Have you nicked any ideas from XenForo for your non-XF site?

Mark.B

Well-known member
This is particularly aimed at those of us who WILL move to XenForo at some point (and have a licence already and so are testing it), but cannot currently convert our live sites as we're waiting for modifications or features (in my case, primarily an arcade add on).

Are there any aspects of XF that you have done your best to incorporate into your existing site as a precursor to eventual conversion?

(Sort of inspired by what AVForums are doing but on a lesser scale).

Tonight I've done this:

Avatars in the threadbits. Query count is a bit high but I wanted to make it work - may not leave it though if it loads the server too much. Seems ok at the moment. Can't also ditch the thread statusicons as there's no way to identify if you've posted in the thread (I'm nowhere near clever enough to do the mini-avatar thing like on XF). So it might look cluttered to some.

Other stuff has been there a bit longer....eg my breadcrumb bar looks vaguely familiar. As do the page titles. I'm sure there's other XF-influenced stuff there too.

Anybody else's non-XF sites gradually turning into an homage to XenForo?
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Yeah, done that for a few months to make the users more comfortable with the convert, but the board still looked outdated, I just converted to get it over with. And don't regret it.

Good luck waiting for the Arcade, I hope it comes out soon.
 
Yeah, done that for a few months to make the users more comfortable with the convert, but the board still looked outdated, I just converted to get it over with. And don't regret it.

Good luck waiting for the Arcade, I hope it comes out soon.
I'm under no illusions about the arcade, it's an absolute eternity away. But wait I must. I think in the long term my patience will be rewarded, XF needs "filling out" a little bit before I convert and by then I'm sure it will have done.

I have my license, I bide my time....
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I would even go as far as locking down vB and just use its engine to show the arcade, and have the live site on xenforo.

The loss of those having to login an additional time for a second cookie, vs the loss of traffic from running vBulletin 4 ..
 
I would even go as far as locking down vB and just use its engine to show the arcade, and have the live site on xenforo.

The loss of those having to login an additional time for a second cookie, vs the loss of traffic from running vBulletin 4 ..
If I tried that I'd lose members, people just wouldn't wear it.

No, patience is a virtue. I hacked my vB4 around a bit and I think it looks pretty smart, it'll keep me ticking over a year or so. I'm in no rush, if I rush things I mess them up.
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wow, thats pretty good work mark.
and im not banned anymore!

while i havent nicked anything, one of my competitors has. his vb3 now features 'like' (courtesy of vbseo) and something akin to a quote-notification ;)
 
wow, thats pretty good work mark.
and im not banned anymore!

while i havent nicked anything, one of my competitors has. his vb3 now features 'like' (courtesy of vbseo) and something akin to a quote-notification ;)
Banned? Must have been a country-wide IP ban. I had India and China blocked at one point, too many spammers at the time.

Oh yes I've got "Like" buttons, that was one I meant to mention but forgot.

Not the vBSEO ones though, mine are the "Thanks" mod renamed and remodelled a bit.
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I can see why many forums non xenforo will be inspired. In this case the mini-me in my books was an excellent addition and eliminated the need for threadmarkers and more importantly a pesky threadmarker legend.

Does it work on non xenforo sites? In this particular case. no. The whole point of the mini me as stated above. On your forum mark the mini me seems redundant when you still have threadmarkers present as well as the post icons which only clutter the page. This I find defeats what the mini-me is all about. I'm not knocking your effort. Key legends have always been a hatred of mine due to threadmarker icons being present.

If you were to remove the threadmarker column that might reduce the clutter. I personally don't see a need for threadmarker icons anymore, and more so for key legends which relate to this as they are all part of the page and why the mini me feature here relates to the abandonment of threadmarkers.

Would you believe that I posted all this in another thread.
 
Yep, minimalising some things and possibly features, and some clearing out clutter - the nearly border free design of XF is liberating, airy and fresh (although i've seen some XF skins that are putting in the old border-around-everything look :sick: )

I can see why many forums non xenforo will be inspired. In this case the mini-me in my books was an excellent addition and eliminated the need for threadmarkers and more importantly a pesky threadmarker legend.

Yes, indeed. (y)
 
Yes I have. Mostly about reducing clutter everywhere. Seeing the success of Xenforo, i had only one goal, remove any feature from VB used by less than 10-20% of the members. This included useless stuff like Thread Tags, posticons, reputation link, calender etc. Implemented the copied Likes system of VBSEO. So all in all I feel my VB board looks much better because of the ideas inspired from XF.

Unfortunately I can't convert this particular board to XF, but I have great plans for a new site. In 2011 I am going to extensively work on XF. You guys may just see an odd Mod or two for XF from me. :)
 
I can see why many forums non xenforo will be inspired. In this case the mini-me in my books was an excellent addition and eliminated the need for threadmarkers and more importantly a pesky threadmarker legend.

Does it work on non xenforo sites? In this particular case. no. The whole point of the mini me as stated above. On your forum mark the mini me seems redundant when you still have threadmarkers present as well as the post icons which only clutter the page. This I find defeats what the mini-me is all about. I'm not knocking your effort. Key legends have always been a hatred of mine due to threadmarker icons being present.

If you were to remove the threadmarker column that might reduce the clutter. I personally don't see a need for threadmarker icons anymore, and more so for key legends which relate to this as they are all part of the page and why the mini me feature here relates to the abandonment of threadmarkers.

Would you believe that I posted all this in another thread.
Good points, and I'd like to remove the threadmarkers, but the thing is I *don't* have the mini-me's. I just have the thread starter's avatar. Firstly, I don't have the skills to replicate the mini-me's, but secondly, even though I could probably fathom it out, I think it'd be a "copy" too far.
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I would even go as far as locking down vB and just use its engine to show the arcade, and have the live site on xenforo.
(Not to make this an arcade thread) I don't think the arcade will take that long to be ready now that they're working on it. I've been thinking for the past week about what Floris posted.
After Spring break and once I get everything set up, I'll be converting over. I'm so ready to move on with XF. As long as I have a link to the arcade, my members will be ok.
 
Good points, and I'd like to remove the threadmarkers, but the thing is I *don't* have the mini-me's. I just have the thread starter's avatar. Firstly, I don't have the skills to replicate the mini-me's, but secondly, even though I could probably fathom it out, I think it'd be a "copy" too far.
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It shouldn't be too hard to remove the threadmarkers though I do know it's a simple process removing the legends as it was the first thing I always removed on each update. With vb4 the threadmarkers def warrant a removal, they're big, ugly and I was surprised then and still am now that they opted for this design. I feel if your remove that your half way there and only have the post icons to remove in the thread listings which shouldn't be to difficult to do, pending of course that you want to remove them.

On a related note, it's a good sign. You've noticed that we don't always need clutter and you've made the first step in noticing this. That said, I feel vb4 is far to cluttered to do anything great and get any kind of impact for a cleaner look. Though I always say, it never hurts to try.
 
It shouldn't be too hard to remove the threadmarkers though I do know it's a simple process removing the legends as it was the first thing I always removed on each update. With vb4 the threadmarkers def warrant a removal, they're big, ugly and I was surprised then and still am now that they opted for this design. I feel if your remove that your half way there and only have the post icons to remove in the thread listings which shouldn't be to difficult to do, pending of course that you want to remove them.

On a related note, it's a good sign. You've noticed that we don't always need clutter and you've made the first step in noticing this. That said, I feel vb4 is far to cluttered to do anything great and get any kind of impact for a cleaner look. Though I always say, it never hurts to try.
I can certainly physically remove the thread markers, but the problem is there is then no way for anyone to see which threads they have posted in. This will be an issue for my members.

I will probably have a play at some point and see if I can replicate the "mini me" idea from XF, mainly for the challenge but also because, like AVF, I want to get my members "ready" for the XF experience at some point.

I already have all the vB4 conditionals for identifying threads a member has posted in, I also already use a hack that shows the user's avatar in the header so the code is already in place once the variable is registered, but I will have to have a good play with things to make one avatar sit on the top of the other. CSS is not my major strong point.

I'll work it out - if I get time. :)
 
Yikes! I think I've been and gone and done it!

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I've completely changed the way I develop the interface of my applications, thanks to XenForo. My employers and clients will be extremely pleased.
I know the feeling.

My site is increasingly resembling a XenForo tribute site. :o

I'd feel guilty, except that I have bought a licence. :)
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