Showcasing the Legacy Forum / New Age Social Media Hybrid

Sal Collaziano

Sal Collaziano

Well-known member
Licensed customer
XenSocial - A Social Feed for XenForo

Forums are powerful, but let's be honest - not everyone wants to click through thread titles to find a conversation worth reading. Younger audiences especially expect to scroll, discover, and interact all from a single page.

So we built XenSocial - a social media-style feed layer that sits on top of your existing XenForo forum. No migration, no separate platform. Same threads, same posts, same permissions - just a completely different way to experience them.

What it does:
  • 📜 Full post content displayed inline - no click-through required
  • 💬 Inline replies with threaded nesting
  • ❤️ Reactions without leaving the feed
  • ✍️ Full Froala rich-text editor for composing posts and replies (when logged in)
  • 🌙 Full dark mode support (Dark, Light, and System)
  • 📱 Mobile-responsive
  • 🔀 "Main Feed" and "My Feed" tabs for personalized browsing
  • 🔗 One-click "Legacy View" to jump back to the traditional thread
See it live: https://nissanarmadanismoforum.com/social-feed/

I'd love your feedback - what works, what doesn't, what's missing. This is actively being developed, and community input is shaping the roadmap.

Sal Collaziano

Thread 'XenSocial - The Social Media Style Experience [Paid]'

Sal Collaziano submitted a new resource:

XenSocial - The Social Media Style Experience - Transform your traditional forum into a modern, social media-style experience.

Why XenSocial?

Having built and managed online communities since the bulletin board days of the mid-1980s, I've watched user habits completely transform. Today, when someone discovers your community via Facebook, Instagram, X, or Reddit, handing them an old-school thread listing can be a jarring experience.

Modern users - especially younger demographics - expect a continuous, single-page...
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...to note, there's a whole lot more coming... When we're finished in a few days, XenForo will be a full-featured social network - with one feature that'll make it unique...
 
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Ohhhhhh wow @Sal Collaziano

This is a feature I need for my community.

We are a “small” poetry community and get lots of new threads every day. It can sometimes seem very cluttered and is also annoying for users, as they have to open each topic from scratch. This would be exactly the solution to the problem we are currently facing.

It would also be nice if i could create own feeds.
I could imagine displaying feeds for specific user groups—for example, topics from new members, topics by prefix, topics by forum category, etc.

I think I'll come up with a lot more ideas later. But if I were to introduce this to our community, I could imagine it being quickly accepted.
 
huan-karlos said:
it's great add-on!
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Thank you. :)
G@rgamel said:
Ohhhhhh wow @Sal Collaziano

This is a feature I need for my community.

We are a “small” poetry community and get lots of new threads every day. It can sometimes seem very cluttered and is also annoying for users, as they have to open each topic from scratch. This would be exactly the solution to the problem we are currently facing.

It would also be nice if i could create own feeds.
I could imagine displaying feeds for specific user groups—for example, topics from new members, topics by prefix, topics by forum category, etc.

I think I'll come up with a lot more ideas later. But if I were to introduce this to our community, I could imagine it being quickly accepted.
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Thank you. :) Interesting ideas! And I will keep a note of them. At the moment, the "My Feed" option allows people to see only things they're specific interested in. But it's always good to discuss additional functionality opportunities...
huan-karlos said:
better to open comments in pop-up window for mobile site version and hide reply area by default
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Thank you for the input! I've added this to my notes and will consider changing the add-on if enough people are looking for the same thing.
 
A few suggestions here

These are more helpful for end user feedback about what happens to their post.

1776446707429.webp

I think it would be ideal to have INLINE replies.

1776447909696.webp

and add a message about moderation.

AND after that the login test123 is automatically entered for further replies.
 
Tried sending a direct message, the site glitched (or I'm being discouraged!) so here it is via your thread, sorry

Hi Sal,

Nice job with XenSocial so far. It might work really well as the site design for a non-profit I've started. When do you expect to release it as an addon?

My plan is to have a minimal number of sub-forums for our publishing needs with each funneling into the social feed. I'd also like there to be a few general use sub-forums where I'd want the option to elevate individual posts to the social feed.

If we opened a sub-forum, with multiple sub-sub-forums, for a splinter organization, could we assign their content to a different social feed link?

Also, could one or more posts be pinned at the top of the feed? Maybe pin an introduction post at the top and allow it to clear out for registered members?

very nice work, thanks again.
Bart
 
Digital Doctor said:
These are more helpful for end user feedback about what happens to their post.
Click to expand...

I'm definitely fixing the issue where if you post as a GUEST/UNREGISTERED MEMBER, you're notified that your message went into moderation (if that's how you have it set). To note, anyone who posts as a REGISTERED MEMBER doesn't experience this issue.

Digital Doctor said:
I think it would be ideal to have INLINE replies.
Click to expand...

Can you explain INLINE REPLIES further? This is how replies currently look.

inlinereplies.webp

For email updates - I'll add a button to WATCH a discussion like the rest of XenForo.

Digital Doctor said:
and add a message about moderation.
Click to expand...

I'm definitely fixing the issue where if you post as a GUEST/UNREGISTERED MEMBER, you're notified that your message went into moderation (if that's how you have it set). Thank you for letting me know about that bug.

Digital Doctor said:
AND after that the login test123 is automatically entered for further replies.
Click to expand...

To note, since I allow guest posting, we created an add-on that limits that sort of thing to X posts held in moderation. You bumped into that limit. This keeps me free from somebody coming to the site and posting endless amounts of messages as a guest. It's based on IP address - but if the forum gets a sudden surge in guest posts, it'll just turn off the feature - as guest posts are of limited importance to me and the community.
 
Bart23Sept said:
Tried sending a direct message, the site glitched (or I'm being discouraged!) so here it is via your thread, sorry

Hi Sal,

Nice job with XenSocial so far. It might work really well as the site design for a non-profit I've started. When do you expect to release it as an addon?

My plan is to have a minimal number of sub-forums for our publishing needs with each funneling into the social feed. I'd also like there to be a few general use sub-forums where I'd want the option to elevate individual posts to the social feed.

If we opened a sub-forum, with multiple sub-sub-forums, for a splinter organization, could we assign their content to a different social feed link?

Also, could one or more posts be pinned at the top of the feed? Maybe pin an introduction post at the top and allow it to clear out for registered members?

very nice work, thanks again.
Bart
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As it stands, you can include or exclude forums from the social feed in the adminCP. Are you describing the need for the ability to SEND specific threads into the Social Feed? So a button in the (what I call) Legacy Forum area to add it into the Social Feed without actually having all the forum's topics included...?

I don't have plans for more Social Feeds at this time - other than the two that are currently included (Main Feed and My Feed). However, if this is something people generally have a need for, I'll fit it in at some point. I've never even considered completely different social feeds as my goal was simply to have a New Age experience for people who prefer scrolling and participating on a single page.

Pinning a post to the top sounds like a pretty important feature... Maybe we can create something like FEATURED POSTS on top - or even potentially another Feed (sort of): Main Feed | My Feed | Featured Feed
 
Sal Collaziano said:
Can you explain INLINE REPLIES further? This is how replies currently look.
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You see your post after you click [Submit]

as opposed to this:
1776605181472.webp
If you wanted multiple reply options then have both.

It feels really empty to post something and it not even show up.
Certainly discourages people from coming back. I'd even allow them to get replies (if that is possible).

If you give them a great answer and point them to content on your forum .... it would surely encourage them to sign up.
 
Digital Doctor said:
You see your post after you click [Submit]

as opposed to this:
View attachment 336482
If you wanted multiple reply options then have both.

It feels really empty to post something and it not even show up.
Certainly discourages people from coming back. I'd even allow them to get replies (if that is possible).

If you give them a great answer and point them to content on your forum .... it would surely encourage them to sign up.
Click to expand...
I had mentioned already that this is a bug only for unregistered users who post. This does not happen to anyone with a registered account.
 
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