Lack of 'suite' applications - Feedback from xenForo please?

Rob

Rob

Well-known member
At the moment, my site is using many different applications to make up the whole.
XenForo - for community
SilverStripe - for CMS
Prestashop - for store front
AddOnChat - For live chat room

Ideally, I need to add blogs and a gallery also.

The way things stand right now, all these applications are not integrated and do not communicate with each other particularly well - it leaves one hell of a resource footprint on the server also to be running all these fully blown applications.

My solution to the headache is to migrate to IPB which can handle all of the above in one integrated application that has far less of a server resource footprint and in addition the applications can all communicate (where needed).

I doubt for a second I am the only person in this position and whilst it is good that IPB solves the issues and brings these critical site modules under one umbrella there are downsides - namely that the UI of IPB isnt that modern or that nice to use.

I know the question of 'when will xenforo do this' has been asked many times before so I will not ask it but would like to know the opinions of KAM on this topic and hopefully gain an insight into whether or not they feel that 'suite' type applications will EVER be developed in house.

I would love to carry on using xenForo but realistically it is not a viable option for me at this time, although I very much wish it was.

Does any of the xenForo team have any feedback regarding any of the above?
 
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AlexT said:
I may be in the minority, but I prefer xF to focus on its core product, which is the forum.
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Agreed. Throughout history, businesses have tried to expand beyond core products, and have failed at it. Anyone remember in the 1980s when Xerox used to make personal computers? I do...and it failed miserably. It's not like the computer was bad, but its name was too firmly entrenched with copying machines, and they tried to use some proprietary hardware standards that just backfired on them.

I'm with those who would rather see a bridge between XF and (__insert your favorite blog/CMS product here__). I would be happy just to find something reliable that would work to bridge XF and WordPress; my needs are simple, yet anything I have tried has not worked the way I've wanted it to.

My one wish (which I think will never happen) is that the forums, CMSes, blogs, etc. would work on some sort of standardized data interchange format. For instance, single sign-ons, simple exchange of "what's new" data, standardized ways to link, say, a WordPress comment as a post in a forum thread and vice versa, etc. I don't think any of the parties involved could ever agree on that, however. ;)
 
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Forsaken said:
Integration into what's new cannot happen until they re-do what's new to allow different content types as it is limited to only threads currently.
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Yes, thats a good point. This is something that I really would like to see changed in XenForo as it blocks content discovery in in other content types than forum. Thereby it automatically alienates addons from the user experience.

What good is a great blog, gallery, cms, etc, if new content does not come into the new content discovery?
 
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Forsaken said:
Integration into what's new cannot happen until they re-do what's new to allow different content types as it is limited to only threads currently.
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Has this been suggested in the Suggestions: Tweaks & Small Features forum yet, or is the XF team aware of the issue? This sounds pretty important! I've always wanted to see new content from my wiki and albums etc. show up in "what's new".
 
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Alfa1 said:
Could you expand on this?

Is it easily possible for addon developers to get their content into 'whats new' ?
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Yes, it seems like it. The what's new link is handled by a single controller - you find it in /library/XenForo/ControllerPublic/FindNew.php. That controller can be extended (= functionality can be overwritten or added) just like any other of xF controllers. For an add-on developer, adding other content types to the what's new view should not be a problem.
 
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AlexT said:
Yes, it seems like it. The what's new link is handled by a single controller - you find it in /library/XenForo/ControllerPublic/FindNew.php. That controller can be extended (= functionality can be overwritten or added) just like any other of xF controllers. For an add-on developer, adding other content types to the what's new view should not be a problem.
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I'll donate 30$ for a CLEAN tutorial posted in the dev tutorials section http://xenforo.com/community/forums/development-tutorials.80/ which works with unlimited content types and supports unlimited addons.

It's IMO not possible, because the "what's new" controller doesn't use the search handler.
It just fetches the unread threads, checks the permissions and shows the result...
Everything else (other content types) can be placed in the sidebar, but it's not really the best way, because it's not in the list.
 
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xf_phantom said:
It's IMO not possible, because the "what's new" controller doesn't use the search handler.
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Like I said - any xF controller can be extended. By extending the controller, you can do anything you want. The claim was that xF prevents bridged content from showing in the what's new list, and that's simply not true. xF doesn't do anything to prevent it. It all lies in the imagination of the bridge add-on developer to extend the required class(es) to include the content he wants. And no, there is no one-for-all solution, because every 3rd party software has a different way of handling its content, so if you want to bridge it with xF (and show it within xF's what's new list), you will need to do this on a case by case basis. That has nothing to do with xF.
 
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Expression Engine just came out with 2.6 - those who need a CMS with a Forum may want to look at that. I used EE Forums for 8 years with decent results.

Every product made is a compromise of some sort. My main site is anything but a hobby, having been my living for 17+ years! Rather than force my ways onto my readers, what I did was watch where the traffic went. The site started out with ALL the usual features - Articles, Galleries, Wiki, Forums, etc.

Guess where everyone went - of their own volition? Yep, the forums....

So, rather than fight Mother Nature, I moved to XF not caring about all the things it doesn't have, but rather about the main one that it does (speed, extendability, modern framework)....

Each admin has to carefully consider what they are truly publishing or doing. Community usually trumps static (article/cms) these days by a LONG shot.

The same tendencies are only getting stronger in the direction of Forums. As an example, I have a articles section in my CMS which was formerly the most popular content - and the goog ads there have ALWAYS paid a lot more than those in the forums and elsewhere on the site.

But in the last year, that has changed...a lot! Given the choice of content, both users and google are obviously heading to the forums....

I know most of you know what you are doing....just a suggestion to carefully study the trends if you have not already done so!

Enclosed is the 3 year chart on my CMS articles - traffic cut in more than 1/2 while traffic to forums is up by 40% or more in the same time period. Maybe our users are trying to tell us something?

Oh, remember, it's easy to us a CMS along with XF - without the complete integration! Since many CMS users are not interested in having their members posting all over their entries anyway, this can be a good thing!
Screen Shot 2013-05-08 at 8.06.25 AM.webp
 
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Alfa1 said:
But its a major weakness that XF misses a good CMS, groups, blog, gallery, store, wiki, tracker, helpdesk.
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To you maybe, its strength for me is being a forum.

I just really hope xenforo don't do a vb and read these types of thread and go "ooo there's some money in that" and churn out garbage like the CMS they inflicted on me while the core product suffers.
 
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Maybe a bunch of good developers here should associate with each other, and develop "good and reliable" products of a certain size, like galleries, cms, shops storefronts, or classifieds. And the focus of Mike can remain on 1.2, the core functionality, and listening to the requests of the dev communities for all those projects.
 
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Weppa333 said:
I am really glad to read the above comment about focus moving AWAY from content. It's also what I observe here. Funny thing nobody seems to admit it.
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I see the same trend for my site. My site is based on volunteer effort and people is not willing to write anymore content because they realize that user go directly to forum, may be they bookmarked the forum page and not the real homepage.
But....i'm not sure this is mother nature trend....i'm ever in doubt that this trend is related to the scarce integration between CMS and forum, since i was using vb as forum.
 
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D.O.A. said:
I just really hope xenforo don't do a vb and read these types of thread and go "ooo there's some money in that" and churn out garbage like the CMS they inflicted on me while the core product suffers.
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It should be clear by now that KAM would never produce a piece of garbage like vbCMS. If KAM would decide to produce a CMS at some point, then I would expect that they would do it as well as the forum.
You really can't compare their product quality to vBS / IB its product quality. Just like that there is no comparison between vbulletin 5 and XenForo. Its not in the same league.
 
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