WhatChaMissin
Active member
Since Xenforo 1.0 will not be released with a calendar, I am wondering if the calendar will be released as a paid addon or will it be released as a free upgrade such as XF 1.5 or 2.0?
Calendar: Paid or Free Addon?
- Thread starter WhatChaMissin
- Start date
Forsaken
Well-known member
Its more that it was nothing more then a basic calendar, and most of us needed more then it offered.
Carlos
Well-known member
It was useless because nobody uses it. Unless your community has a lot of events each month.
In VB, you can turn off calendar, but you can't remove it from breadcrumb. The only way to do that is to modify a template. Which I did NOT like doing.
Forsaken
Well-known member
Game Site -> track conventions -> RSVP whos going -> meet up.
Did that with a Battle.net site, many of my members went to Blizzcon several years in a row, and they all ended up hanging out after conventions.
Matters on your use of the calendar, clearly you had no use, but many others have had a use for it, even if it was a borked implementation (No offense to Mike or Kier), as they never did more then basic work on it.
For a site that offers products, they can use it for timelines and dates for releases, so that people will not consistently ask the same questions over and over regarding current standing of the project, or the date of such and such feature.
Theres many different uses for a calendar, you just need to put together a way to utilize it, and focus on getting members to use it.
Carlos
Well-known member
Hm. Interesting. I see what you mean, but a calendar is supposed to have more activity each month ...Am I making sense?
I understand that gaming sites have GDC, E3, Games Convention, TGS, and the various gaming press events. But unless you encourage tournaments every month, a social gathering every month - the calendar's useless. It eats up server space everytime you leave it "running" while you're doing nothing with it. The bots will come in and chew parts of the server by using the calendar section.
I understand that gaming sites have GDC, E3, Games Convention, TGS, and the various gaming press events. But unless you encourage tournaments every month, a social gathering every month - the calendar's useless. It eats up server space everytime you leave it "running" while you're doing nothing with it. The bots will come in and chew parts of the server by using the calendar section.
Forsaken
Well-known member
There are various game conventions throughout the year, there are regional tournaments for different game, there are city based tournaments held by certain chains of stores, game release dates, product release information, various events held by the game company, news released by the game company etcetc.
And the calendar barely takes any resources
. Unless you're on a very low end shared server, which is packed with people, you're unlikely to notice performance lag.
And the calendar barely takes any resources
. Unless you're on a very low end shared server, which is packed with people, you're unlikely to notice performance lag.
Dereck
Active member
Hi Forsaken
I really must be contending for dumbass of the week here but what else can you use a calendar for?
You can post events, meets, holidays, birthdays, things happening on a certain date and anything else important you need a reminder about or to inform the forum about, you can also add pictures and links to the the vBulletin calendar, it diplays in a month view or a day view and posts the events of the day on the forum home page all in all I reckon a pretty comprehensive calendar, so I don't have a problem with it.
Regards
Dereck
Forsaken
Well-known member
Search and a RSVP system (Both of which were requested repeatedly, and had to have mods created for them that didn't work perfectly well).
3rd AnGle
Well-known member
Calender as Paid add-on, that's BADDDDDDDDDD... I don't know if i am going to need one but it'd annoy me if xenForo asks for money. I don't think xenForo will make that mistake esp when vB is offering it as a part of their product. xenForo has the advantage now not just because of the vB fracas but also coz of its superior UI and other technical aspects. But this might change if they start asking us to pay for every add-ons (available freely with competitors) in the future.
This may be little off-topic but i am a bit skeptical to buy multiple licenses now as i don't really know what their plans are regarding features (not considered core product by many here) like Gallery, Blogs etc.. Are they going to charge us for the same?
This may be little off-topic but i am a bit skeptical to buy multiple licenses now as i don't really know what their plans are regarding features (not considered core product by many here) like Gallery, Blogs etc.. Are they going to charge us for the same?
I don't mind paying a bit for a Calender, Gallery - big add-ons. For cms I'd rather integrate Wordpress and from discussions here there will clearly be one. For larger add-ons something like £20 - £25 is perfectly fair.
As for the VB Calender yes it had the capacity to hold the various kinds of events. But there were no N/A - not applicable - options so I often had to use options I didn't need.
The whole interface was too complicated and I couldn't enter lots and lots of different events - too time consuming dioing them all separately without beiong able to clone them. The duplication on creating a forum is brilliant and the Calender needs that too - clone an event then edit it.
I also wanted hierarchical Calenders. One Main one that set stuff for everyone.
Then several usergroup ones - but the usergroup one ADDED to the main one.
So if you're in usergroup A your view of the Calender displays the Main events PLUS your usergroup A events PLUS you yourself can add your own personal events.
Notifications would be great. Set an event, last item before Save is Y.N notification and to whom (all, usergroups).
As for the VB Calender yes it had the capacity to hold the various kinds of events. But there were no N/A - not applicable - options so I often had to use options I didn't need.
The whole interface was too complicated and I couldn't enter lots and lots of different events - too time consuming dioing them all separately without beiong able to clone them. The duplication on creating a forum is brilliant and the Calender needs that too - clone an event then edit it.
I also wanted hierarchical Calenders. One Main one that set stuff for everyone.
Then several usergroup ones - but the usergroup one ADDED to the main one.
So if you're in usergroup A your view of the Calender displays the Main events PLUS your usergroup A events PLUS you yourself can add your own personal events.
Notifications would be great. Set an event, last item before Save is Y.N notification and to whom (all, usergroups).
AlexandrosD
Active member
I will have to style it, if I'm about to create styles for you.
Someone could even create a paid addon for xF, not me. I don't like things that'll make my job harder. I don't like the vBulletin calendar. If I was about to create an addon for you guys or suggest a somehow innovative calendar, I'd suggest this : you are not allowed to copy this my work, you can be inspired if you wish.
AlexandrosD
Active member
I choose not to answer you. But I'll let my aura show its love for your last line.
Forsaken
Well-known member
Calender as Paid add-on, that's BADDDDDDDDDD... I don't know if i am going to need one but it'd annoy me if xenForo asks for money. I don't think xenForo will make that mistake esp when vB is offering it as a part of their product. xenForo has the advantage now not just because of the vB fracas but also coz of its superior UI and other technical aspects. But this might change if they start asking us to pay for every add-ons (available freely with competitors) in the future.
This may be little off-topic but i am a bit skeptical to buy multiple licenses now as i don't really know what their plans are regarding features (not considered core product by many here) like Gallery, Blogs etc.. Are they going to charge us for the same?
Whether it is paid, or a free add-on, it should probably not be a core feature, because most sites do not use the feature, or they have absolutely no use for it. The argument that vBulletin has it so it should be provided for free/as a core feature is just plain nonsensical; the vBulletin calendar was a feature just thrown there so there was a calendar. No effort was ever put into developing, it was never made to work for what people needed it for, and its plain useless for what its used for, and generally removed or ignored (Again, no offense to Mike or Kier).
A main reason I've chosen to go with XenForo is because it does -not- have all the features the competitors have, and lacks much of the bloat; IPB feels slow to me, vB3 has multiple kitchen sinks
, and vB4 has little stability for my needs (If at all).If you're happy with the competitor (vB), then you're probably better off with them if you want all the features included in your core, when it is almost useless in the way they've been designed and implemented. You could go to IPB, but they charge for add-ons, and that also feels bloated to me. Either way you're either losing functionality, or paying for features.
Luckily for me I don't need you to create styles for me; I can do so myself, or have a designer who shares the say design aesthetics as me do one, and that would be to my specifications
.
Trekkan
Well-known member
I run a gaming site and could really use a calendar. The problem I currently have is that the default vB calendar just isn't anywhere near useful enough and I've had to use a mod that was basically hacked into the forum to make it work.
Because it wasn't designed from the ground up to work correctly with different member permissions and all of that, it's just not effective. So generally speaking, we don't use it.
That doesn't mean it WOULDN'T get used though, we can't compare our experiences with something that didn't fit our needs and say "A calendar is useless to us.". We have many events that our members schedule and setup, they are done through forum posts and are less than effective. People want to look at a calendar and say "What's going on today, or tomorow? Or next Saturday when I can actually play some games?". They don't have the time, or desire to sift through posts looking for the one event someone setup that fits their timeframe.
Essentially, as mentioned, an events system with RSVP and all of that is what is needed more than the basic calendar offered in other forum software right now. Whether it's an add-on or core, I don't care. But just because you might not use it, doesn't mean it should be an add-on. In fact the whole "add-on" or "core" argument is usually based simply on each persons personal needs more than anything.
Because it wasn't designed from the ground up to work correctly with different member permissions and all of that, it's just not effective. So generally speaking, we don't use it.
That doesn't mean it WOULDN'T get used though, we can't compare our experiences with something that didn't fit our needs and say "A calendar is useless to us.". We have many events that our members schedule and setup, they are done through forum posts and are less than effective. People want to look at a calendar and say "What's going on today, or tomorow? Or next Saturday when I can actually play some games?". They don't have the time, or desire to sift through posts looking for the one event someone setup that fits their timeframe.
Essentially, as mentioned, an events system with RSVP and all of that is what is needed more than the basic calendar offered in other forum software right now. Whether it's an add-on or core, I don't care. But just because you might not use it, doesn't mean it should be an add-on. In fact the whole "add-on" or "core" argument is usually based simply on each persons personal needs more than anything.
ArnyVee
Well-known member
I'm using Google Calendar to update some TV Show listings and then embedding it in a page on our site for now: http://www.teeveetown.com/forum/index.php?pages/whatsontonight/
Ranger375
Well-known member
Well, like the forum, it is superior to the others in how it was designed. The calendar should incorporate the same attitude by being more than just a calendar. xF allows more social networking in my opinion, so why not create the ability to allow members to create events on the calendar, allowing rsvp'ing for select or all members, etc. It'll only bring communities closer together.
Calendar's have so much potential with XenForo... without a doubt.
Alerts system needs to be fully integrated into it with regard to events that a user has liked or RSVP'd to.
When does my paid subscription run out? It can be added to a calendar and I can be alerted for it!
When is X's birthday? I can like it on the calendar and be notified of it (or if I'm following them and it's on the calendar it can notify me automatically).
You see my point
Alerts system needs to be fully integrated into it with regard to events that a user has liked or RSVP'd to.
When does my paid subscription run out? It can be added to a calendar and I can be alerted for it!
When is X's birthday? I can like it on the calendar and be notified of it (or if I'm following them and it's on the calendar it can notify me automatically).
You see my point
Jerry
Well-known member
Now that is something I'd like to do, though have it authenticated some how (so only 1 usergroup can see it) ....... maybe obfuscate the calendar URL, or some kind of token, I'll have to think about that one.
ArnyVee
Well-known member
Jerry, you can set the 'page' permissions in the admincp and then only whichever usergroups you have given permission to can view it.
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