Let's build our own addons

[ibaker]

I am sure many of you are like me and have been bitten by many addon developers. They come, release something, we buy it and install it only to find they pack up and go or provide no support and when it comes time to upgrade XF our sites are damaged because we can no longer provide some addon to our users. Now, I must say that there ARE some great developers out there but with vBulletin, XF and other forum software solutions there are more bad ones than good ones.

So, with XF v2 I believe that there is potential for us as a group, a community, to leverage of the inbuilt functionality of XF to create some of our own addons that we ALL own together. We ALL help each other to develop the addon with our own knowledge that is different to one and another but as a whole may be able to work together to build the addon solution.

Take for example a Classifieds system. It seems that this type of addon is in big demand. We can use the XF v2 built in Custom Thread Fields to create the extra fields needed like Price, Location etc., we can together work out how we can use the XF Menu System for the menu, the built in Widget System to create the widgets down the side of the forum Classifieds pages/entries and lastly the only thing left is the visual display so we can use the Template System to create that: i.e.
If forum number = x
display this way (for example first attachment instead of user avatar)
elseif forum number = y
display another way
else
display like a normal forum
Endif

What are your thoughts? Could we as a community help each other as a type of group Brains Trust and develop an addon by using the different XF knowledge that we all have together so we ALL own the addon, we ALL develop it, we ALL enhance it and we ALL keep it updated through different XF versions in the same way that we ALL developed it?

 

[Brad Padgett]

See the problem I find with this is it's been over 5 months since Xenforo 2 released and there's barely any tutorials in the 2.x.x development tutorial section. And absolutely not a single one I saw for creating add-ons.

I've been through the add-on guide in the xf2 docs but I'd like to see someone post a well thought out legitimate tutorial like XF1 and actually teach someone how it's done. I personally am a pro with CSS but I lack experience in PHP. I'm a quick learner and would really like to learn but I'm finding it hard to find enough resources to do it.

@LPH has a site for it https://www.xendevelopment.com but there still isn't enough content yet for me to get a good grasp on how to do it. If I had any php experience at all I'm sure lets build an add-on would be enough however OO PHP does not seem like a very hard concept and the problem I find with learning is there's no way for me to view other peoples code and understand it. I need projects I can do to learn. XF2 add-ons for example is the best way to learn. First you start small and just make them to see if it works. Then if you get good at it you can release free add-ons. I wanted to make a MostUsersEverOnline add-on and I'm still trying to learn but its hard when I don't have examples. Been looking at other peoples add-on code to see how it's done but having a hard time.

Sure we can all come together to create add-ons but without more documentation it takes experience to learn how.

 

[Pierce]

The best place for development discussion is here:
https://xenforo.com/community/forums/xenforo-development-discussions.34/

I also find downloading existing XF2 addon's and reading their code quite handy.

 

[Brad Padgett]

The best place for development discussion is here:
https://xenforo.com/community/forums/xenforo-development-discussions.34/

I also find downloading existing XF2 addon's and reading their code quite handy.

Thanks yeah that's what I been trying to do. I'll delve much deeper into it soon and see what I can come up with. Another add-on I was looking to create for my own forum is a style changer on the forum list with a light bulb to "turn off the lights" or go to the dark style. With each version would be the different colors to choose from and change between them at a fast rate. But yeah I'm going to learn how soon.

 

[Pierce]

Thanks yeah that's what I been trying to do. I'll delve much deeper into it soon and see what I can come up with. Another add-on I was looking to create for my own forum is a style changer on the forum list with a light bulb to "turn off the lights" or go to the dark style. With each version would be the different colors to choose from and change between them at a fast rate. But yeah I'm going to learn how soon.

I cant imagine that being too hard to achieve... The Admin Zone has that on XF1.5