My ideas for a better Xenforo

Marcus

Well-known member
Some ideas:

  • The Reply To Thread link on the top right of this page should scroll down the page to this editor. If you want, then you click on More Options.
  • I'd replace the editor immediately for CKEditor, costs around 800$ and it works in almost all browsers.
  • the NEW post icon on the right is too washed out
  • the NEW post icon and the "this post was written by Peggy Gurney, Today at 2:29 AM" is both displaying the time of the post.
  • Both information should be displayed next to each other: I'd remove NEW post icon and highlight the post date instead.
  • The post date should be placed on the right, so I am not bothered by it when reading through the posts.
  • Integrate "Like" with Facebook Like if its possible to first store the action in this database and then activate the facebook like
  • if you can not do that, display Facebook Like only *within* the a "You do like it" template is displayed
  • get away with the "New Member" for now, display "special" usergroups, but not common one
  • Instead of the Thread Display Options, give us a "Save current Thread Display view". That's far easier for the user and saves additional templates for you.
  • Rename Showing threads 1 to 2 of 2 to "Showing all 2 threads"
  • Put the signature area to the bottom of each postbit
  • What's New and Your watched topics should be on one page. Replace Your watched topics with "What's new". On top of this page all unread watched topics are on top, of course.
  • Replace "Your Account" and "Kier>drop down box list" with "Your Account: Kier". Two links in one.
  • I want to watch any topic/post that I create without having to click on "Watch this thread" before.
 
Just out of interest, why do you prefer CKEditor?
I might want to look at the icons :)
Looks like you have an extra bullet point - might be a bug - I'm seeing this quite a lot?
 
Just out of interest, why do you prefer CKEditor?
CKEditor is far more advanced and it is a commercial license. I'd prefer that instead of public available solutions. Not so expensive, though. 800$ and you may resell it in any of your products, that's fair.
 
Just out of interest, why do you prefer CKEditor?
CKEditor is far more advanced and it is a commercial license. I'd prefer that instead of public available solutions. Not so expensive, though. 800$ and you may resell it in any of your products, that's fair.

Ok, skinning would be easier with CKEditor I assume? (I use TinyMCE in my custom CMS). CKEditor is a public available solution though.

You are incorrect about the pricing though. The price for the OEM licence, which XF needs is $1450.
 
- ckeditor: 800 or 1450 - that's no big difference for a corporation. vbulletin moves to ckeditor in 4.1. It's an idea for the developers, I am unfimiliar with that topic, they might take a look into it.

What do you think of my other suggestions?
 
Some nice suggestions, but I really like this wysiwyg editor, I think it's just fine in all top browsers?
 
Some nice suggestions, but I really like this wysiwyg editor, I think it's just fine in all top browsers?

I like this editor, too !!! Just wanted to share that I know of this editor and that ckeditor is also nice. I am just here to help out, not to seduce anyone. Maybe ckeditor is worse than this one, I just do not know :)

I start with more suggestions:
  • Put the "Watch topic" link in the same line of the "Thread title / Thread description", so you do not have more line breaks. Important for displaying ads to have them above the top!
  • To be fair, I'd remove the Reply to Thread link on the top. A user has to read the discussion before replying anyway. The less elements, the better - I think this is what this design here is so good about!
  • Rename "Report" to "Go to forum management with this post" or something like that. There are lots of users who want to help out like "moderators" and they can report the thread as "this thread better belongs to the forum x than this forum". This is very (!!!) useful when you have a small team. Moving threads from one forum to another needs a super moderator anyway, and so much people you do not trust to give them all these rights. Report is also somewhat insulting for the post writer. Of course, you should have another phrase than "go to forum management ...", but maybe you get the idea :)
  • Quoted posts should not be italic. Display the posts as they are written.
  • The whole members area is unuseful, I do not have any connection with them!. It should display: MY FRIENDS, users I usually interact with in the forums (fetched from my recent interaction in the topics!!!) So I have a "you usually talk with George, you want to befriend him?" link.
  • Alters. User a replied to topic x, user b replied to topic x could be rephrased to "user a and b replied to topic x" along with the latest user replying as icon
  • Mark all forums read only on forum start page. Mark this forum read in the forums.
I like so much of this here, these are suggestions to make it better to fit my needs. So what I like:
  • that you put the avatar for threads on forumdisplay. Nice to have an image :)
  • Post Reply is darker than More Options. Good.
 
Great feedback, I hope more people take 5 minutes to browse through the features and share their thoughts. :)
 
  • Integrate "Like" with Facebook Like if its possible to first store the action in this database and then activate the facebook like


I don't think that this is a good idea, it'll take away the uniqueness, it's like taking away the reputation feature from any other forum software and replacing it with a FB like button.

Remember, not everyone has Facebook, and not everyone who has it, likes it.
 
Not everyone, only 500,000,000 :D

But yeah, I am glad it's not FB, I don't mind deleting my account soon - but still be able to like someone's post.
 
I prefer the separate "Like" links too. I actually use it here, but if it were linked to Facebook I would never touch it. The point is that I like a post on this community, all of my friends across the Internet and in real life don't need to know I appreciate a post a random person named Floris on a random message board makes.
 
  • Integrate "Like" with Facebook Like if its possible to first store the action in this database and then activate the facebook like


I don't think that this is a good idea, it'll take away the uniqueness, it's like taking away the reputation feature from any other forum software and replacing it with a FB like button.

Remember, not everyone has Facebook, and not everyone who has it, likes it.

Sorry, I made not myself clear. I want this:
post content. like it

  1. Once you click on like it, the post is immediately displayed with "You like this post". That has nothing to do with facebook, this is only xenforo internal database stored.
  2. When the phrase "you like this post" is displayed, it comes along with the phrase "you want to like it also on facebook like? Click here".

Of course not with these phrases, but you get the idea :)
 
That's not a bad idea - the only issue I can potentally see is that the Facebook 'like' button tends to take up quite a lot of space and it might be a challenge to fit it nicely into our UI, but it's something I will look into.
 
Maybe an idea to make your own fb button, and then curl it to facebook with the string? (get end user data, ajax it to the fb api).
 
Thanks, Kier. In fact I strongly dislike the "I like it link from Facebook" on the bottom of this page, as the admin has no (!!) clue if a user liked this thread or not.
#1 Any time, store information on your own database first
#2 Then you can give the data away to third parties like facebook / twitter ...

It's better to have your own thing and control it.
 
The whole like it thing will also be very useful when it comes to advanced artificial intelligence algorythms (or not so ... :))
  • System suggests George to be your friend as you both liked each other mutltiple times in the threads
  • System suggests to subscribe the forum "flower" as you like lots of threads within. But here - these suggestions also work when you just interact within the forum only, you do not have to use the like feature.
Also a great thing is to have this report tool (!!!!!)

Report post > Textbox, but also suggested moderator actions like
  • "This topic is better placed in forum .... all forums are displayed here".
  • delete topic
  • move topic within this topic ... link to other topic inserted here
The moderator then just has to "click yes" and its done. An admins dream !
 
More suggestions
  • Merge "Your account", "Kier>drop down box", "Log out" all with the "Kier>drop down box". They are all the same. Do not go the vbulletin road here and display multiple links to the same location :)
  • the popping up "forum description" is highly confusing for me. If you want to use that at all, put the forum description next to the forum title or below it, but not on the mouse so it "travels" along with my mouse movements. You may let the forum descriptions then not (!) fade away after they were faded in. Generally, the "hover elements in" is not useful in lots of areas on the web, I'd strongly rethink that (and I am speaking of my own experiences here :)).
  • How can I follow a member? I just did not find out. Make it easier to use on the profile page.
 
Top Bottom