I am no HTML geek, just a general purpose IT guy, and I have managed to make use of pages for things like a Patrons page to acknowledge members who have contributed to the site (we don't have paid upgrades or memberships since our costs are fairly low). Admittedly, it's the first time I have hand-coded HTML in quite a while but it wasn't rocket science. Sure, I would be happy if page nodes came with a good editor or some other capabilities to help, but I'm managing to get mileage out of them without it and without a huge amount of skill.
Not sure if your example is the right one here. What you describe is just a single page, am I correct? That is not what "content creation" is. Yeah, a single or two html pages, that is not a problem. One can also copy/paste from the internet.
I am talking about hundreds if not thousands of pages. Pages like the screenshots of Lawrence. As an example, I am trying to create a Wiki and have thousands of entries. I have dynamically working data tables integrated to each entry. Now my case is custom to me, so I won't display it as a "general need". What I am trying to say is that we need on this level stuff. Automated, integrated and dynamic. Creating a splash page or a Patrons page is not the same level as stuff like
this.
Well ... after all XenForo is a forum software, not a general purpose CMS to manage editorial content.
If you want to do that, there are other solutions that would be better suited for this task (Typo3, Drupal, Joomla, etc. - just to name a few).
Just my 0,02 €
With all respect, with that kind of thinking mobile phones wouldn't have cameras or a touch screen. After all it is a phone and should be used to call people? And not used for taking pictures? Or listening to music, God forbid you can actually listen to music on your phones...
Sure, I get your angle and it would be too much to expect everything from a forum software. But the problem is we live in 2020 and not in 2000s. The internet evolves and we are still stuck with a 20 year old technology. Expecting some sort of evolution should be normal, wouldn't you agree?
Perhaps my vision is just wrong, all what I say might be trash. No problem. Maybe XF will evolve in a completely different route which I don't agree with. Fine. But at least evolve... do something to progress. Then at least I can get behind it and say it tries to stay relevant. Maybe not what I wished for, but all good.
Your situation is also different. You own many forums and you do it as your job. You don't care about content creation as much as others I would argue (with all respect). You are focusing on the backend of things, so the sites should be fast as possible or easy to manage as possible. You are in the volume business. You are just managing the sites, not actively creating content for them I would imagine. In any case content is always king. What I am suggesting is helping us to create content. Everyone can benefit from it. If you are the 21541651651th person to create a gaming forum, well, you might not understand how the game works but the serious ones care. Also, ironically, I should be the last person to talk about this as I 100% do all of this for non-commercial reasons. I invest time in my niche and pay everything from my own pocket, haven't received any donations or help. I actually could leave tomorrow and wouldn't have to spend any dime anymore. But 90% of you do it for commercial reasons. You should be in the frontline advocating for these of stuff as content generates revenue. You should know it the best that having powerful rankings on keywords is the way to generate clicks and that only happens with content.
That’s why it’s a $100 application. If that’s what you’re expecting from a built in page manager in XF then I’m afraid you will be sorely disappointed. It’s $100 for a reason. Ours isn’t for a reason.
