Free addons accessibility

[Robust]

This could be improved with a Single Sign On solution but also this can/will bring many problems with it again.

I don't see any issues with an XF SSO solution. But I also don't see it happening.

It would make logging into sites easier, but if you use a password manager, it'd only really save you a few clicks and speed up registration. It'd provide some neat features though (like checking if a user is licensed without a license key, which I don't ask for myself, slows down the flow).

But for the effort, the gains are probably not worth it. In all honesty, time spent on developer sites will probably be minimal especially if better tools within XF are made to do automatic updating (with foreign developer sites), support and bug reporting (i.e. all the reasons you go on a developer site). I think a hyperlink to a page that doesn't require login for support & bug reporting suffices.

For automatic updating: some kind of XF-defined standard for developer sites to implement would be very useful. Something that can poll for version changes and support automatic updating. This would encourage forum owners to stay updated much more, without the hassle of going to dev sites.

Minimising time on dev sites via means like this to make it a better UX for customers, while not creating inconveniences for the developer, is probably the best way to solve the issue presented in the OP imo.

 

[Robust]

Why can't each add-on have a "general discussion thread", a separate "bug reports thread / or ticketing system", and a separate "suggestions thread". If it works for the XenForo software itself quite well, seems like taking a working solution and applying to add-ons also would be beneficial to everyone.

Doesn't work. If you handled support you'd see clearly why. Each issue presented by a user needs to be in a separate thread (aka tickets). Otherwise it's a PITA to manage and refer back to information relating to the same issue. A single "help" thread is NOT designed for 1-1 support with customers. Nothing short of a good ticketing system is viable for efficient customer support in my experience.

 

[bzcomputers]

Doesn't work. If you handled support you'd see clearly why. Each issue presented by a user needs to be in a separate thread (aka tickets). Otherwise it's a PITA to manage and refer back to information relating to the same issue. A single "help" thread is NOT designed for 1-1 support with customers. Nothing short of a good ticketing system is viable for efficient customer support in my experience.

I did mention ticketing system. I also find the solution implemented for the main XenForo software here should also be adequate for almost any add-on and certainly a better solution than what is currently available for add-on developers.

 

[AnzahTools]

I think a hyperlink to a page that doesn't require login for support & bug reporting suffices.

That invites every bot directly.

This would encourage forum owners to stay updated much more

All you have to do is subscribe the add-on on XF, I don't know any developer who doesn't publish his add-ons on XF and publish the updates there.

 

[Robust]

I did mention ticketing system. I also find the solution implemented for the main XenForo software here should also be adequate for almost any add-on and certainly a better solution than what is currently available for add-on developers.

The solution implemented for XenForo is a ticketing system available at https://xenforo.com/customers/support. The forums are generally for community support. But even then, they have a dozen forum categories within which each issue has its own thread. aka organised. XenForo cannot provide the same solution for add-on developers. Them making a support system within XF is likely not to have as many features as our own. I wouldn't want to use it, personally.

As I said, my support system allows, amongst other things, for license validation, push notifications to all my devices for each ticket and reply to ticket individually, and a private avenue to exchange information. It also forces all required information to be provided before the ticket (half of the time, otherwise, required information is not provided). It would be a fair amount of work from XF to try to replicate all that functionality into here for XenForo developers, when they can easily just use their own software, or sign up for Zendesk or something. Not worth the time.

 

[Robust]

That invites every bot directly.

I use that, I get very small spam requests. The ones I do get are immediately marked as spam by Zendesk. I think in the few years I've used that solution, at most I've had one or two spam requests I had to delete manually.

All you have to do is subscribe the add-on on XF, I don't know any developer who doesn't publish his add-ons on XF and publish the updates there.

It will provide update notifications. For free resources discussed in the OP, and paid resources, the add-on files aren't hosted here so you have to put in the effort to download and upload an update, which is time consuming. Multiply that for each add-on by different developers on your board, with frequent updates, and you've got a massive time wastage on your hands.

 

[DragonByte Tech]

I just want to first say that my post above you were quoting was specifically in reference to to the topic at hand of free add-ons and non-commercial developers.

That's fine, but that doesn't really change how your post came off, if I'm honest.

Why can't each add-on have a "general discussion thread", a separate "bug reports thread / or ticketing system", and a separate "suggestions thread". If it works for the XenForo software itself quite well, seems like taking a working solution and applying to add-ons also would be beneficial to everyone.

The XenForo software itself has a separate forum for bug reports / suggestions / troubleshooting, not a separate thread

Back on vBulletin, certain popular add-ons were given a sub-forum there, but that practice shut down after most of those major add-ons stopped receiving updates and/or the developers left.

Even for free add-ons, especially if they're popular and/or do something complex and server-error-prone, such as the MemberMap mod (GeoIP lookups that may fail for any number of reasons), there's a valid reason why it would be easier for the developer to have one thread per issue.

I would be supremely happy if we had a GitHub-style solution on-site here, but I think that might be a wee bit too much work for limited benefit for XenForo Ltd itself - it would basically be ~1,000 man-hours they would see no profit from.

 

[AnzahTools]

The ones I do get are immediately marked as spam by Zendesk.

ok you also use an external service but I just use XF for that.

download and upload an update

If you publish an update here, you don't have to upload anything - it's enough to enter the changelog.

 

[bzcomputers]

The solution implemented for XenForo is a ticketing system available at https://xenforo.com/customers/support. The forums are generally for community support. But even then, they have a dozen forum categories within which each issue has its own thread. aka organised. XenForo cannot provide the same solution for add-on developers. Them making a support system within XF is likely not to have as many features as our own. I wouldn't want to use it, personally.

As I said, my support system allows, amongst other things, for license validation, push notifications to all my devices for each ticket and reply to ticket individually, and a private avenue to exchange information. It also forces all required information to be provided before the ticket (half of the time, otherwise, required information is not provided). It would be a fair amount of work from XF to try to replicate all that functionality into here for XenForo developers, when they can easily just use their own software, or sign up for Zendesk or something. Not worth the time.

Maybe a single sign on solution with Zendesk along with some slight customization changes here for integration with it is a good option. Maybe SSO with multiple popular ticketing systems would help.

 

[AnzahTools]

@bzcomputers
So I would have to consider that because I know of few ticket systems that do not reload data from third-party sources and I would personally reject that. Therefore I also use XF without google and co.

 

[bzcomputers]

That's fine, but that doesn't really change how your post came off, if I'm honest.

I apologize if it came off as an attack on developers in general. It wasn't meant to be. Unfortunately what I've had to go through here with a few "free" add-ons and the process required to report bugs on them was less than efficient.

Then it's frustrating to login to a third party site and see multiple updates available for an add-on that aren't even referenced as available on XenForo.com. Especially when these updates address site breaking functions for an add-on, luckily for me the two cases where this occurred recently the add-ons were still in a testing environment.

Just seems that there is some room for improvement here in quite a few areas where add-ons are involved, whether they are free or not.

 

[Masetrix]

In times of data protection, I will never spread my data over countless pages just to make Xenforo reasonably usable for my purposes.

While it may be more convenient for developers to offer their works on their own site, it is disrespectful to users. So my thanks go especially to @Xon @liamw @Siropu @ozzy47 and others, without which our XF would not work because of missing functionality and we would have to switch to other forum software, that these developers provide their free addons here in xenforo.com.

 

[Robust]

In times of data protection, I will never spread my data over countless pages just to make Xenforo reasonably usable for my purposes.

?

Most developers request basic information at a minimum: an email address. Payment information may also be processed, a billing address and such. But since these are free, it's just an email address.

You can use a disposable one if you really want, but an email address isn't going to kill you. None of the decent developers' sites here have been compromised since XF was created, afaik. Not even *******'s site has been compromised, afaik.

A bunch of data processors here are registered with the ICO (myself, @DragonByte Tech, M2N, to my knowledge, perhaps others). They comply with good standards of data processing. There's no reason to think your email address will get dumped.

While it may be more convenient for developers to offer their works on their own site, it is disrespectful to users.

I think it's disrespectful you want to use free add-ons by developers but think they're too incompetent to hold onto your email address safely. You don't trust their servers and coding abilities, but trust their add-on coding abilities to use them on your forum. And your comment directly implies that you think developers should be 'inconvenienced', for a free add-on, so they can avoid 'disrespecting' you by requesting an email address.

On top of this, if you ever use a paid add-on, you're probably providing billing information so VAT invoices can be issued, required by pretty much any provider complying with EU law, registered for VAT in a country that requires VAT invoice issuance. Since you're too afraid to give an email, which can be disposable, an address seems like a bit of a stretch - so I guess by the same logic you should never purchase a paid add-on.

I respect data rights of people, I think it's a big responsibility of processors to keep data secure, but your comment is just straight disrespectful, and not legitimate concern.

 

[Masetrix]

Most developers request basic information at a minimum: an email address. Payment information may also be processed, a billing address and such. But since these are free, it's just an email address.

If I need an extension that is not free, then I agree with you. (Trusted Things like Themehouse or DragonByte have...)
For each free addon, however, countless email addresses (one for every tool on div. sites!) and manage passwords and thus also unnecessarily expand my data track on the internet is a NoGo.

If I have to lure customers with "free" addons to my site then something is wrong with the marketing or the software. These things are not free but cost data. You have to see that on the whole.

 

[Kirby]

If I have to lure customers with "free" addons to my site then something is wrong with the marketing or the software. These things are not free but cost data.

I am inclined to say that the majority of users and developers is perfectly fine with this.

 

[Masetrix]

I am inclined to say that the majority of users and developers is perfectly fine with this.

The saying with the individual, to claim majorities is doubtful. From this, however, no correctness can be derived. On the contrary. Should the customer take into account dubious motives because "many" like it?

 

[AnzahTools]

If I have to lure customers with "free" addons to my site then something is wrong with the marketing or the software. These things are not free but cost data. You have to see that on the whole.

But you are already aware that you have to make a difference if your data is stored locally on a database or if x third party providers are integrated on the website and therefore get data.

An email address in a database with an invented name has nothing to do with data protection. Because for that your data would have to be processed in some wise way.

 

[Max Taxable]

For each free addon, however, countless email addresses (one for every tool on div. sites!) and manage passwords and thus also unnecessarily expand my data track on the internet is a NoGo.

If I have to lure customers with "free" addons to my site then something is wrong with the marketing or the software. These things are not free but cost data. You have to see that on the whole.

FREE addons should be FREE, and NOT require a member to go to a 3rd party site and register, verify his xF license, potentially expose his data to who knows who, just to then download the "free" addon. It's a form of poaching.

 

[Robust]

FREE addons should be FREE, and NOT require a member to go to a 3rd party site and register, verify his xF license, potentially expose his data to who knows who, just to then download the "free" addon. It's a form of poaching.

They're accurately marked as free because you don't pay a monetary fee to have access to the add-on.

If you don't want to go to the 3rd party site, in cases of developers hosting on a 3rd party site, then don't use the add-on. It's insulting to write that comment then feel you're entitled to use the add-on by a developer, on your own terms, for free. If you're scared of potentially exposing your email address to "who knows who", you should be even more scared to host their code on your forum, which can technically speaking do anything on your forum or with your forum data.

 

[Max Taxable]

If you're scared of potentially exposing your email address to "who knows who", you should be even more scared to host their code on your forum, which can technically speaking do anything on your forum or with your forum data.

But which if it does happen to do so, WILL be detected and that Dev will lose his privileges to post addons at xF dot com. It's happened before.

You're making a worthless comparison.

It's insulting to write that comment then feel you're entitled to use the add-on by a developer, on your own terms, for free.

And, you shouldn't be at all "insulted" if the shoe doesn't fit you. "Free" isn't really Free if it comes with hoops to jump through, up to and including verifying your xF license data with the 3rd party.

If you don't want to go to the 3rd party site, in cases of developers hosting on a 3rd party site, then don't use the add-on.

I don't. Never have, never will.