Looking forward now to 1.1

Ingenious

Well-known member
Its been an interesting month or so as a vB 3.x forum owner, waiting to see what's happening with other platforms. I've had a good look over the new IPB but still keep coming back to XF, I think in part this is down to a change of mindset.

I'm beginning to "get it" now that XenForo is really all about a slick forum experience as an end user, this is what a steady line of XenForo converts are reporting - happy users. So, I've been thinking more and more, do I really need that feature I have in vB, and that feature, and that feature, I mean really?

Since vB4 came out and I took one look at the CMS, I was an instant Wordpress convert - it does that job brilliantly, and I have to say I love using WP for my static site content. I won't miss the gallery, I prefer my members to use Flickr or other sites where they have control over their work. And there's ways around the loss of a calendar too, mostly by bringing the events side of things into WP.

I'm kind of now seeing vB3/4 and even to some extent IPB3.2 as quite old fashioned, from the days before YouTube and Flickr and Facebook and Twitter, when a forum had to be all things to all people.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I'm really looking forward to XenForo 1.1 now, this will tick those last remaining boxes for me, and although I have moaned on like an old lady about the lack of features/progress/announcements in the past, have come around to having a lot of respect for Kier and Mike to sticking to their plan.
 
Its been an interesting month or so as a vB 3.x forum owner, waiting to see what's happening with other platforms. I've had a good look over the new IPB but still keep coming back to XF, I think in part this is down to a change of mindset.

I'm beginning to "get it" now that XenForo is really all about a slick forum experience as an end user, this is what a steady line of XenForo converts are reporting - happy users. So, I've been thinking more and more, do I really need that feature I have in vB, and that feature, and that feature, I mean really?

Since vB4 came out and I took one look at the CMS, I was an instant Wordpress convert - it does that job brilliantly, and I have to say I love using WP for my static site content. I won't miss the gallery, I prefer my members to use Flickr or other sites where they have control over their work. And there's ways around the loss of a calendar too, mostly by bringing the events side of things into WP.

I'm kind of now seeing vB3/4 and even to some extent IPB3.2 as quite old fashioned, from the days before YouTube and Flickr and Facebook and Twitter, when a forum had to be all things to all people.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I'm really looking forward to XenForo 1.1 now, this will tick those last remaining boxes for me, and although I have moaned on like an old lady about the lack of features/progress/announcements in the past, have come around to having a lot of respect for Kier and Mike to sticking to their plan.

How many people if we're honest use a "Forum Calendar" anyway, it's always been one part of a forum board that never gets used much by (most communities). Millions of features like you say are not really needed also when it boils down to it, only the most important ones are required you know most members will use regularly. Having too many options only helps confuse your users about using a forum and even put them off from wanting to use it.

Gallery, nice to have an area to upload picture "like a picture gallery feature". But truth be said, you can just as easy create a forum board and ask your members to use that for uploading their images taken. There's really no need to have a fully blown gallery when a forum created specifically for using as one can do the same job and comes with permissions allowing them to upload, delete e.t.c. Also, photo's posted on a forum are much more accessible, rather than having to click some navigation link first leading to a gallery add-on.
 
Yawn. Can't hear these arguments anymore. Only because you don't use a feature it doesn't mean that the feature doesn't make sense.

How many people if we're honest use a "Forum Calendar" anyway

My largest forum uses the vB calendar to organize many, many events/workshops.

Gallery, nice to have an area to upload picture "like a picture gallery feature". But truth be said, you can just as easy create a forum board and ask your members to use that

My pet forum uses a gallery to show of the many pictures of proud pet owners with categories for dogs/cats/reptiles/..... It simply makes no sense to use hundred of threads for this purpose - how comfortable is it to browse through thousands of pictures with threads?
 
As Brogan would say, you can't please everyone. I think the replies above highlight the main point I was making in my original post. Finding alternative ways of doing something rather than wanting it included in XenForo.

In other words, making XenForo "as it is" the centre of your community and appreciating the lack of some features are what makes it slick, and quick, and great for the end user. Then, instead of hoping to bolt on extra features, using some lateral thinking to solve the problem another way.

In my case I'll miss the calender but do I really need it in the forum? No, I can use a CMS solution and link to that instead. A gallery is useful for some members, but is it critical, no.

Every community is different and I don't doubt some are still unsuitable for XenForo but I think that in dismissing XenForo just on a tick list of features, you are missing a trick. However it has taken some time for me to come around to this conclusion, I have had to "unlearn" years of vB conditioning :)
 
In my case I'll miss the calender but do I really need it in the forum? No, I can use a CMS solution and link to that instead. A gallery is useful for some members, but is it critical, no.

Every community is different and I don't doubt some are still unsuitable for XenForo but I think that in dismissing XenForo just on a tick list of features, you are missing a trick. However it has taken some time for me to come around to this conclusion, I have had to "unlearn" years of vB conditioning :)

Excellent post.

As for the calendar, XenAtendo is excellent for that. It's a multi-featured add-on. It can be used as an RSVP for events and/OR as a calendar for adding birthdays and events without using the RSVP feature at all.
You can have the small calendar on your sidebar, or a full-page calendar. http://mahoningvalleytalk.com/events/monthly
Quite nifty.
 
That looks brilliant - I remember seeing the add on mentioned but that's the first time I've seen it with real world events in it. It's better than the calendar I already have in vB :)

It is brilliant and very easy to use.

And if you do decide to post upcoming events it's right there. If those events are off-line events, it has a built in map that pin-points the location of the event, and you can opt to start a discussion thread for the event, as well.

However, you can use the upcoming events for forum stuff like contests, etc.
 
Anyway, I just wanted to say that I'm really looking forward to XenForo 1.1 now, this will tick those last remaining boxes for me, and although I have moaned on like an old lady about the lack of features/progress/announcements in the past, have come around to having a lot of respect for Kier and Mike to sticking to their plan.
So am I. I hardly visit here anymore. Every few days I'll check the announcements for 1.1. I'm on hold with 1 website until there are thread prefixes and another I may be able to use the resource section. Maybe not? I really need a downloads section. So for the time being, it's vB for me on 2 sites.
 
How many people if we're honest use a "Forum Calendar" anyway, it's always been one part of a forum board that never gets used much by (most communities). Millions of features like you say are not really needed also when it boils down to it, only the most important ones are required you know most members will use regularly. Having too many options only helps confuse your users about using a forum and even put them off from wanting to use it.

Gallery, nice to have an area to upload picture "like a picture gallery feature". But truth be said, you can just as easy create a forum board and ask your members to use that for uploading their images taken. There's really no need to have a fully blown gallery when a forum created specifically for using as one can do the same job and comes with permissions allowing them to upload, delete e.t.c. Also, photo's posted on a forum are much more accessible, rather than having to click some navigation link first leading to a gallery add-on.
You can't base your assumptions off of vBulletin or IPB; both of their built-in Calendars and their Gallery (or Gallery Add-on) are horrible examples of them.
 
We will see more 1.0.x before 1.1
Speaking of which, it's a month since 1.0.2 and I hope for bug fixes in 1.0.3 soon.
What bugs??? The one thing I and my users love about this software, is that it just works 99.9% flawlessly, and has done so since alpha installation.
So, I've been thinking more and more, do I really need that feature I have in vB, and that feature, and that feature, I mean really?
Thats what I pretty much did when throwing in the towel with VB... I just sucked up the loss in some features, accepting better overall user experience and in fact, far reduced server costs with greater user volume using XF... and am finding XF are slowly getting more and more out the door with features, and mods are making up for it until XF get more functionality into the ACP side of things, permissions, etc...
 
I am definitely looking forward to 1.1. I will have 2 more licenses to purchase once it is released.
 
I'm not going to hold off upgrading (I didnt) because it lacks X feature my members had previously. I did it on day one. The content is king, not the add on or mp3 they had on their profile. Once the initial shock of losing things like arcades & casinos (mindless sidetracks imho) wore off (quickly) they had nothing but praise for the new forum bones, and they still do, 5000 of them.

If you're scared you'd lose hits/whatever cause the arcade is missing for example, and you're not a arcade based site, you need to re-evaluate your life priorities for having a forum to begin with, or at least what's carrying your forum. Are they there to play games or post actual content, discussions etc. My entire forums post count/thread count has skyrocketed, and there is more input on the things we are focused on - the topics - now the trivial **** people get sidetracked on is gone. It's raised the quality posting bar if you ask me.
 
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