I Have a Dream: New XenForo GUI

A forum portal that relies on images so much isn't always a good idea because some images that user's upload really isn't ideal to put on your front page in an official manner like that.

I'd just stick with 'Recent Attachments' xenporta module if I were you.
 
Looking for something more than photos, e.g. TheNextWeb.com. Needs to include lots of interestingly arranged content as well. More like a news web portal.

Thanks for this nice and fitting example. I guess we share the same lucid dream: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/a-personalized-entrance-page.13028/. (Maybe if you want, you could also [like] that one to generate new interest in it, or maybe the threads could even be merged).

I have been thinking of this since I was a vBulletin user and still to this day I think it's an idea worth investigating. Xenforo already did the job of serving information to it's endusers so much better then any other forum platform out there, because it gave us the Alerts ala Facebook. Really great functionality. I still think that one could extent on this even further and serve even more user/context-sensitive information to the enduser, without the user having to click/go to different sections of the menus/site as it happens now.
 
I portal or news portal page with equally visually satisfying look as TNW or the better news websites would be very nice. I really hate how old school & amateurish the average community portal looks and how much contrast there is with mainstream online media.
 
We did a quick-and-dirty mockup using our PBX in a Flash Forum for those that have trouble visualizing how much this could help XenForo:

BE3ZwpDCMAAXov3.jpg:large
 
I really hate how old school & amateurish the average community portal looks and how much contrast there is with mainstream online media.

I always felt this exactly the same. Totally agree with your point. If I ever offer a comprehensive website/pages next to my forum it better not look and feel like those 'average community portals' indeed. I want and need a state of the art professional look and feel, like many Wordpress templates offer, for example.
 
I am interested in the promised Simple Portal.

I agree with Dre
A forum portal that relies on images so much isn't always a good idea because some images that user's upload really isn't ideal to put on your front page in an official manner like that.

My current idea is to make Category boxes in two columns.
Each box will be one of my 5 key topic categories which already have a category specific logo image in their title areas top of their pages. So this image will be in their frontpage box with data drawn from that category on a 'read more' basis.
A 6th box will be for me to manually edit via an include, with key links, or a selected item which could include an image.

This will visually present the range of the site, together with sectioned latest data, and an 'editorial' space.
 
I portal or news portal page with equally visually satisfying look as TNW or the better news websites would be very nice. I really hate how old school & amateurish the average community portal looks and how much contrast there is with mainstream online media.

How about a home page that looks like this :

portal-home-page-jpg.35079

inspiration - http://www.torontosun.com/

Another option: Have a Tab called "Popular stuff" or Articles or Magazine and have a static page that looks like this.
 
My god. If I landed on a page that looked like that, it would be the last time I did.

Just because one site became wildly popular by plastering a bunch of stuff all over the page, doesn't mean everyone has to do it. Nor does it mean everyone likes it.
 
My god. If I landed on a page that looked like that, it would be the last time I did.

Just because one site became wildly popular by plastering a bunch of stuff all over the page, doesn't mean everyone has to do it. Nor does it mean everyone likes it.

No but each admin knows their users. Mine would love pics - not the same kind as Doc's but definitely pics.
 
How about a home page that looks like this :
Please god no.

As Morgain mentions graphical content can be useful. The problem with many community homepages is that it is often finding a needle in a haystack. A pinterest approach only worsens that effect. A news portal approach can improve on it while using graphical content to keep users interested. But surely there are more solutions to present a lot of information in a more useful way.

Tiles may be hot due to Win8, but if you use more than a few tiles, then it quickly becomes chaos.
 
As much as we love XenForo, we sure would like to see a new (optional) user interface.
Xenporta can accomplish what you want [demo: http://8wayrun.com/calibur/ ]
Wordpress is an option - you can even bridge XF with WP. The bridge has Xenforo do all the registrations and Wordpress cookies are not created.
You can also manually create your own HTML page and then use Jake's amazing Nodes as Tabs to make it the home page.

More later. Shockwave crashed.
MEH.
 
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