Hello all who migrated from Vbulletin3/4, What is it that you are missing at Xenforo from Vbulletin ? I mean what is your favorite feature/function from Vbulletin that you are missing at Xenforo currently. Thanks
From vB, I miss slow development and concerns being ignored for years at a time (j/k). As far as core functionality, nothing. The XF forum software is superior by far, in my opinion. I do wish there were more add-ons (especially a Downloads mod, and a distant second, a full featured Gallery). Also, an integrated CMS (though, there are some mods out there) is desired. But, my sense is that given the "foundation" of the core product being so good and efficient, before long, these will materialize. If I understand correctly, the Resource Manager will fill the role of Downloads mod.
There was a useful admin feature when creating a forum - I could copy an existing one with all its settings, then tweak it.
A few of my users still reminisce about their editable/custom user profile page functions. vbulletin ended up breaking it anyway between 'updates'. ...everything else I can think of personally was an add-on and not part of the vb core.
That was an amazing feature yes. I was trying to remember the other one and that was iut. It had a cute little mini page diagram which updated as you changed each css element so you could see the exact effect. It was VERY popular. Some other admins did not like it. It didn't suit artists' or designers' boards where an integrated look and high level design skill to market the core designers was paramount. But on less tightly focused boards it was a big wow factor.
Nexialys made cool add-ons for vBulletin 3.x that I wish were added to the core when I still used that software, but the only one I really miss since going to xenForo is his "Newscast," which I renamed on my forum listing page as "Sample Topics." As hinted, the add-on allowed me to choose any number of topics from any forum (forum ID can be added for inclusion) to display the latest topics from. What was so notable about this add-on though was that you could also choose the amount of characters from the opening post of these latest topics to display below the topic title. The topic title was click-able and there was other useful information such as time stamps, consideration of permissions (i.e., a member without proper permission cannot see certain topics), on/off option for BBCode formatting, etc. I posted a request for, and more details (including another screen shot) about, this add-on here: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/nexias-newscast-existing-vb3-add-on.8651/ The closest I found for such an add-on was RagTek's "Latest Posts Header Block" (http://ragtek.org/xenforo/threads/latest-posts-header-block.232/#post-828), but there are several problems. Besides the add-on not displaying characters from the opening post and lacking several of the other features mentioned above, the author of that add-on disappeared so even if I wanted to get the add-on I cannot. That is, I may apply for premium membership to download this paid add-on, but it does not matter because the author needs to be at his forum to approve my premium membership.
For our group, not much really. I came from vb4, so most of the additions that were added, we did not use. CMS was in place, but most members just jumped right to the forum list. Blogs were a waste of space, all the built in 3rd party add on crap was a waste of space. For us, we wanted a light weight fast forum. Xenforo gives us that. We have more people online now than we had with VB4 and we are still using HALF the resources we were using with VB, on top of the fact that XF is way faster. Really, the only thing that I would like to see is some server monitoring tools. With VB you could add a memcache/APC monitor and a server load monitor. It would be nice to have those in (or a option for) them in the ACP. It would be nice to just get a quick glance of what is happening without having to log into the server to get them. Russ
Sounds like a great addon. Can't Xenporta be tweaked for exactly that purpose ? Just Style it up different ? Other idea: Use Wordpress or some other Page software .... that accepts RSS feeds ... and set that software to read the forums you want.
I'm planning on migrating this Saturday (1/7/12). Here are a few things I've already noticed and I'm guessing that after going live the members will find more: No (true) multi-quote - probably the biggest thing I'll get flak on. The XF editor is...ummm...lacking (Try using it with Chrome and you'll understand). IMO the editor is one of the most important features of a forum as it's the one thing most everyone uses. The latest release of the vB editor is (surprisingly) pretty well done/stable, plus the auto-save feature is very nice. Shockingly the vBCMS. We used it as a basic How-To article storage system and it worked pretty well. It wasn't without its issues though. No function to truly re-size attachments. With vB all our attachments were resized to 150kb or less. Change the default image setting from thumbnail to full size/inline (the average member won't figure out that they can click the inline button to accomplish this). We have ride reports with many images and most of those images have a description. It's pretty annoying having to keep on clicking back and forth. No way to attach an image via URL. We discourage hotlinking. No attachment manger. Granted the vB one wasn't the greatest, but it still worked. No Authorize.net payment processor. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone has Paypal or prefers to use Paypal. With vB we have both Paypal and Authorize.net setup and most use the Authorize.net option. If the social features are enabled it's considerably slower, however without them it's pretty much on par with our (heavily tweaked) vB4. XF uses less resources to accomplish it though. Still debating on if I want to have them enabled. No mass smiley importer. Manually adding 100+ smilies wasn't fun. Also a few other quirks in the admin cp, but it's somewhat manageable.
If you look on my main site, I have RSS feeds set up two different ways. One as a 'Recent News' block that Digital Doctor mentioned and the other as a 'Recent Threads 2' block. You will see it on the bottom left. Only the 'Recent News' has a snippet. You can control the amount of words for the sample. There's also a Recent News 2 block as well that you could have beside it if you want to feed two different forums but I haven't set that up because I prefer the Recent Threads 2 block.
Most of my members miss this. They had put music playlists and interesting backgrounds on their profile page. I used to like checking out their pages to see what new stuff they did to it. I would seriously buy this modification as a paid add-on.
100% agreed there. While the reply system is nice, we really, really need a multi-quote system There's a hack for that ... Hint, see my sig! Attachment storage is a big thing for me, rather being able to choose where to store attachments (database/filesystem) and place them in the proper place in the filesystem as necessary. What I mean by that is being able to create a custom path for them, outside of WWW (where all attachments should be stored). I don't mind the editor, in fact, honestly, I kind of like it, opposed to the vBulletin editor. Being able to actually use things like ctrl-b, etc is a good thing.
Son of a *****, I spent some time looking throughout the mods section for an importer, but the only one I found was one that required me to install some stuff in Windows. Oh well, I had nothing better to do for a hour. Huh? Ctrl - B (and I, U, etc) all work in the vB editor.
The Digital Doctor, The 8th Legion: Yeah, I was thinking about making use of those add-ons. I even thought of how neat it would be if I could simply copy that "Latest News" block from the xPortal add-on (http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xportal.8710/) and paste it on my Forums page above the forum listing. Yeah, the problem is that for that "Sample Topics" block I showed a screen shot of above, I do not want such a block on a separate page, but on the Forums page above the forum listing. I am unaware if I can simply copy the block I want from the portal or other add-on and stick it on the Forums page.
