XF 2.1 Reactions 👍😍🤣😲🙁😡

Welcome to the third in our "Have you seen...?" series for XF 2.1. We've had a phenomenal, er, reaction, to what we've shown so far. In case you haven't seen our previous two entries, you can check them out here.

As ever, to ensure you're kept up to date, we strongly recommend giving that "Watch forum" link a poke here and enabling email notifications if you haven't done so already 🙂

Today we're going to show you something that we have been talking about doing internally for quite some time - content reactions. This concept has been popular with XF users for a long time and has spawned some popular add-ons. We have quite possibly been talking about doing it since long before it was popularised by Facebook so, finally, here we are 🙂

Let's first look at how Reactions are set up in the Admin CP:

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As you can see, we've not exactly gone overboard in terms of the reactions we're shipping by default, but this felt like a sensible selection. We've added a concept of being able to assign either "Positive", "Negative" or "Neutral" to each reaction and although some of the default reactions have negative connotations, we decided not to assign any of them as "Negative" by default.

But, let's look at adding a new negative "Dislike" reaction:

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The process here should be fairly familiar if you have ever added new smilies as it uses a very similar approach for referencing the image/sprite. For your convenience we have included a "Dislike" icon in the sprite sheet should you wish to add it yourselves.

Most of this is self explanatory, but you will see we can also specify a "Text color". You'll see this in action... now!

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The behaviour of the "Like" button isn't significantly different. You can still just click/tap the button to give a like (or remove the selected reaction) but to access other reactions you can hover over the link (or tap and hold on touch devices) and a tooltip will be displayed with your active reactions.

The "Text color" value we mentioned before is applied here to indicate your selected reaction. It is also displayed in the alert templates for reactions:

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We have also redesigned the reaction summary:

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And the reaction overlay with a new tabbed design:

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And, of course, Reactions are sent through push notifications (if not opted-out):

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We also show a summary of the most popular reactions (up to 3) on the thread list:

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Finally, you'll notice that the primary statistic listed on member list items, member tooltips and member statistics is no longer just a simple "like count" but instead we're now tracking an overall "Reaction score".

This metric is the total number of positive reactions minus the total number of negative reactions.

localhost_21x_index.php_members_&key=highest_reaction_score (1).webp

Most of this is self explanatory so we're probably ok to leave it there without going into too much detail.

Still quite a bit more to go, so we'll see you again later this week for more 🙂

Developers: you may be wondering about a few technical details. We have a special HYS for you guys in a couple of weeks focusing on a bit more detail for some miscellaneous power user/developer changes, so stay tuned for that!
 
As a developer the way I look at it is, we see a niche that needs to be filled and we fill it. As the niche becomes larger, the likelihood that it will become a part of the core increases.

I am 90% certain at least one of my add-ons will become passe and be part of the core at some point in time. It wouldn't surprise me if it was in 2.1 either. I'll just have to wait to see other HYS threads. And to see if there's anything I would need to do to support it in the core, or just let it die. ;)
 
I totally accept the argument that you don't want competitors to know what's round the corner. having said that I would imagine it may be possible to identify the main developers who over the years have brought a lot of added value to xenforo and find a way to work with them.

How many times has there been a question in presages:

"Can xenforo do XYZ?"

"No, there's an addon that can"

"OK, I'll buy it then"

Maybe those devs who are longstanding, trustworthy and bring people into the fold could be given some kind of heads up ('don't do that because we are...", obviously with a well thought out NDA. I work as a beta tester for a very large and well known software company, and I'm privileged to know huge developments a year hard in some cases along with a whole raft of other testers. Nothing of any significance has ever been leaked because on the whole people are trustworthy and respect that privilege they have been given.
Indeed so. To be clear, I am 100% happy with XenForo investing in their platform again. There are flaws with an official roadmap as well, but I stand by the fact that there really aren't that many developers here and a simple heads up this is "planned" (even if its just a label on the thread) would save me and many others time. Which all in all helps make sure time is being well spent towards the software itself.

We are all contributing to this software, third-party developers, customers, everyone. XenForo is not building this on their own, the community as a whole is the strongest here than any other platform. We are all proud and want to help make the best platform. Though we may argue or whatever, its all for the same goal. Doing what we love, and ideally making a living doing it?

Oh, I totally agree that the 3rd party devs (especially the longstanding and trustworthy ones) are very important to XF echo system and I am sure, the XF core devs are well aware of that and working towards some solution, though I guess there would not be an easy solution to this conundrum.

As I said, I feel for the 3rd party devs, and as a matter of fact, I'll surely extend my current license of @Xon's addon next year, even if I don't essentially need his planned extension for XF 2.1, just to show my support to his efforts when we needed that.

But all I am saying is, I can't hold the core devs responsible every time they incorporate a popular feature to the core (because it's almost certain that popular features will have existing add-ons). It's like if you don't do, some say XYZ is better then XF (even if there is a good addon), if you do that by incorporating X's addon to the core, some say it's unfair to Y, and if you just do it on your own, some say it's unfair for X and Y.

And, @Mike Creuzer, yes I get your point. I really hope there is a solution to that which does not contradict the business case. Let's see.

Anyway, my apology for going quite off-topic, for now, let's just celebrate the introduction of a long-cherished feature to the core ....
 
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You can do anything except delete it or disable it. So you can change the text color, name, image, you could make it negative if you really wanted
Any chance to give us ACP option where user have to click on like (default one) to open and choose reaction, because if click give us just like and hover give us option to choose different reaction is difficult with people on my forum.

Also, option to disable some reaction per forum and per usegroup?
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@Xon will your addon give us chance to "extend" default one in xf 2.1 with above? (like it does right now)
 
I know exactly how gutting it can be to have one of your most popular addons make it into the core, as vB5 implemented the @mentions feature from our Advanced User Tagging mod, which was the straw that broke the camel's back for DBTech's involvement with vB5.

That being said, I think it's important to note that unlike said other platform, the XF devs don't heck over 3rd party devs by making the platform an impossible mess for us to work with then choosing to focus on improving the core over improving things for developers. The XF devs also pay attention to our feedback whenever we suggest developer-focused improvements, especially if it's just a wee thing like adding another empty method that we can extend or something.

That being said, I think it would soften the blow quite a bit if the developers of 3rd party mods would get a wee DM saying something like "hey keep this on the D.L. but we're about to start work on this feature [link to suggestion thread] and we just wanted to keep you in the loop". If affected developers all said "yeah we got heads up about a month ago" that would probably calm some of the public outrage as well, not to mention giving developers time to refocus their efforts and transition into other projects.

Hopefully some of that made sense 😛


Fillip
 
That being said, I think it's important to note that unlike said other platform, the XF devs don't heck over 3rd party devs by making the platform an impossible mess for us to work with then choosing to focus on improving the core over improving things for developers. The XF devs also pay attention to our feedback whenever we suggest developer-focused improvements, especially if it's just a wee thing like adding another empty method that we can extend or something.
Very important point. As frustrating as it is when an add-on you've made is then introduced into the core (I've experienced it a few times and it is REALLY frustrating), actually developing with XenForo is a dream. I tried to stop, but I couldn't stay away! Keep up the good work.
 
Like many of you already said it I agree that if something is very popular among other platforms too (especially forum software), it should be taken into consideration for implementation. Or some other forum software platform will. IMO, XF needs more core functionality to compete with other platforms and that is happening right now.

I understand some made good XF add-ons and business with it, but like some devs here already said - that is normal and should be expected that maybe one day your add-on will be implemented into the core system. At least you should be proud :)

Now, let's focus on the thread subject and react.
 
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The problem is that no dev is going to put hundreds of hours of work into something that will struggle to sell for a £30 license at best when it could already be in development as part of the core. At least a bit of a steer on what they should or shouldn't focus on from the devs would be fair enough.

I'm constantly amazed at how anyone is able to make any sort of living out of developing for XF.
 
I would never ask XenForo not to. What I would ask is for clarity when they do. Ive never said they they should not build existing add-ons, but I would argue that there may have been other things to build. Its not a good look, but I understand the rationale. My main concern was the roadmap and if they are indeed working on better ways to improve that and also are treating the suggestions forum as their roadmap, that solves my concerns. Maybe I was wrong for saying it was rude, I don't know, I would have liked a heads up thats all.
I can agree that a little more forewarning via a roadmap might have been cool of them, but I can't agree on the "there may have been other things to build" bit. I mean, yeah, there are always other things they could build, but in this case if they were gonna work on a reactions system there was no sense in holding it off any longer than they already have. The reason so many people are already using addon's for this functionality, and aren't likely to be too jubilant with this new core system, or stop using their current reaction addon's, is arguably because XF has already waited too long to implement it. Assuming there aren't several significant features related to Reactions that haven't been mentioned yet, or that will be added in the near future, it's probably too little too late for most long term XF users who are already using one of the current addon's, but at least now it's a further inducement for new buyers, many of whom will likely be happy enough with the default reactions. And of course all the people who've been content with (or settled for) using the current like's system for however many months or years, this will be good news for them - because anything would be better than that. ;)
 
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Chris has hinted at reactions several times. It was one of the most popular suggestions and the XF team ALWAYS implements some of the most popular suggestions. I was 90% certain that this was coming. Same for PUSH, API, similar threads and possibly even groups. Because those are the features people just keep asking for AND have been getting a lot of votes. I'm not sure how its possible to not see this coming.
 
I'm not sure how its possible to not see this coming.

It's more that it should have been done 4 years ago. It's taken so long and there are now several very strong 3rd party addons that it was one of the last things I thought they'd bother putting effort into at this stage.

It's a nice surprise and having stuff in the core is always better than an addon so we shouldn't moan too much! :-)
 
Who is going to maintain such a list?
Why would there need to be a list? I'm confused.

If they were developing an eCommerce mod as a 1st party addon (like XFRM and XFMG), it wouldn't take 30 seconds to do a search for "ecommerce" and "shop" and DM myself and the other marketplace person whose name I forget.

Can you please clarify what you mean by list?


Fillip
 
All in all, great to see new development coming to XenForo. My main question though is why replace 2 addons (soon to be 3, as isnt Luke building his add-on currently?) from your loyal developers with only a fraction of the functionality?

I personally think this is a bit rude as developers are working on tools like these. Why not do the sensible thing with a roadmap?

No offense, but you did the same thing with your wordpress bridge.
 
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