Unhappy IPB Customer

[erich]

Hello,
As the title says, I'm pretty unhappy with IPB and I'm thinking about making the switch to Xenoforo. I wanted to talk with developers/community members about Xenoforo and the community as a whole. Currently I run my gaming community website on Wordpress. It looks nice , but wordpress is very very slow and the bbpress just sucks. I've heavily modified it myself with the help of the Wordpress community. I do get peer-to-peer support from the community at IPB but it isn't anything like the support I get from the Wordpress community. As far as the ticket support goes, well....the developers/official support is beyond unhelpful and awful.

Can Xenoforo do all if not most of the same thing IPB can do? IPB has a nice way to create customized pages with nice looking SEO friendly URLs. Is this something Xenoforo can do? Does Xenoforo have documentation about themes? I've built webpages for many yearas, and I've turned into a CSS Framework junkie. I can't stand themes/sites that don't utilize some sort of framework. To me, it brings peace and harmony in a chaotic realm known as "the web". Does Xenoforo have a CSS framwork similar to Bootstrap?

I'm interested in hearing from developers. I'm not a total idiot when it comes to some coding, but I'd like to get the info from a developer who uses it heavily. I generally modify my boards to suit my needs and so I'm curious how easy it is to work with? Is there good documentation? Does the community help out?

I've noticed a lot of addition/plugins to the board. Are the majority of them maintained? Also, as far as security goes, do the plugins that are available to buy, do they go through a quality check? I know the more plugins one introduces the more exploit chances can occur.

I think that's all I have for now. Looking forward to hearing from everyone.

 

[Chris D]

In a very general sense, there is obviously a lot of feature crossover between the two forum platforms. The best way to get to grips with XF is to have a play around with the Admin Demo.

I'm not totally familiar with IPB personally so I may not be able to comment directly on some of the comparisons.

XF does have a system to create pages: https://xenforo.com/community/pages/example-page/. XF has SEO at its core so certainly features like SEO friendly URLs are available.

We do have our own styling framework, of sorts.

There are some demonstrations of this here:
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/style-properties-controlling-style-options.3091/
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/style-properties-ii-a-closer-look.3690/
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/playing-with-color.3798/

Developing for XF is a lot of fun. If you're familiar with object oriented programming, PHP and the MVC design pattern then you will likely find it easier. But, also, if you're willing to learn then you may be ok with only basic knowledge. The code itself is well documented. If you ever require support, we have a dedicated forum for development discussions: https://xenforo.com/community/forums/xenforo-development-discussions.34/

This is our list of Resources: https://xenforo.com/community/resources/

There's a specific filter for the add-ons / styles that are not maintained: https://xenforo.com/community/resources/?prefix_id=1

So, the majority of the add-ons are supported and maintained. We don't do any quality checking ourselves, but we have procedures in place so that people can report vulnerabilities. Reports of security vulnerabilities in the core software and add-ons are rare.

Hope that helps. Let us know if you have any more questions.

 

[erich]

Thank you for the feedback. I will look over the information you have provided.

 

[HostDash]

I have a test XF install running and had an IPB install recently. The features are pretty similar in general, I'd say the main things you'll have to do without (or find a 3rd party plugin for) is the official addons provided by IPB: Commerce, Chat, Blogs, Downloads etc. If you use any of these then consider searching for a 3rd party addon otherwise you might need to have it developed.

For the most part, everything you would need should be in there. There was a site called forum-software.org which allowed you to compare different systems against it's features though it seems to be outdated now by a couple years. Still, it might be worth taking a look though bare in mind things might have changed since then .

 

[erich]

How does the permission system work? I was reading information online about Xeno and the user did an in depth review between XF and IPB(3.x) and she stated that she thought the permission system in XF was a bit wacky compared to XF. Has this been improved in the latest version

 

[Paul B]

There's nothing wacky about it - it works great and doesn't take much to get to grips with.

There are a couple of guides, but you need to be a customer to access them fully.

Essentially, permissions are cumulative, based on all of the groups a member is in, with individual permissions able to be allowed, denied, not set, or even revoked for specific nodes.

https://xenforo.com/help/permissions/

 

[erich]

Hi Brogan,
Thanks for the information.
I'm trying to understand the "node" terminology. Forgive me for asking so many questions.

I will create a demo board and play around with it to figure some of it out.

 

[Sadik B]

If you understanding programming even at a basic level, you will love xenForo. It's simple while being powerful, and that's rare in a script with these many features. I say go for it!

 

[Paul B]

Forgive me for asking so many questions.

Not at all. We would prefer prospective customers to ask more, not fewer questions, so they know exactly what they are purchasing.

Node is just a generic term for a category, forum, page, or link forum.

I will create a demo board and play around with it to figure some of it out.

Highly recommended. Getting your hands dirty is probably the best way to understand what is possible.

 

[Amaury]

I'm trying to understand the "node" terminology. Forgive me for asking so many questions.

• A category is a node.
• A forum is a node.
• A link forum is a node.
• A page is a node.

 

[erich]

Is a "resource" a custom page/database?

 

[Paul B]

This is the Resource Manager (RM): https://xenforo.com/community/resources/

Which is an official add-on - included in the demo.

So when I said "resource", I was referring to an individual entry in it, e.g. https://xenforo.com/community/resources/implementing-permissions-across-multiple-user-groups.358/

 

[erich]

This is the Resource Manager (RM): https://xenforo.com/community/resources/

Which is an official add-on - included in the demo.

So when I said "resource", I was referring to an individual entry in it, e.g. https://xenforo.com/community/resources/implementing-permissions-across-multiple-user-groups.358/

So Resource is like a database entry for like...an article? or whatever you decided you want it to be? Sorry, I'm just trying to grasp the terminology.

 

[Paul B]

Yes, 'resource' is just a generic term for an entry in the RM - which could be a guide, or an uploaded file.

We use it for third party add-ons (free and paid), styles, graphics, guides, etc.

 

[erich]

So playing around with the demo board. I do see something I really like "out of the box" and that is thread prefix's. I also saw an area that one could "re-write" url addresses. This is something that I find extremely interesting especially in terms of having a SEO friendly site.

The user permission doesn't seem to be that complicated.
I'm going to see if it's possible for a user to have "dual" groups. Ex. I'm an "Admin", but I also want to be a "Contributor". Does it give equal permissions, or does one have priority over the other? So if my main group is "Admin" if I give myself a secondary group, will that secondary group override my primary group permissions?

I'm also curious , in the "resource manager" , is it possible to create custom html/php pages? My current main site is running wordpress, but I'd like to bring it all into one big happy family. So, I would like to convert the homepage I currently run into a new homepage with the same functionality as my current site. So, with resources, could I make a page, and customize it like my current homepage?

 

[Paul B]

Does it give equal permissions, or does one have priority over the other? So if my main group is "Admin" if I give myself a secondary group, will that secondary group override my primary group permissions?

There is no user group heirarchy - permissions are cumulative based on all of the groups you are a member of.

I'm also curious , in the "resource manager" , is it possible to create custom html/php pages?

You do that via the page node option.

I created a simple add-on to make a page node a "home page".

 

[erich]

You do that via the page node option.

I created a simple add-on to make a page node a "home page".

Thanks for the response Brogan. When I created a "page node", it shows the new page in the forum. Is this the correct behavior? I also noticed there was no navigation control. Is this something that is a separate addon?

 

[erich]

Hi again, I'm wondering if XF has the ability to have articles? Since I'm using Wordpress for my gaming community, I RSS Import news from various sources for specific games my members play. The RSS plugin imports the feed and then I tell it to place the information into an article category as a new article.
Is this possible with XF? This is a pretty big deal for me since I'm looking to move my entire community to a forum based platform.

As always, thanks for your help and information.

 

[Chris D]

Thanks for the response Brogan. When I created a "page node", it shows the new page in the forum. Is this the correct behavior? I also noticed there was no navigation control. Is this something that is a separate addon?

There are options when setting up a new node as to whether to include nodes in the node list, or not, and some options relating to navigation.

In terms of general management of navigation, we don't really have anything out of the box, but there are a number of add-ons which handle this. One interesting one is named "Nodes as Tabs". I think others can be found by searching in the Resource Manager here for "navigation".

Hi again, I'm wondering if XF has the ability to have articles? Since I'm using Wordpress for my gaming community, I RSS Import news from various sources for specific games my members play. The RSS plugin imports the feed and then I tell it to place the information into an article category as a new article.
Is this possible with XF? This is a pretty big deal for me since I'm looking to move my entire community to a forum based platform.

As always, thanks for your help and information.

Look at the "Registered Feeds" feature which is in the Admin CP under the Applications tab.

This allows you to import from any RSS feed into forum threads. You can either automatically publish them, or approve each one manually via the Moderation Queue.

In terms of "articles" we don't really have a concept of that, but there are a number of portal add-ons which allow you to feature or promote threads in certain forums and display them like news stories or articles.

There are a lot of portal / featured threads add-ons available. Here's some:

https://xenforo.com/community/searc...pdate&o=date&c[title_only]=1&c[is_resource]=1

 

[erich]

Hi @Brogan ,

I have been going through the resources and I saw one of your addons:
https://xenforo.com/community/resources/cta-featured-threads-portal.2599/

Is it possible to customize the look of this addon? What I mean is, can one customize the way that specific forum looks? Would it be possible to make it look like this or would you recommend a portal solution?

The page basically would utilize 3 featured images that are dynamic , and the 4 articles below it would also be featured threads.

Trying to find a solution that will fit my current homepage before I make that decision to switch.