How many forums / nodes?

[PrettyPixels]

I've worked with xenForo 1.x, but not with 2.x. I'm considering using sub-forums to allow users to post story chapters. Each story would have its own forum, with each thread being a chapter. Posts to each thread would serve as comments.

I have two questions:

1) How many forums/nodes like this can xenForo reasonably handle before experiencing performance issues?

2) Is there a more efficient way to handle this scenario with xenForo?

Any information is appreciated.

 

[Xon]

There is roughly a limit of ~1000 forums because permission combinations start taking increasingly long to generate for every forum. It is recommended to have a lot less than that if you can.

There is an add-on "threadmarks" (XF1.x free, XF1.x paid, XF2 paid) which allows marking posts in a thread to automatically build an index out of them, with the ability to have a 'reader mode' (for paid versions) which only shows threadmark'ed posts. I effectively maintain the free version, and own the paid versions

This combined with Thread starter alerts paid add-on (XF1.x version, XF2 version), and Word Count Search free add-on (XF1.x version, XF2 version) work quite well for alerting & navigating thread-lists.

Note; licences for the paid version cover both XF1/XF2 versions.

This combination is used on a bunch of user fiction/stories oriented forums.

 

[PrettyPixels]

Thank you, Xon. I'll check them out!

 

[beerForo]

I would suggest prefixes for your chapters. They can be clicked on (in forum view) to show only that prefix's results. You can choose a unique color for each chapter.

 

[dknife]

What about using Resources as Chapters then you automatically have a discussion thread in a specific place as well, along with features like updating, versions and ratings.

 

[imno007]

You could consider something like this for the chapters:

[XFA] Thread Tabs - XF2

Description Have you ever wished to provide your users with the capability to add additional content to their threads ? Yes ?! Then Thread Tabs is the answer. Very simple to use, it lets your user create as much tabs as they want through a few...

xenforo.com

Just a thought.

 

[imno007]

I would suggest prefixes for your chapters. They can be clicked on (in forum view) to show only that prefix's results. You can choose a unique color for each chapter.

Not sure how practical that would be. You'd have to create prefixes that everyone could use, like "Chapter 1" and Chapter 2," etc., but anytime anyone clicked one of them you'd get every chapter one and two in the node (s). Plus it would require exiting a thread to filter the prefixes.

EDIT: Well, if you used Xon's Multi Prefix addon you wouldn't have to actually exit the thread, but you'd still run into the problem of getting every instance of the prefix.

 

[Xon]

You could consider something like this for the chapters:

[XFA] Thread Tabs - XF2

Description Have you ever wished to provide your users with the capability to add additional content to their threads ? Yes ?! Then Thread Tabs is the answer. Very simple to use, it lets your user create as much tabs as they want through a few...

xenforo.com

Just a thought.

XF2 version of threadmarks also has 'thread tabs' like things (the UI for sorting it isn't as nice)

 

[RainCrow]

I have 3.

 

[Vekseid]

I'm at about 130 for my Xenforo forum.

There is roughly a limit of ~1000 forums because permission combinations start taking increasingly long to generate for every forum. It is recommended to have a lot less than that if you can.

I wonder how difficult it would be to swap Xenforo's system with a permission profile structure a la SMF. The more I look into things the more it looks like converting my SMF forum is untenable.