Think of XenForo as a site, not (necessarily) a forum

[digitalpoint]

There are a lot of default phrases that seem to have been written with the general mindset that the XenForo software is strictly for forums. For me personally, I tend to use XenForo as a framework for a site and sometimes (but not always) use the forum function as a support venue for customers/users. It would be nice if XenForo itself didn't think of itself strictly as forum software. Phrases that tend to include things like, "this forum" when referring to parts that aren't the explicit forum functionality tend to sound silly when you aren't using the forum function. I've has users contact me asking where the "forum" is (when there is no such functionality used) because a random default message referred to the forum.

XenForo software is software for a site, not necessarily software for a forum (although it certainly can and often times can do that too). I've turned people on to XenForo purely as an application framework (and they use it as such, because it's fantastic at is), not because they are wanting to have a forum/community.

It's been an ongoing thing where I need to override the default phrases, and just ran into another one, (the description where users pick a username)... this_is_name_that_will_be_shown_with_your_messages (This is the name that will be shown with your messages. You may use any name you wish.). Except no... this site has no forum, no threads, no posts, no conversations (it has no messages). How about this "is your public username"? Be it a message, your profile, etc.

 

[eva2000]

XenForo could pick up a ton of new sales simply by being able to call itself a framework and marketing itself to people that need frameworks (not forums).

Love to see a LMS - Learning Management System based off of Xenforo framework

 

[Taylor J]

Working on another new project that uses XenForo as the framework and spending far too much time removing the forum functionality. I still think that the way Ubiquiti does it with their hardware is the way to do it. You have the operating system/framework, and then you can install various "apps". In the context of XenForo, "apps" could be the official addons...

Forum, Media Gallery, Resource Manager, Enhanced Search.

Even if the forum "app" was installed by default, no biggy, can just hit uninstall.


View attachment 307549

...XenForo could pick up a ton of new sales simply by being able to call itself a framework and marketing itself to people that need frameworks (not forums).

Did you ever figure your way around this? I am working on a project (more like a comic strip site with a community) but haven't decided on fully removing the forums all together or not yet.

 

[digitalpoint]

Did you ever figure your way around this? I am working on a project (more like a comic strip site with a community) but haven't decided on fully removing the forums all together or not yet.

Yep

 

[Taylor J]

Yep

Would you be up to sharing your thought process on how you achieved it? If not that's fine!

I've only been thinking about it since last night so not much thought into it yet, but so far my only idea is to try to encapsulate the forums into an addon somehow. That's about as far as I've gotten with my thinking and I'm probably over complicating it.

I need to spend way more time with the code base imo, I want to figure out your way of using XenForo as a framework for pretty much everything lol.

 

[digitalpoint]

Would you be up to sharing your thought process on how you achieved it? If not that's fine!

I've only been thinking about it since last night so not much thought into it yet, but so far my only idea is to try to encapsulate the forums into an addon somehow. That's about as far as I've gotten with my thinking and I'm probably over complicating it.

I need to spend way more time with the code base imo, I want to figure out your way of using XenForo as a framework for pretty much everything lol.

It’s a lot of work… but it’s effectively just removing references and links to forum related things. I didn’t go so far as to do it on the admin side, just the user-facing side. Search, feeds, account settings, etc, etc.

 

[Alpha1]

I would much prefer if XenForo would go this route.

 

[digitalpoint]

I would much prefer if XenForo would go this route.

Ya, it would be great if Forums was just a 1st-party addon. I know it can be done because my XF2 Marketplace addon is pretty close to doing what the forums do, but as an addon (it uses nodes for hierarchy and all sorts of other things that XF forums do).

But… would require some dev time to split it out.

 

[Wildcat Media]

I know it can be done because my XF2 Marketplace addon is pretty close to doing what the forums do, but as an addon (it uses nodes for hierarchy and all sorts of other things that XF forums do).

I wish there were a way to easily extend XF so that we could add a new thread type, like a marketplace/classified ads thread type. We have the stock four thread types (discussion, article, question, poll...although arguably, poll shouldn't be a thread type, but a thread option as many articles we write need polls), but there's no interface that I can find where we could add a new thread type without needing to do a lot of development work (which at this age, is way over my head now). We could also use a "review" thread type rather than trying to deal with all the layout issues in an article thread that don't suit our purposes (and we need articles to have a different format). That is what should be more easily extensible, and make it easier for admins to create these.

Don't mean to hijack your thread--just a random thought I've had many times.

 

[digitalpoint]

I wish there were a way to easily extend XF so that we could add a new thread type, like a marketplace/classified ads thread type. We have the stock four thread types (discussion, article, question, poll...although arguably, poll shouldn't be a thread type, but a thread option as many articles we write need polls), but there's no interface that I can find where we could add a new thread type without needing to do a lot of development work (which at this age, is way over my head now). We could also use a "review" thread type rather than trying to deal with all the layout issues in an article thread that don't suit our purposes (and we need articles to have a different format). That is what should be more easily extensible, and make it easier for admins to create these.

Don't mean to hijack your thread--just a random thought I've had many times.

Well, trying to do something as complex as that "without coding" is more or less an impossible task. You can already make different forum types (there are 4 forum types that ship with XenForo... General discussion, Article, Question and Suggestion). However, I don't think making a marketplace/classified thread type within a forum would be the best way to do it. If you are designing something logically, a Nodes -> Forum -> Thread (that really is something for sale) seems like a half-asses way to do it hierarchically (to me anyway).

The way I think it should be (and the way I did it in my Marketplace addon), is you have Node -> Marketplace -> type of marketplace (different types of marketplaces have different requirements depending on what you are selling... like some might need to collect a physical address if you are shipping something). And then you aren't boxed into a "one-type of for sale thread for everything", when it's not even really a thread.



So for example, a marketplace for selling addons, is going to have different needs than one selling something else...



So then instead of trying to force a thread to be something you are selling, you have a more purpose-built system with a hierarchy of Node -> Marketplace -> Addon... the addon being instead of a "thread", and you have more specific things for it... ability to purchase, do discounts, updates, licensing, etc (where other types of items for sale have different needs).

Anyway, you can see it in action here:

Node tree:

Support

We make Cloudflare work the way it should.

appforcf.com

The Store node is a marketplace node (only has one item for sale, but it could be thousands, like a forum can have thousands of threads):

Store

License the premium version of the App for Cloudflare® plugin here.

appforcf.com

Drill down to the marketplace item (instead of a thread):

App for Cloudflare® Pro

Important This plugin is an extension of the free version that is available on WordPress.org (you need the free version installed in order to use this plugin). Everything is available from within WordPress (you do not need to go to Cloudflare for things) via the Cloudflare API. This allows you...

appforcf.com

That particular marketplace item type (for addons) lets it be purchased, and handles licensing info... for example say I wanted to purchase it for 2 sites, with 3 years of updates/support for both sites:



...just not something you can do without coding.

 

[Wildcat Media]

However, I don't think making a marketplace/classified thread type within a forum would be the best way to do it.

I agree it would only apply to nodes. The way XF does it now, though, is that a node can be assigned to only one thread type. So in a sense, we're kind of pointing at the same idea but differ in terminology and execution, and/or just have similar ideas. (I mean yeah, I agree that we wouldn't want a "classified" type of thread in a discussion area, but we'd limit that through permissions anyway.) In essence, the way XF handles nodes, we choose what types of threads to allow in a node; for instance an Article node uses the Article thread type, but also offers us a unique thread preview for the main node page.

We do use forums for classified ads and have no issues doing so, although the layout of the threads/posts themselves are not standardized. XF 2.x does let us add custom thread fields though, so that does help prompt members to fill out required information. We don't have a use for any type of marketplace (as we'll never sell anything direct) so I can see how that is completely different from what we could use as a Classifieds thread type.

I kind of misworded the "no coding" bit. I can't dig into the bowels of XF to figure out how to add a thread type. But if they had an interface for it, we could create new thread types where we would be able to copy and rework existing templates, or make our own, and come up with something custom. This would apply not only to the layout of the "threads," but also to how they are previewed on a node's main page (like the article preview mode). I can work through templates for the most part. But beyond that, yeah, I'm gonna need some help.

 

[Mr Lucky]

that we could add a new thread type, like a marketplace/classified ads thread type.

What’s wrong with a discussion or Article plus custom thread fields? That’s the way I do classifieds.

 

[Wildcat Media]

What’s wrong with a discussion or Article plus custom thread fields? That’s the way I do classifieds.

That's what we're going to do (article thread type), but the layout for that option is seriously lacking. Way too much white space. The details (about a dozen) that we require should be in a more compact and easily readable form, like the sites we are trying to align ourselves with. (I won't get into the niche, but there are a few popular sites that sell similar items, and members are familiar with that type of layout.) Yet we don't want to apply these changes to all article thread types--articles are actually OK the way they are, except we've moved the byline up to the top where it belongs, not buried at the bottom.

Same with reviews--I want a star rating in a certain place, and other details about the item, but again the article thread type leaves the information looking detached no matter which location option we use. It should be more nicely integrated at the top of the body of text, including the picture of the item(s) being reviewed.

Having these as thread types, which could then be applied to nodes where only that thread type is permitted, would fit the purpose much better for us. Or, we might want to mix articles and reviews in a single node, disallowing all the other thread types. This is actually how I would run XF as a blog, and am considering it since I want to dump WordPress once and for all on a couple of non-forum sites.

And my idea is that if we had an interface where we could easily add thread types, which could consist of primarily a different set of templates (or template modifications) for that thread type, would be perfect.

 

[Mr Lucky]

Yet we don't want to apply these changes to all article thread types--articles are actually OK the way they are,

That’s the way we do it. Custom fields only on the classifieds, not normal articles.

It should be more nicely integrated at the top of the body of text,

Again, that’s the way we have done it:

YardSale (members' classifieds)

Saxophones & other stuff for sale

cafesaxophone.com

 

[Aivaras]

XenForo software is software for a site, not necessarily software for a forum (although it certainly can and often times can do that too). I've turned people on to XenForo purely as an application framework (and they use it as such, because it's fantastic at is), not because they are wanting to have a forum/community.

It is a communication platform for us with a built-in granular control of communication nodes. A forum is by definition a public space for exchange. XenForo has moved beyond that with its node, permission, and content type systems. Given XenForo’s current development stage, to describe a specific forum, perhaps a more fitting term would be communication channel.

 

[cdub]

That's what we're going to do (article thread type), but the layout for that option is seriously lacking.

@Bob has a pretty awesome classifieds addon.

Classified Ads System

CAS is designed for forum owners to provide an interface for their members to post and manage classified ads (For Sale, For Rent, For Loan, For Trade, Free, Wanted, Service, Job, Announcement). Note: This addon does not handle payment processing (any...

xenaddons.com

 

[Mouth]

It is a communication platform

Or, as xF themselves call it, it's a "community forum platform"

 

[Wildcat Media]

@Bob has a pretty awesome classifieds addon.

Classified Ads System

CAS is designed for forum owners to provide an interface for their members to post and manage classified ads (For Sale, For Rent, For Loan, For Trade, Free, Wanted, Service, Job, Announcement). Note: This addon does not handle payment processing (any...

xenaddons.com

I did see that listed, but heck if I can find a demo to see how it works, how extensible it is, how the backend is configured, etc. Can't find a single demo link on the site.

Without that, I'm not going to buy yet another disappointing addon, only to not use it. I'm sure it's good for some use cases, but I have to be sure it fits the way we do things before we purchase it.

 

[philmckrackon]

I did see that listed, but heck if I can find a demo to see how it works, how extensible it is, how the backend is configured, etc. Can't find a single demo link on the site.

Without that, I'm not going to buy yet another disappointing addon, only to not use it. I'm sure it's good for some use cases, but I have to be sure it fits the way we do things before we purchase it.

If can register @Bob s site and DM for access to the demos.

 

[Mendalla]

Yeah, Bob was pretty good about getting me a copy of AMS to test when I was specing out a proposal to take over one of my writing sites. Ended up not happening but got some good input from him and was impressed with the add-on.

 

[robdog]

Not sure how I missed this suggestion/thread, but this would be great if we could get the platform to this point. Definitely a lot of DEV work, so I don't see it happening anytime soon. However, I do have my core plugins that disable most of the forum specific functionality. Always a good discussion to see how people use XenForo above and beyond a simple forum.