Expanded sections

[ibaker]

Before I make the final decision of jumping ship back to vBulletin for the largest of my sites, one very important factor will force the decision one way or another and I am posting to ask help if there is any way possible to achieve what I want to achieve with XF.

With vb I used vbAdvanced CMPS and vbAdvanced Dynamics (11 instances of it) as major components of my site. I used CMPS pages as section pages and such things as Dynamics instances along with subject matter forums etc hanging off them.

For example if I take a main menu item called "News". A user clicks the News menu item and a CMPS page opens displaying:

• Title and first 500 words of 8 latest news items plus read more links (derived from a News forum)
• 4 latest video news items (derived from a video news addon)
• A menu block that contains linked category headings of Articles (articles are derived from a Dynamics instance)
• A side column that contains blocks like "On This Day" (derived from a Dynamics instance of all things that happened on different days throughout the year)
• A featured news item with image, first 500 characters and read more
• and other things

The whole page represents a home page of everything News on my site with the sub menu of the main News menu item containing links to:

• A News Reader (an addon like the News Reader I had developed and available in the Resource section here)
• Powerful instances of Dynamics addon which are like forum sites in their own right (see here) covering areas like On This Day, a complete Article System etc
• A forum just on all the News Items derived from RSS feeds
• etc

All of the above is JUST one main menu item called "News". Forums is another main menu item which is the core discussion forums, there is a main menu item called Pilot Tools (my site is aviation) where again a Pilot Tools home page (CMPS) is displayed and like the News section, contains all kinds of things that entice the user to go to any one of the other Pilot Tools sections like pages for Weather, Flight Planner, Calculators (all sub menu items as well).

Another one would be say as an example "Shopping". Again a CMPS home page that display today's bargain from the Shop on my site (derived from another software product on my site by CS-Cart), a random Product Review inc image and 500 words (derived randomly from a Dynamics instance that contains many different categories pf product reviews), a display list of say 4 items for sale from users that have paid a premium to have their classified displayed and a user can click on one and it is displayed in the Classifieds Dynamics instance, and again much more all on the "Shopping" section.

The same can be said with a Photo Gallery section that has a home page showing random photos from the gallery, latest posts in the Photography forum etc...also the Video section etc etc etc.

Basically it makes my site a forum site with a range of specific interest topics as sites within my site. I can do all of this extremely easy with vBulletin and addons.

So I compare this to XF...it has great forums, it has pages, it has addons however even with all the basic ingredients the same as vb, I can't seem to find easy ways to achieve anything.

XenPorta <=> CMPS
XF Pages <=> CMPS
None of the above work without bugs or being a whiz kid developer...add to this the problems that XF development is going through and not knowing anything that may or may not, possibly or who knows, today, tomorrow, next year or EVER on anything to do with XF.

So can anyone help me out with suggestions, ideas or solutions to my needs with XF...this is so needed so I can make a decision once and for all...thanks for your help and understanding

 

[Jake Bunce]

If you are more concerned with non-forum features then I can see why you might prefer vB. vB's development seems to be focusing on non-forum features and "whole site" solutions. XenForo is focusing more on the forum component.

XenPorta has content blocks for many things, including many other addons. But you have to manually install those blocks. The install files are in:

library/EWRporta/XML_Addons



You also remind of this:

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/nodes-as-tabs.26687/page-8#post-395030

Nodes As Tabs lets you use link-forums to pull non-node pages into a node tab which can be useful for reorganizing your content in the navbar.

 

[ibaker]

Thanks Jake, as always...XenPorta is really only for a single site home page set up...the ability to have several instances of it as section pages was removed/not worked since an update to it some time ago and to my knowledge no one has been able to provide a way to do it and again to my knowledge, no solution has been suggested by its creator.

I had high hopes that XenPorta would be able to provide a vbAdvanced CMPS type of solution.

 

[RobinHood]

Check out the latest version of the widget framework Ian, it now allows you to insert a variety of widgets not only into a sidebar, but directly into the XF hooks. It might help to achieve some of what you need.

 

[ibaker]

Thanks RH, I already use the Widget Framework and yes it is brilliant but again not what I can use to 100% achieve what I am after

 

[Digital Doctor]

Thanks RH, I already use the Widget Framework and yes it is brilliant but again not what I can use to 100% achieve what I am after

what about widget portal ?

 

[ibaker]

what about widget portal ?

Hey DD, are you talking about the Poor Man's Portal:
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/poor-mans-portal.31659/
If so, is that a blank template that you can use the <widget> call to display a widget and you can have many instances of the template???

 

[Digital Doctor]

Nope. Simbolo's new one ... release is coming in the next few days.
Here it is: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/widgetportal.35124/