IdeaVote — Rebuilding XenForo's Suggestion Voting From the Ground Up

[mikef]

Hey everyone,

I'm building a free XenForo 2.3 addon called IdeaVote that completely replaces the default suggestion voting experience. If you've ever used the built-in Suggestion forum type, you know the problem — the tiny up/down chevrons on the right side of each thread are nearly invisible. Most members never even realize they can vote.

IdeaVote fixes that and adds a lot more:

Voting UI Overhaul

• Large, clearly labeled "Vote" button that members actually notice
• Configurable highlight color when you've voted
• "You Voted" confirmation so members know their vote counted
• Vote directly from the thread list without opening each thread
• Optional upvote-only mode

Status Management

• Admin-customizable statuses (Under Review, Planned, In Progress, Implemented, Not Planned — or create your own)
• Color-coded status badges on the thread list and inside threads
• Inline status changes for admins right from the thread view
• Filter threads by status

Notifications

• Members who voted on a suggestion get alerted when its status changes
• Thread authors always notified on status updates

Member Tools

• "My Votes" page to see everything you've voted on
• Votes tab on member profiles

Admin Dashboard

• Top voted suggestions across all enabled forums
• Bulk status updates
• Merge duplicate suggestions
• Vote analytics and trending data

Fully Configurable

• Every color, label, and behavior is customizable from the admin panel — nothing hardcoded
• Choose which forums use the enhanced voting
• Full phrase system support for translations

The addon builds on top of XenForo's existing content voting engine — it doesn't replace the backend, just makes the frontend 10x more usable and adds the management tools that are missing.

I'd love your input. If there's a feature you wish XenForo's suggestion system had, or something that's always frustrated you about it, drop a reply below. I'm still in the planning phase and want to make sure this covers what the community actually needs.

 

[JulianD]

Do you have a mockup or screenshot of the interface? I've noticed that too, members do not use the up/down arrows neither in suggestion or question forum types, so I'm very curious to see your proposed interface.

 

[mikef]

I don’t have a mockup at this time. If you have any suggestions as how the design concept should look, I’m open for suggestions.

 

[briansol]

I don't know that it needs an addon to make it stand out more. Just tack a new icon in extra.less to use something else you want from font awesome and make it bigger/colorful as desired.


a quick hack using thumbs-up




The other items sound nice, but I personally think it's a bit overkill. I don't use this feature much as i don't operate a voting style category.

It seems like you're really tying to build a voting system that spans your org, not a thread. That's not what xf intended to do here. It does have a use case though.

 

[mikef]

My motto has always been: why build something halfway when you can build it full featured that will allow anybody to use all the features that the add-on will have available. that being said, if someone doesn’t want to use all the extra features, they don’t have to. If another person likes all the add-on features then they’re already there and available. That part you can’t argue with.

And there’s always gonna be those couple people that say, that add-on has way too many features built into it, but then you will have the handful of other people that say that they like the availability of all the features. You never know how someone is going to use their forum.

It doesn’t matter whether Xenforo intended it to be used that way or not. It’s up to the individual user on how they want to use the add-on

I do appreciate your suggestion about using a Font Awesome icon to make it stand out better and to be more colorful. Suggestions and feedback are the exact reasons I posted this thread.

Good day to you, sir