Trying to Determine if XenForo Will Meet All My Needs - Advice and Examples Appreciated!

[jslack]

Hi,

I'm currently enrolled in a course that is using XenForo for community forums and I have found it to be pretty good in this context.

Now I'm in the planning stages for starting up my own community and I'm trying to determine if XenForo will meet all my needs. Here is what I'm looking to include:

• A forum with different levels of access and areas for different groups, ability to like, and build points towards trophy levels. I already know XenForo does this all very well.
• Allow users to give star ratings and reviews of products. I have seen this as an example of a plug-in that appears to meet these needs but want to be sure it will do the job and see if there are any other plug-ins to consider: https://xenforo.com/community/resources/showcase-item-management-system-reviews-guides-garage-etc.1208/ It would also be great for non-members to be able to access and see the ratings and reviews, and maybe rate themselves.
• Manage memberships easily, collect payment for memberships, cancel and refund membership payments, provide access to certain content or items for download/storage in personal member area based on the time they join.
• Display items available for purchase and allow users to buy items here via PayPal and credit card. If I have to, I could direct them to another site for this, but it would be great to have everything integrated into one place.
• I may also want to have individual user areas where they can access everything they purchased, although this is not a show-stopper if it can't be incorporated.

It looks as though with the right add-ons it may do the job for me, but I'm not sure about the purchasing and sale item display aspect, and some of the membership management features.

If anyone is using XenForo with all or a number of the same items above, I'd love to see what this looks like in a real-life example if you're willing to share.

Thank you in advance for your thoughts and feedback!

Joe

 

[Robust]

1. You already mentioned you know it can do this
2. Requires an add-on
3. You can do this in XenForo
4. You can use the RM with an external add-on for sales of products.
5. You can do this with the RM and an additional add-on

 

[jslack]

1. You already mentioned you know it can do this
2. Requires an add-on
3. You can do this in XenForo
4. You can use the RM with an external add-on for sales of products.
5. You can do this with the RM and an additional add-on

Thanks so much Robust!

Do you have any suggestions for #4 and #5, or even #2? Have you used anything for these purposes that you've been happy with?

Thanks!

 

[Robust]

Thanks so much Robust!

Do you have any suggestions for #4 and #5, or even #2? Have you used anything for these purposes that you've been happy with?

Thanks!

I'm less of a forum admin and more of a developer (I make add-ons).

#2: I just realised you said product, not thread. The resource manager has built in rating support, no add-on needed, if you wanted to use the XenForo RM. Other marketplace add-ons also have this functionality.
#4: There's https://xenforo.com/community/resources/xfa-rm-marketplace.4655/ but I remember another, more basic and (imo) much better one. I can't find it at all right now, for some reason. But that one is also good.
#5: Not sure if something for this exists. My philosophy here was either to add the user to a usergroup after a download./purchase, which has access to specific forums, or by adding checks to see if the forum is limited to certain products and whether the user owns it (second method is probably better so you don't have a million groups). I can't find this to exist right now, but custom development is of course an option.

 

[jslack]

Thanks so much Robust!