knox1218 said:
Truly unsure as to whether or not to go with IPB or Xenforo. I was reading this thread about how he wanted to figure out which to change to from vBulletin, but honestly his needs are completely different from mine. I'm just a teenage college student who runs a forum for fun, and I have some extra money. It's not my profession or my life and it doesn't pay my bills like it does for the guy in the link.

Not entirely sure which to choose. Any advice could be cool.
Click to expand...
Was in the same boat basically. Don't need a CMS, don't need a lot of bloat, just wanted a forum to run for fun (it's not a money maker proposition for me). Let's just say I have 3 xenForo licenses now. :p
 
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Shelley said:
It's much easier both to create styles and to update and maintain them when updates arrive.

If you are wanting to do differently shaped headers that is also easy and can be done via css and the TM. Below is different from your average shape I did and although not as good as other styles or innovative it shows you what can be done with an hour or so work.

View attachment 54312
View attachment 54316
Click to expand...

Okay well I haven't fully checked out the style creator but that still looks pretty basic. Do you think something like this or this or this or this. These are some of my favorite skins from the software I'm leaving.
 
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Hey could I get an answer on my question about the styles, if something innovative and interesting is possible through the css / html like the images I provided of some of my favorite skins for my old software?

Also, curious, how does the licensing work? Do I have to renew every year? If it's a 1 time deal as it appears to be I am going to buying xenforo. Is there a custom styling guide somewhere to learn the elements of the CSS and things like that? Could be very useful to me.

Also I really liked the trophy mod used here. Is that a modification or is it built in? :)
 
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v2 most definitely will (major releases like that usually have changes too substantial to merge) and all the updates will cause your style to be "out of date" but not difficult to update with the merging system. Basically, you'll need to add in bug fixes / new features as updates come out.

Good example was the responsive design, many of the styles needed an update to work with it.
 
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King Kovifor said:
v2 most definitely will (major releases like that usually have changes too substantial to merge) and all the updates will cause your style to be "out of date" but not difficult to update with the merging system. Basically, you'll need to add in bug fixes / new features as updates come out.

Good example was the responsive design, many of the styles needed an update to work with it.
Click to expand...

How long until V2 is released. Logically I wouldn't want to design something and have it go obsolete right away.
 
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Knox1218 said:
Hey could I get an answer on my question about the styles, if something innovative and interesting is possible through the css / html like the images I provided of some of my favorite skins for my old software?
Click to expand...
One of the reasons I picked xF is that it relies much more on CSS3 features than images. For example simple things such as rounded corners are pure CSS, not images. The buttons are simple css buttons, not images. All in all, if you are more inclined to tweak through CSS and HTML than images, xF is the better choice. Never dealt with IPB myself, TBH xF has been the only commercial solution I considered for the reasons above.
 
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