Prioritize more user facing features

Renegade

Renegade

Well-known member
It was Sep 2020 when XF2.2 was released which had features which were useful to users.

Then in July 2024, 8 months ago, we had Dark Mode as the only feature which would impact day to day experience of the forum users, that too was possible without this feature. We are having constant minor releases but no useful user quality of life improvements.

Right now I am not too sure of what the future of XenForo is. Is it dying a slow natural death when all the founders and developers have moved on?

Meanwhile other competing forum softwares have embraced features that integrated AI with almost everything. For example suggesting users which forum the thread should go in based on the content. It is extremely useful when you have or want to have a large number of forums.

I posted it here as I wanted to get opinion/votes of other members on this. Maybe my expectations from a forum software are completely unfounded. In that case this thread can safely be moved to "Not Planned" or "Lack of interest".

At the very least a general hgih level future roadmap would be very useful so that everyone else can see their future as well. Right now I am stuck in 2020.
 
I'll be completely honest - I like the consistent updates nowadays. It's miles better than before, so I think we're on a good schedule. That said, I have to agree that while the latest announcements are nice, there's nothing truly groundbreaking. It's great to see XenForo incorporating popular add-on's into its core, but there are even more widely requested features that could be integrated.

Don't get me wrong - I love XF, and I think it's moving at a good pace. But I'd love to see some more innovation.
 
CedricV said:
Don't get me wrong - I love XF, and I think it's moving at a good pace. But I'd love to see some more innovation.
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That is exactly why I have posted this thread.

I would like to see a more broad roadmap so that I can see what is going to come and when. Maybe it will come in 2025 or 2027 or never at all. At least that way I will know whether nothing is coming, something is coming and when is it coming. How can anyone else plan their future with zero visibility.

Even XF must have a broad roadmap in place. Maybe exaggerate the timeline and share something. Right now it is navigating in the dark for me at least.
 
Renegade said:
It was Sep 2020 when XF2.2 was released which had features which were useful to users.

Then in July 2024, 8 months ago, we had Dark Mode as the only feature which would impact day to day experience of the forum users, that too was possible without this feature. We are having constant minor releases but no useful user quality of life improvements.

Right now I am not too sure of what the future of XenForo is. Is it dying a slow natural death when all the founders and developers have moved on?

Meanwhile other competing forum softwares have embraced features that integrated AI with almost everything. For example suggesting users which forum the thread should go in based on the content. It is extremely useful when you have or want to have a large number of forums.

I posted it here as I wanted to get opinion/votes of other members on this. Maybe my expectations from a forum software are completely unfounded. In that case this thread can safely be moved to "Not Planned" or "Lack of interest".

At the very least a general hgih level future roadmap would be very useful so that everyone else can see their future as well. Right now I am stuck in 2020.
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I’ve added AI and nested threads to my forums. It would be nice to see some movement into those areas.
 
I was thinking this only yesterday. And before anyone says, this most definately isnt an XF bashing post. I am just comparing XF with what i would say is their biggest rival.

I was a very early adopter of XF - Back in the legal days when we werent sure if XF was ever going to become a thing, and Kier had to battle in court. Have been running XF ever since it was possible to, and as a forum software, you just cant beat it. I only have a small forum - Circa 4.5k users.

However, every couple of years i do tend to take a look about at the competition and see whats out there.
It worries me.

IPB have now taken all their "core addons" and bundled into one package - which gives people who sign up access to a bunch of useful things for a site - Forum, Shop, Downloads, Events, Gallery etc etc. Does it cost more than XF - of course. Does it add much more functionality - definately.

Xf offer forum software. XF does that REALLY well.
IPB does multiple things fairly well.

IPB has removed their marketplace, meaning that coders apps are all over the place, which isnt good, and along with that, most addons arent cheap. But at least they exist. There will be some addons that i have resigned myself will never appear unless they are in the core (or XF created), and i dont see this happening. I'm a small forum that relies on site supporters to exist - i cant afford £££ on one app adding a little functionality. One for example - Download engine. Poor easy example i know - I think there were two in existance back in XF1.x - however thats something (from a user perspective) thats useful and east to use.

I'm just looking at the new HYS for Xf2.4. Direct message labels (could be useful i guess), add on update notifications (something we already have from a 3rd party developer, just not in "core") and a new editor (the old one seems to work ok?).
I get it's a . release - however maybe it's me thats not getting excited about functionality any more - or the lack of it.

Please - someone excite me about XF and how it is moving with the times... as I just cant see it...
 
Paul said:
I was a very early adopter of XF - Back in the legal days when we werent sure if XF was ever going to become a thing, and Kier had to battle in court. Have been running XF ever since it was possible to, and as a forum software, you just cant beat it. I only have a small forum - Circa 4.5k users.

However, every couple of years i do tend to take a look about at the competition and see whats out there.
It worries me.

IPB have now taken all their "core addons" and bundled into one package - which gives people who sign up access to a bunch of useful things for a site - Forum, Shop, Downloads, Events, Gallery etc etc. Does it cost more than XF - of course. Does it add much more functionality - definately.
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Same here.. those were the exciting days when xenforo was leading from the front even when they were hamstrung. It was exciting to think what they would do to this space once the lawsuit goes away. Alas!

IPB looks amazing for the breadth they have covered. Similarly Discourse looks amazing for the depth they have covered. Wish we had some updates on the future of XF too.

Or maybe a rationale on how the features in a release are selected. Hopefully not solely based on the feature request forum.
"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
 
For innovative front facing features to be implemented , often it requires a technical backend facing foundation to be implemented first.

For example: One of the most important things in my opinion is better content discovery. Especially when it comes to addon content. Currently new content in addons does not show up in unread posts. If you install 10 major addons then most likely you'll have a what's new page with 30 tabs that no one will click on.

There should be one unread posts page with a filter. Members should be able to post any content type from the what's new page.
There should also be similar content widgets that can display content from all content types.

Hopefully xenforo will address this someday because it would be a major quality of life improvement for community users and would increase community activity significantly .
The underlying technical limitations make it impossible for now. It requires changes that are too technical and therefore will never gain a significant amount of suggestion votes.
 
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Alpha1 said:
Especially when it comes to addon content. Currently new content in addons does not show up in unread posts.
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This gets back to the original problems:
  • Xenforo is a forum only.
  • Addons are standalone tabs with poor integration with the forums (Media, Resource Manager)
  • No portal.
  • No serious attempt at pages.
  • Images cannot be threads.
 
Think the guys are leaving it up to us on what we want on our forums.
I mean you can use other third party addons that would suit your site.
I use @Russ pixel exit for style sheets.
 
Seeker-Smith said:
That’s fine but there are some real basic things that need to be improved.

Pages
Drop and drag
Portal
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A lot of those things you can get yourself.

Portal go look at wix or design one yourself using dreamweaver.

Pages there is a tip thread on them.
 
Suzanne O said:
A lot of those things you can get yourself.

Portal go look at wix or design one yourself using dreamweaver.

Pages there is a tip thread on them.
Click to expand...
No Idea Idk GIF by CBS
 
Digital Doctor said:
This gets back to the original problems:
  • Xenforo is a forum only.
  • Addons are standalone tabs with poor integration with the forums (Media, Resource Manager)
Click to expand...
I think this is part of it. We see the same issue in navigation. Most major addons will add to the navigation drop down:
  • 3+ links for new content (Items, Comments, Reviews)
  • 3+ links for your content (Items, Comments, Reviews)
  • 3+ links for watched content (Categories, Items, Authors, etc)
  • Search
  • Mark read
So if you have 10 major addons, then you will not only have 14 tabs in an almost endless horizontal scroll, but also 14 massive drop downs with many links under each. Its too much and users simply get lost. The navigation manager in XF2 is not a major improvement as it does not resolve this.

IMHO Instead there should be:
  • One What's new page with filters for content type and unread. Allowing users to post any content type from the page.
  • One Your content page with filters per content type.
  • One Watched content page with filters per content type.
  • A mega menu that allows for easy navigation.
 
Alpha1 said:
So if you have 10 major addons, then you will not only have 14 tabs in an almost endless horizontal scroll, but also 14 massive drop downs with many links under each. Its too much and users simply get lost. The navigation manager in XF2 is not a major improvement as it does not resolve this.
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Both you and DD have pointed out major usability flaws. This has been a constant complain from so many of my users:
  1. New users: The forums are so complicated, its tough to figure out what is where, will take me time to get used to it. Especially users coming from Reddit (imagine how many just left).
  2. Existing users: Why are there so many links to get to the same page, what is the difference between each of these links.
  3. As admins we have noticed that unless everything is on the same feed (no tabs please), then it does not get adopted. So even if there were only two tabs on the whats new page, the second tab would simply have near zero adoption.
While these things are a complete reimagining of the core, is there even a plan. Where is that plan. If I know I will get X after waiting for time Y, I can take a call whether to wait or to move on. Not getting a roadmap is also OK, at least you know that last 5 years are the indication of how the next 5 years will be.
 
The problem that I see is that we cannot really file a useful suggestion for this for it to be voted on. Because we need to make one suggestion thread per feature. It would just get binned. Creating separate suggestions would lack the importance, urgency or context and few people would actually vote on it. Or they would be too technical to attract votes. This is not meant as criticism. Maybe @Chris D could comment on this. I feel that IMHO critical suggestions stay under the radar when it's so wide in scope and details are technical or seem trivial on their own.

To me, if there is one suggestion that would change everything for users and webmasters then it's this.
 
Alpha1 said:
I think this is part of it. We see the same issue in navigation. Most major addons will add to the navigation drop down:
  • 3+ links for new content (Items, Comments, Reviews)
  • 3+ links for your content (Items, Comments, Reviews)
  • 3+ links for watched content (Categories, Items, Authors, etc)
  • Search
  • Mark read
So if you have 10 major addons, then you will not only have 14 tabs in an almost endless horizontal scroll, but also 14 massive drop downs with many links under each. Its too much and users simply get lost. The navigation manager in XF2 is not a major improvement as it does not resolve this.

IMHO Instead there should be:
  • One What's new page with filters for content type and unread. Allowing users to post any content type from the page.
  • One Your content page with filters per content type.
  • One Watched content page with filters per content type.
  • A mega menu that allows for easy navigation.
Click to expand...
While that is definitely an improvement and good idea, I wonder how much of it is needed on most forums?

Do people really need those tabs like Your content and Watched content?

Most people just use What’s new and that’s it. I can see it being an improvement for more technical forums. Anything other than that, people probably don’t care. Which is why I often just filter them out and keep it more clean/simple.
 
When a user visits for the first time, have an option for them to browse via two mode choices:
  • Classic forum style
  • New age social media style
We all already know classic forum style.

New age social media style means:
  • All topics can be scrolled through on a single page.
  • All topics can be interacted with (replied to, reacted to, etcetera) on a single page.
  • A new topic can be created on that same page.
Don't have a heart attack. It's an option. Most people who find your forum for the first time will like it better than classic forum style.

And what does that mean? They will scroll through, they will react, they will post responses, and/or they will post a topic.

The only difference in posting a topic would be a drop-down to select the forum the topic best fits...

Done. Busy community.
 
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