Evaluating xenforo for a photography community

[jens]

Hey,

I'm currently deciding between IPB and xenforo as a new bulletin board solution for a photographers community.

I haven't followed the bulletin board-market for 5 or 6 years and I'm kind of amused to see everything is still as in early 2000. Sadly no revolution there. For example, @mentions are only plugins and xen seems to be the first platform to adopt facebook-like notifications. sort of.

Rant aside, currently we're running phpBB with heavy modifications. I was trying to search for similar xenforo plugins, but wasn't successful, that's why I'm posting here.

We need:

• Login / Session API: the frontpage is based on Zend Framework, but we want to use the user login and session of the forum. Is there a clean API to achieve this? It's available for IPB and seems to be perfectly implemented there.
• User application process: we are a closed community. Photographers have to apply with a portfolio and a small group of people decides whether they are approved as a member. This can be achieved with a plugin in IPB
• Attachment previews in thread overview: you could call it an awkward form of a gallery
• Responsive design

Apart from the price, the missing notifications are the only thing that keep me from purchasing IPB. So, can this be achieved with xenforo?
Thanks in advance
Jens

 

[Arty]

Login / Session API:

Try this: http://xenforo.com/community/resources/kotomi-generic-script-bridge.122/

Responsive design

http://xenforo.com/community/resources/responsive-design.1189/

 

[Slavik]

Application form addons:
http://xenforo.com/community/resources/liquidpro-simple-forms.289/
http://xenforo.com/community/resources/staff-application.1285/

Attachent previews? By default (clicky)

 

[jens]

Thanks for your answers.

The template wrapper that you suggested as an alternative for a single-sign-on API is no option sadly.

And the image-preview is meant to be displaying in the thread list of a forum view, not the thread view. Sorry for my inaccurate description.


So, any other ideas? Without APIs I'm going IPB.

Is there a roadmap for future features and release dates?


Thanks!