I want to learn to code addons for Xenforo. I have specific experience, where do I start?

[TheBigK]

@Stuart Wright @TheBigK

So after a year, any progress/updates/resumee you want to share with us?

@sbj - I've given up on XenForo development and switched to WordPress; which fits perfectly in the scheme of things we've planned for our venture. I literally wasted ~4 years, trying to get things done on XenForo; had developers give up the projects halfway, then picked up addon development myself from scratch and spent about 1.2 years learning it. I did make a LOT of progress with XF development; but then figured out I'd rather look at WordPress as a platform instead of XenForo to do what I set out to do.

I took that decision on December 1 last year.

...and I couldn't have been happier. In fact in just ~3 months of learning WP development; I've already been able to code every add-on that took months to complete on XenForo and already working on the biggest project that was my 'dream addon'.

Now, of course; this might be bit confusing. But let me tell you, it's my specific case.

Couple of points that were biggest obstacles in my XF learning. I don't check XF just as frequently as I used to; so the following may have changed in the recent months:

• Lack of documentation for developers. Would have helped a L.O.T!
• Every doubt took about ~4 days to resolve. Very limited number of articles that'd solve issues I faced.
• XF is complex system written by super-expert developers. I couldn't figure out my way easily. But that said, I learned a lot of good coding techniques.
• MVC can be tricky if you have no prior exposure to development.
• Community is, still, very limited. On WP, however, almost every issue that I face, has already been solved by helpful people around. It helped me accelerate my learning by 10x!

That said, I was helped by lot of cool people and I must mention @Mr. Goodie2Shoes . He helped me learn MVC, PHP, MySQL by being there to address doubts.

PS: I still use phpStorm and can't say enough good words about how awesome the IDE is.

 

[sbj]

I've given up on XenForo development and switched to WordPress

I see. Only the development or as a platform?
I mean did you switch your websites from XenForo to Wordpress or are you still using XenForo?

About the lack of documentation, yeah, I face the same problem at the moment. But Chris said on another problem that there might be a documentation for 2.0. Let's hope for that.

 

[wang]

There is no lack of documentation with regard to coding. There are several documentation the Development Help category and some in the Resource Manager. They are more than enough to get you started in my opinion. And if there are particular things that you do not understand, you can ask in the forums. Most developement questions have been answered in a timely matter.

 

[Alpha1]

There are many helpful guides yes. But no organized comprehensive documentation.

 

[TheBigK]

I see. Only the development or as a platform?
I mean did you switch your websites from XenForo to Wordpress or are you still using XenForo?

Our portal still uses XenForo and I think we'll stick with XenForo. I'm waiting for XF 2.0 but seriously attracted towards Flarum. It's still in beta; but I really like their approach. I just hope XF 2.0 is more than impressive so that we'll continue to stick with XF.

Our plan was to develop addons for XenForo and then offer the features to our large community of engineers. However, I studied WordPress and it looked liked a pretty darn good 'platform' to launch our projects (addons). I could have chosen angular JS or ruby on rails - but with WordPress I'm cutting down the 'design' and front-end development part to 10% of what it'd have otherwise taken. It's a BIG BIG win!

I hope XF 2.0 gets documentation for developers. There's serious lack of information about XF and the secrecy about the features is holding us from planning in advance. That's a big minus for us because if we're relying on a platform to develop lot of custom stuff; we better know what direction the platform is going.

@wang - Yes, the questions were answered. But in my case, it'd take days to get answer and me actually implementing it. I think as the community of addon developers grows; the development related queries will be answered a lot quicker. With WP - I just have to search and someone's written a blog post on the issue 2-3 years ago. It's a big aid in learning development.

@Alfa1 - Yes, those are the guides that got me started and make good progress.

 

[sbj]

I come a bit further and shared my knowledge which I have so far. Check it out, maybe it will be helpful to you or someone else.
https://xenforo.com/community/threa...ce-to-start-when-developing-an-add-on.116443/

 

[ForestForTrees]

This?

View attachment 134006

You likely just want the bottom one. On the next page you point it at your XF root, then that's it.

At some point you would need a local web server, though. That just involves having MySQL, Apache and PHP installed on your local machine. There are apps that help you do that. WAMP and XAMPP are popular ones. If you were using something like that, then you'd just need the top option.

In fact, to summarise I would do the following:

1) Download and install WAMP (or similar system)
2) You should then be able to access something like http://localhost from your browser, you'll likely hit the default document root
3) Locate which folder on your computer is the document root, replace the contents of that folder with the contents of the "upload" folder from the full XF download
4) Launch PhpStorm

View attachment 134007

5) Click "Create New Project from Existing Files"
6) Click Next. Find your document root folder where you have copied your XF files. Click "Project Root"
7) Click Next. Give the project a name. Click Next. Click Finish.

That should be it. There's a few things on there that I've ignored, for now, because they're not important. That should get you going though.

For anyone else considering doing this, I did this with XAMPP and it was super easy. My level of technical sophistication is quite high (I've been programming for 25 years), but I imagine you will have similar results, as the steps are fairly straightforward.

The post right above mine has a link to a thread that has some threads worth reading as next steps.

 

[rhodes]

There are many helpful guides yes. But no organized comprehensive documentation.

That brings it to the point, @Alfa1 . I've experienced the same problem as @TheBigK and @Stuart Wright when trying to start with XF development.

I'm working as a PHP/CMS developer more than 10 years now, mainly with drupal, but also with wordpress. Meanwhile I also have some years of experience with Jquery and Mootools. When I started with drupal, for example, my colleague told me "look at the source code, it is self explaining". But it isn't. My experience is that in many cases code is only self explaining for those who wrote it. I never would have learned drupal module development in a timely manner without several Apress / O'reilly development tutorials. Same same with wordpress and jquery.

Of course you can learn everything without an organized tutorial if you are patient, but it will cost you ten times the time. Unfortunately there is no Apress/O'reilly tutorial for XF developers, so things keep difficult. I agree that there are very helpful articles in the development forum section, but of course this is nothing which guides you through als aspects of XF development step by step.

Just another topic and in the case you want to install a development environment on a MAC: I use MAMP and Eclipse as an IDE which works pretty well.

 

[LPH]

Of course you can learn everything without an organized tutorial if you are patient, but it will cost you ten times the time. Unfortunately there is no Apress/O'reilly tutorial for XF developers, so things keep difficult. I agree that there are very helpful articles in the development forum section, but of course this is nothing which guides you through als aspects of XF development step by step.

I suggested the link to the new XF2 Docs be added to this site’s navigation. I keep it bookmarked.

https://xf2demo.xenforo.com/dev-docs/

 

[Alpha1]

How do you like the XF2 developer documentation?

EDIT: ninja-ed by @LPH

 

[Stuart Wright]

I'd pay £1000 for a 5 day course to learn XF coding (hotel & meals not included). Would need to be pitched at an intermediate level. *Some* PHP experience.

 

[RobinHood]

XenCon?

London 2018

 

[Alpha1]

That would be nice...