Some additional pre-sales questions

[Black Tiger]

Hello.
I'm not native English, however I do understand and write it, but not everything exactly.
A friend of mine wants me to migrate his forum from vB 4.2.3. to Xenforo 2.0. And we have some questions about the license:

The 1-year extension provides access to support and updates for a year from the license's current support/update expiration date (or from the date of purchase, if the license is not active). Please note that your license must be up-to-date to access certain licensed customer areas, such as ticket support.

I do understand this for the most part. But does a license give me lifetime Xen 2.0 support?

For example, he buys a Xenforo 2.0.1 license (just an example) and at the end of our support year it's for example 2.0.2. Now the support year ends and an upgrade to 2.0.3 appears a couple of months after that. These are the questions about license:
a.) Can he still upgrade for free to 2.0.3 or does he need the extra support license to do this or is the extra support license only if he wants either support or for example a major upgrade like to 2.1.x? Because if it's also for those minor (like 2.0.2 to 2.0.3 updates) upgrades it's gonne cost a yearly $ 40,- and he has to take that in account.
b.) What if he buys a license now, support expires in 2020. Now in 2023 he decides to do an upgrade from 2.0.x to the newest 2.1.x branch. Does he need to pay 3x40=120 dollar to be able to do this? Or are there seperate prices for major updates?

As for importing:
There is a build in importing script and I already read a lot about it.
If I read correctly, I only have to create a totally empty Xenforo 2.0 installation and then do the import stuff and merge users like admin to get everything over from the old vBulletin installation.
a.) Everything, so also forum sections, and paid user accounts?
b.) And what about attachments? At this moment they are -not- stored in the database (because that would get way too big) but in the file base. How do they get imported. Do I have to create a directory with the same name with all attachments in it and then import or how would that work?
Or are attachments not imported?
c.) Is it better to import vB 4.2.3 to Xenforo 1.x or 2.0.x or doesn't it make a difference?

The last question was about dragging and dropping pictures in a post, but I see this is working by default. So no extension/mod needed for that I presume?

Edit: Forgot one. Addons/mods are they all payware or are there also free mods available?

 

[Mr Lucky]

For example, he buys a Xenforo 2.0.1 license (just an example) and at the end of our support year it's for example 2.0.2. Now the support year ends and an upgrade to 2.0.3 appears a couple of months after that. These are the questions about license:
a.) Can he still upgrade for free to 2.0.3 or does he need the extra support license to do this or is the extra support license only if he wants either support or for example a major upgrade like to 2.1.x? Because if it's also for those minor (like 2.0.2 to 2.0.3 updates) upgrades it's gonne cost a yearly $ 40,- and he has to take that in account.

The licence you pay for is for Xenforo all versions and while active you can download any of the available versions. Once the licence expires, you can still get support on the forums (ie from both other users and often from developers/staff) but not via ticket. You can still download versions that were released before your licence expired, but to download any version that was released after the licence expires, you need to pay for the annual extension, but it will be valid from that point of purchase for another year, not from when your licence expired. So if you let it lapse for 3 years, you don't need to buy 3 years worth in retrospect.

Forum sections are imported, not sure about paid accounts, someone else will need to give the definitive answer on that.

Permissions are imported BUT. you will need to check very carefully as the xenforo permissions work differently. All users must be in registered user group as primary, other groups are secondary. It's worth reading up on this and testing thoroughly.

Attachments are imported into a directory in the file system

I believe currently importers are only available for xf 1, so you'd need to import to 1 and then upgrade(the upgrade tends to be painless, unlike vBulletin, but note that xf1 styles are not compatible with the 2, however if you want to customise heavily you could always install a clean xf2, create your style and export it. Then revert your install to xf1 for the import, upgrade then import the style you created.

EDIT: maybe you can now import to 2.1 ???

Edit: Forgot one. Addons/mods are they all payware or are there also free mods available?

Both - see resources link in main navigation

 

[Black Tiger]

but to download any version that was released after the licence expires, you need to pay for the annual extension,

So also for minor upgrades?

So if you let it lapse for 3 years, you don't need to buy 3 years worth in retrospect.

I'm sorry but that seems not correct to me.
If it is then i'd rather had this confirmed by a Xenforo employee because that is not what it says. It says clearly:

The 1-year extension provides access to support and updates for a year from the license's current support/update expiration date

So if the current expiration dat is december 2015 for example, then this states the extension starts at december 2015. That is what it says here.
Otherwise it would just say "starts from the current date".

I believe currently importers are only available for xf 1, s

The FAQ stated that importers for VB3 and 4 were build in Xenforo 2.0.

Thank you for the answer, I hope somebody can also answer my other questions and somebody from staff can confirm or explain the license part.

 

[Mendalla]

So if the current expiration dat is december 2015 for example, then this states the extension starts at december 2015. That is what it says here.
Otherwise it would just say "starts from the current date".

We let our support lapse (by accident, no one was paying attention at the time) and only had to buy one renewal to get back on support. It calculated from the date of purchase of the extension, which is why my support now expires in January even though we originally bought XF in May. If you buy ahead (as I did last year to take advantage of the year-end sale in December), then it will calculate from your next expiry, not the date of purchase of the extension. I'm not staff but that's my experience so empirically validated.

 

[Black Tiger]

Thank you, but I still like to had it confirmed by staff and also the other questions still remain.

 

[TPerry]

I'm sorry but that seems not correct to me.
If it is then i'd rather had this confirmed by a Xenforo employee because that is not what it says. It says clearly:

Not official XF staff, but the way it works is you can let it expire and 3 years later just pay the amount for yearly support/updates. This will vary by what 1st party add-ons you have. So if you have XF and the Gallery it will be more than just XF standalone.
What seems to be throwing you off is the from the license's current support/update expiration date. It has been stated several times by staff that you can renew whenever you want and your support starts the day you renew.
In fact, I had a copy that I did this exact thing on as I was running XF 1.5 and XF 2.0 was out but I couldn't migrate to it because an add-on I required was not at 2.0 level. Once that add-on was brought up to XF 2.0 level of use I renewed my license with XF for it and my 12 months started on that day.

 

[Black Tiger]

It has been stated several times by staff that you can renew whenever you want and your support starts the day you renew.

You mean somewhere else on the forums I presume. Oke I believe you. I only wonder why staff did not change/correct this line in the FAQ because it's really stating something else there.

Just to be sure:
This means when looking at my question in A, my friend also has to pay again when the support expired for minor upgrades? Like from 2.0.1 to 2.0.2 for example, correct?

And then then the last confirmation:
About dragging and dropping images in a post, I see this is working by default here on Xenforo. So no extension/mod needed for that I presume? Is that correct? Or did Xenforo installed some plugin for this here?

 

[sbj]

You mean somewhere else on the forums I presume. Oke I believe you. I only wonder why staff did not change/correct this line in the FAQ because it's really stating something else there.

It is like they said. You get 1 year and then it expires. You don't need to renew anything after that. Say you wait 5 years and you renew your license, then you get 1 year again from the date you renewed. You don't need to pay for the 5 years.

Just to be sure:
This means when looking at my question in A, my friend also has to pay again when the support expired for minor upgrades? Like from 2.0.1 to 2.0.2 for example, correct?

There is no minor or major things for the license. You have 1 year, that's it. If XenForo releases 10 major versions or just 10 minor versions, as long as it is within the 1 year of your license, you have acces to them.
When your license expires, you don't get any newer releases, no matter major or minor. You can obviously continue to use the software, that never expires, but to access newer versions of the software or to get ticket support, you have to have an active license.

And then then the last confirmation:
About dragging and dropping images in a post, I see this is working by default here on Xenforo. So no extension/mod needed for that I presume? Is that correct? Or did Xenforo installed some plugin for this here?

Yes, anything what you see here is by default (except for the footer down below). For your information, this board runs right now the 2.1 version which is in beta status, which means it is not a stable release yet. It is not recommended to use the 2.1 version in a running forum right now, wait for a stable release (which should come out this or next month much likely). Why am I telling you this? The 2.1 version has a lot of new implementations compared to the 2.0 versions. So if you install the 2.0 version, you may not see some of the new features (like push or bookmark feature or the emoticons etc.) But if you are going to set up a completely new forum with no members yet, you should start with 2.1, there won't be any harm in it most likely.

 

[Black Tiger]

Thank you again for the fast reply. I'm totally in the clear now. Then it's like the old style licensing vB would use in the old days. Personally I like this system better.

I've seen a 2.1 forum running with another friend of mine, looks and works great.

However, the friend I'm asking this for has a forum which already exists for a long time with loads of image attachments. So if he decides to buy, he will certainly not start with a beta version.
So if the 2.1 version is running here, do you know if image drag and drop is also supported in 2.0?

 

[ŽivaAkcija]

why you not try demo https://xenforo.com/demo/

 

[sbj]

However, the friend I'm asking this for has a forum which already exists for a long time with loads of image attachments. So if he decides to buy, he will certainly not start with a beta version.

It is beta, yes, but soon to be called stable. So he should definitely update to 2.1 as soon as it is officially out.

Why am I telling you this?
If he now goes with 2.0 and he installs a lot of addons. And then when 2.1 is out (which is very soon), he may not want to do this because of the addons he got, which might not be usable for 2.1 yet. So he would have to wait for the addon developers.
But the 2.1 brings a lot of good new things, he shouldn't stay with 2.0.
So if he goes with 2.0, tell him that.
Or let him go with 2.1 and pay attention not to install addons which are not suited for 2.1 yet.

So if the 2.1 version is running here, do you know if image drag and drop is also supported in 2.0?

Yes, definitely, 100%. (as a reminder the drag and drop only works for 1 file at a time, so for 5 files you would have to drag and drop 5 times).

Use the demo which runs 2.0 at the moment to see what is available to you.

Btw you can see here the new things for 2.1, anything else which is not mentioned there is in the 2.0 release.

 

[Black Tiger]

So he should definitely update to 2.1 as soon as it is officially out.

If he buys that will be the case anyway when it's officially out. It's just about the import now he can better do that on 2.0 first. He won't be installing a lot of addons. His forum also have a few addons now which become obsolete when migrating to Xenforo.
But thank you for pointing it out to me! And I will tell him also.

Oke great. Thank you for confirming. It's no problem that image dropping is only working for 1 at a time, it makes live a lot easier for his users.
Als thank you for the link to the other new things in 2.1.

I will inform him and leave the decision to him now.

ŽivaAkcija I know about the demo but I rather talk with users about their longer time experiences which can point out various things which I might miss or what is not stated in a demo.

Thank you all for your answers and your patience with me!

 

[sbj]

Oke great. Thank you for confirming. It's no problem that image dropping is only working for 1 at a time, it makes live a lot easier for his users.
Als thank you for the link to the other new things in 2.1.

You know what is also great? You can take a screenshot of whatever you want (for example use the screenshot built-in tool of your browser) which gets saved to the clipboard, and then you can paste it in the editor. You don't need to save them on your machine, just screenshot/paste. And with 2.1 you can upload videos from your phone now (although you should pay attention to the disk usage of that).

 

[Black Tiger]

Yes and push notifications if the server supports GMP, I can just paste youtube links and it shows the embedded youtube windows.
It's just very great!

 

[sbj]

There is also the famous free Media Sites addon which embeds tens of more sites (the XF default is like for 10 sites or something such as youtube).

 

[Black Tiger]

Cut it out! You make me jealous.

 

[Black Tiger]

Found another question. My friend is still doubting between Invision and Xenforo because Invision can drag and drop multiple images at once in to a post.

Is there anything which Xenforo will -not- import when converting from vBulletin 4.2.2. to Xenforo?
Like images, custom bb code or profile fields or whatever. Anything which does not get imported/converted except for the internal url's?

 

[TPerry]

Found another question. My friend is still doubting between Invision and Xenforo because Invision can drag and drop multiple images at once in to a post.

That is a limitation of the editor that was chosen to use with XF. I don't think there is anything that can be done about it without the editor developers changing their editor.

 

[Black Tiger]

Thank you, I understood that part, and they might consider to live with it.

But due to this limitation, they really need to know if there is anything else which does not get imported/converted from the migration except for the internal links.