MediaWiki, Joomla, and JFusion capable?

xIsabel38

Well-known member
Hello everyone,

First and foremost I must say that so far I am extremely impressed with this forum software. I have been using SMF for so long over multiple websites that I've become increasingly comfortable with it, and yet this is the first time I am truly truly considering leaving it all behind for new software.

Today is the very first day I ever even hear the name, XenForo and already chances are, I'm going to purchase this forum software on Friday the 31st, so I can play with it all weekend.

Alright so I have been doing a lot of searching on these boards and on google for mods and stuff because my current SMF forum has 42 mods installed onto it and I would like to emulate those features as much as possible. In some cases, I have found what I was looking for whereas in others, I haven't. But I figured, regardless of my findings or lack thereof, you all use this forum software and you all use these add-ons, so you all are much better experienced than I am and can point me in a direction I may not have found myself.

So here we go, first and foremost. My most important question.

My website is divided into three entites. There's the website itself made from Joomla! CMS 2.5, there's the forum made with SMF 2.0.2, and then there's the Wiki made with MediaWiki 1.19.1.

That's three different software with three different databases and three different user accounts. Obviously, that's a bit much for my users so we're using JFusion as a bridge.

Can JFusion (or any other bridge) be used to integration Joomla with XenForo with MediaWiki? I searched this and found that it was available for an older version of Joomla, but haven't found anything about the latest 2.5 build.

The following questions are based more on mods or features. I tried the Demo though currently I haven't been able to try it out extensively because I'm at work. I'm hoping to try it out more in-depth tonight when I get home.

Is there a users online feature?
- Displays whose online now within X amount of time and/or whose been online in the past 24 hours.

Is there an awards style display?
- Like where I can upload some 32x32 .png files to use as a little graphic which users can earn and display on their posts. While going through the Demo, I was awarded for my first post... is there a way to show this on posts or upload images for it?

Is there usergroup / membergroup style rank icons?
- I noticed on the demo and on this website that no one has the basic stars.gif or anything like that under their username.

Is there an Arcade for this forum?
- I searched and only found the xFArcade.

Is there a "Shop"?
- Like SMF Shop, users gain "credits" for various activities they do on the website. They can then spend these "credits" for fluff style items such as a custom username color, the ability to alter their username, changing their rank icons from stars to hearts, angels, pirates, ninjas, etc...

If you had to pick only one mod for your XenForo and no more, which one would you pick and why?

My website is a gaming community based website so community based features and mods are extremely important. Are there any mods you could recommend I take a look at?

I sincerely appreciate you taking your time to read all this. Thanks so much!


Couple more questions real quick:
If I purchase a License and then my website dies, doesn't do well, sucks big time, or otherwise has to close for any reason, can I later reuse my license to upload the forum to a new website in the future?

I read that you can only install the forum twice. Once for real and another as a test. But I like to go crazy with mods and stuff. And sometimes mods don't play nice with other mods. If I cause some sort of database error in my testing, is it not going to be possible to reinstall a fresh copy of the forum?
 
Well firstly, welcome to Xenforo, hope you do buy it and become one of the family ;) hehe.

Ok then for your questions:

"There's the website itself made from Joomla! CMS 2.5, there's the forum made with SMF 2.0.2, and then there's the Wiki made with MediaWiki 1.19.1."

Well we don't have a Wiki yet but Jaxel is amazing and I'm sure he would make a Xenforo version of his VB one.

Can JFusion (or any other bridge) be used to integration Joomla with XenForo with MediaWiki?

I'm not sure but since I'm not a developer I can't say yes or no but I'm sure a member will help you with that.

Is there an awards style display?

Yes there is: xFrocks made this: http://xenforo.com/community/resources/bd-medal-system.964/ It's the same thing but called Medal.

Is there usergroup / membergroup style rank icons?

At Xenforo you can use the ribbons theme userbars (You will need to edit templates): http://xenforo.com/community/resources/rt-user-rank-images.842/
http://xenforo.com/community/resources/rt-user-rank-ribbons.832/update?update=1522 check them both out both addons by Daniel 'RTRD'

Is there an Arcade for this forum?

There isn't one at the moment, however the one you found is the one in development I believe.

Is there a "Shop"?

I believe you're looking for http://xenforo.com/community/resources/ice-shop.904/ Nice shop by -Ice- or you could look at: http://xenforo.com/community/resources/myshop.703/ created by Mythotical

If you had to pick only one mod for your XenForo and no more, which one would you pick and why?

http://xenforo.com/community/resources/8wayrun-com-xenutiles-tools.104/ Because It's the best way to stop spammers.

My website is a gaming community based website so community based features and mods are extremely important. Are there any mods you could recommend I take a look at?

You may want to look at: http://xenforo.com/community/search/2485518/?q=gaming&t=resource_update&o=date

Couple more questions real quick:
If I purchase a License and then my website dies, doesn't do well, sucks big time, or otherwise has to close for any reason, can I later reuse my license to upload the forum to a new website in the future?

Yes you can, you can edit your site URL at any time in the customer area.

I read that you can only install the forum twice. Once for real and another as a test. But I like to go crazy with mods and stuff. And sometimes mods don't play nice with other mods. If I cause some sort of database error in my testing, is it not going to be possible to reinstall a fresh copy of the forum?

Yes you can re-install it.

Hope this helps you with your questions, and once again welcome to the community and welcome to the forum.
 
Trust me you wont go back from Xenforo you will love it to bits :)

Oh yes, I'm honestly already getting giddy about it. Knowing me, I'd probably have bought it already if I had the money but alas... must... wait til.. pay day.

The only drawback is that I'm losing the familiarity I already have with SMF. Not only that, but all of the features and modifications I have installed, self coded into it, or hired paid contractors to design.

But I'm honestly willing to eat the cost and forfeit everything I know and love with SMF to try this out. I'm loving everything I'm seeing thus far and I know my users will be happier with it at the end.
 
Oh yes, I'm honestly already getting giddy about it. Knowing me, I'd probably have bought it already if I had the money but alas... must... wait til.. pay day.

The only drawback is that I'm losing the familiarity I already have with SMF. Not only that, but all of the features and modifications I have installed, self coded into it, or hired paid contractors to design.

But I'm honestly willing to eat the cost and forfeit everything I know and love with SMF to try this out. I'm loving everything I'm seeing thus far and I know my users will be happier with it at the end.
:) Its easy to use you're get the hang of it, plus we are here to help :)
 
I do have another question for anyone that might know. Well it's really one of the same questions I had above but my developer needs to know this and I haven't yet gotten an answer.

Is there a way to bridge Joomla with xenForo?

JFusion does not officially support xenForo however some 3rd party plug-ins may exist for that. But I need to know if anyone knows of a sure way to bridge these two together. At this point I'm not even worried about bridging MediaWiki.
 

I've done this already and explained that in my original post. The search I got back all seemed to revolve around using 3rd party plug-ins by Coop (here on this forum) to bridge the two together. However, he explains in his thread located here that his plug-in is untested and may even cause issues with the latest Joomla 2.5 release. I was wondering if anyone knew of a different way that was certain, proven, or tested to work.

So if you know if there's another way, or if Coops plug-in does work on 2.5, please let me know.
 
Joomla is changing so much now it's hard to keep a bridge going with it.
I think you'd be the first with 2.5.

Oh man, don't say that. That scares me. Is there something wrong with 2.5 that I don't know about?

Also, I sent Coop a PM regarding his add-on. I'm so excited about switching from SMF to xenForo but I'm nervous about it too. I'm scared of having to learn a new system and finding out that there are more problems than I realized (especially with the bridge of Joomla, xenForo, and MediaWiki).

And doing the research, I really wish that xFArcade would have taken off as well, since I currently have SMF Arcade and it would hurt to lose it. But even still, I love the modern programming of xenForo and the overall thought process that went into its creation. I'm hoping against everything I know and love already that this is going to work otherwise... I'm out a lot of cash. Not just for payment of xenForo, but for the payment of all the programmers, designers, and graphic artists that are currently working on building my site foundation, layout, and design.

I wish I was blessed with the ability to code and learn these alphanumeric languages, but I'm just a common speck of dust among the rest.

-Oh another question. Can I purchase the license for xenForo and then purchase the brand removal extra later on? If so, will it still be the same price?
 
I just purchased xenForo with Branding Free License!

I'm so excited and yet I'm so nervous!

Another question, I want to install the forum into a test server first, but this says you can do that as long as it's password protected. How do you password protect a directory on your website?
 
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