Do I really want to go back to square one?

What are the pro's and cons that you guys have encountered in changing over?
Modifications

CON: Coming from vBulletin 4 myself, almost every modification I have missed is now on Xenforo with the exception of a good Shop addon and Casino. The version of Live Topics on here leaves much to be desired IMO as well. If you switch over, you will be making a sacrifice if you can't find equivalents to your old modifications. How important are your modifications to your community? A couple members stopped posting when I switched over to Xenforo. I think a lot are real disappointed about losing their vBookie Money, Casino and Arcade. I was able to get Sportsbook and XFArcade but the missing Casino and Shop really hurt the site because it was how we mostly spent our credits.

Mobile Options

CON: There is no mobile app for xenforo. You can use a third party app like Tapatalk and Forumrunner though. You can try some Responsive themes by Arty and find xFStop from Russ if you dig hard enough.

No official CMS, Blogging or Album add-ons.

PRO: Xenporta combined with BD Widget is awesome. I like both xenporta and BD widget way more than vBCMS and Wordpress/Forum integration. Not so much because of the layout options etc but due to the thoroughness of integration between almost every modification you install on your xenforo site.

CON: As far as blogs go, vBulletin has Xenforo beat in the blogs area due to the amount of features it has. For extra features, you would probably have to integrate your site with Wordpress if you want the most blogging options. I use Better Blogs because it gives my members vanity urls. That's something vBulletin Blogs or XI Blogs do not have. Main reason I say Blogs is a con is because coming from vBulletin Blogs, I miss trackbacks, pingbacks, the ability to click on a thread post and turn it into a blog post with one click and who visited your blog.

PRO: XFR User Albums + XFR User Albums More. It's easier and more intuitive than vBAlbums or even something sophisticated like Photopost. You can comment and 'Like' albums and photos. There are Public, Private, Members Only, People You Follow Only, Selected Members and Global Member Albums. You can display random or latest photos in the forum home, sidebar and there's even a xenporta block available for it as well.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

PRO: You don't need any snake oil forum modifications like vbSEO to increase your rank. Xenforo SEO is right out the box. It's amazing. Use modifications like 8thos Google Authorship, AzuCloud, My Feedburner Guide and interestingly enough Showcase to increase your site's SEO.

Speed and Intuitiveness

PRO: A good amount of my forum members have never joined a forum before. Explaining vBulletin to them was a pain. With Xenforo, I don't have to do much but slightly guide them in the right direction because Xenforo is intuitive out the box with a short learning curve. The alerts system and member account menus are very easy to get around to. It's like the best features from vBulletin and Facbook were brought here and married together in perfect harmony. My forum is super fast now. The only thing missing was a bachelor party.

Styling

PRO: I love it. It's awesome. All of the forum themes on my forum use the default forum template with slight adjustments in color/wallpaper etc. This way whenever I upgrade the site there will be less template edits I need to do. Because default xenforo looks so great, that's an added plus which is why I don't have to change it much.
 
Is there an equivalent to vBulletin's "who's online"?

Is there a dark style version of the TinyMCE editor?

You'll get better more specific support faster if you take these questions over to the general support forum, and make a thread for each with suitable title. These are not "discussion and feedback" points.

http://xenforo.com/community/forums/xenforo-questions-and-support.25/
http://xenforo.com/community/forums/styling-and-customization-questions.47/

This can be useful for choosing where to go - quick navig with forum list. Also for rightclicking to get URL to offer someone else!
quick menu.webp
 
Thanks for the tip on "XFR User Albums + XFR User Albums More" DRE. That enables me to scratch off another thing on the list that prevents me from going live.

Just need to add some pizaz to the style I selected as a base style. I may have to send money someones way as I hate to style. It's like chalk on a chalkboard for me.

Need an arcade solution. Though XF arcade get's the basic job done I have over 3000 games and I'm not going to import them one by one. lol I may just put my vBulletin forum way down in the dungeon, turn off everything but the arcade and let existing users use that until there is another solution or I code my own. Otherwise they will kill me when I switch. :D

I still need to decide on the front page system. I don't have a lot of time for news gathering so I may just go with Barbole's mod. That probably is all I need.vBulletin CMS always left me wondering what to do. Some people are news hounds and some aren't. I am not.

I'm loving Post ratings mod. Excellent work there. Already have all the icons I want set up.

I need to find or code a sitemap generator that auto submits.

I need to figure out why my test import randomly gave a few old members some other members avatars.

I need to figure out an import strategy before I do the actual import to go live. Can I import forums and usergroups first and setup all the permissions and then bring in users and posts? I'll have to look at the importer again.

Anyway, so much work to do and so little time. But I am having fun with forums again and I am not mad at the developer. :D
 
Thanks for the tip on "XFR User Albums + XFR User Albums More" DRE. That enables me to scratch off another thing on the list that prevents me from going live.

Just need to add some pizaz to the style I selected as a base style. I may have to send money someones way as I hate to style. It's like chalk on a chalkboard for me.

Need an arcade solution. Though XF arcade get's the basic job done I have over 3000 games and I'm not going to import them one by one. lol I may just put my vBulletin forum way down in the dungeon, turn off everything but the arcade and let existing users use that until there is another solution or I code my own. Otherwise they will kill me when I switch. :D

I still need to decide on the front page system. I don't have a lot of time for news gathering so I may just go with Barbole's mod. That probably is all I need.vBulletin CMS always left me wondering what to do. Some people are news hounds and some aren't. I am not.

I'm loving Post ratings mod. Excellent work there. Already have all the icons I want set up.

I need to find or code a sitemap generator that auto submits.

I need to figure out why my test import randomly gave a few old members some other members avatars.

I need to figure out an import strategy before I do the actual import to go live. Can I import forums and usergroups first and setup all the permissions and then bring in users and posts? I'll have to look at the importer again.

Anyway, so much work to do and so little time. But I am having fun with forums again and I am not mad at the developer. :D

I thought I had all the post rating icons I would need but trust me there's always 1 more more, maybe 2... okay <insert infinity here > number of post rating icons you'll want to add. :D I will have an update out soon as I found a spritesheet I've designed with more post ratings I'll be adding which you might be interested in CM. :) Agreeing with the post rating add-on, Luke did an excellent job with it.
 
I thought I had all the post rating icons I would need but trust me there's always 1 more more, maybe 2... okay <insert infinity here > number of post rating icons you'll want to add. :D I will have an update out soon as I found a spritesheet I've designed with more post ratings I'll be adding which you might be interested in CM. :) Agreeing with the post rating add-on, Luke did an excellent job with it.

one more you say? hmmm.....

:D

I went with a horizontal layout for the sprite so I could add a wider image for one.
 
one more you say? hmmm.....

:D

I went with a horizontal layout for the sprite so I could add a wider image for one.

If I have anything to do with it you'll be saying "adding one more wouldn't hurt" :D lol

Yeah I made sure I created a big spritesheet for some designs I have planned for post ratings. I find it's always good practice to prepare for future designs items you want to include.
 
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