Update on XenForo development status?

[Shelley]

I would not be satisfied with a "development is ongoing" reply.

Simple, I'm a customer and I would like to know how my 3 licenses ($920) investment is doing. I invested this cash based on what I was told in the beginning and right now this information flow stopped while the developers are not posting anymore. What stronger reason do you need?

I don't think we are the ones who are doing a disservice to XenForo, those threads would not be created if answers would be provided in the first place. How do you explain why the none of developers posted any answers? What I fear the most is to see this thread closed with a vague answer "we are working on 1.2.0" which does not tell absolutely nothing about the direction XenForo is taking or how the software is shaping up for the next release.

Kier posted into his "Hello again" thread: "I can devote the necessary time and effort to focus on our great product and wonderful community." I would like to see this phrase transformed into reality because nearly one month later after his post there is no action going on and no info posted anywhere about XenForo development.

Personally, I support XenForo by paying them $920 and in return all I want is a little courtesy of getting development updates every month (which they offered in the beginning), the same way they want us to buy more licenses or renew the inactive ones. Is all about money after all, nothing is free in this world.

Then this thread will end just like many others which I've not participated in. Your not going to get monthly updates to a legitimate thread you created, question you asked from the developers. Are there updates to give? probably not, is development ongoing probably. what your going to get is a good ole pitch fork crowd making out your question are wrong, be told to use another software (which is just downright pathetic) and blessed with a thread that has all the attributes of going. nowhere.

Most people here support xenforo, most have given their time to support this company, the minority in between pave the way to disrupt threads like this from coming into any fruitation with a response being that goal for you. People such as myself I'm not worried about the silence, some are, and some others that minority = trolls = ****ty atmosphere = my issue with this forum

My issue from when I initially posted is the state xenforo is becoming, the divided community and how these threads effects others where legitimate questions are being asked, devs may have a good reason for keeping quiet, paul is in the middle of it all (yes paul I can see your stuck in the middle) and whether you like it or not a development update may not be coming or needed because there isn't one to give to anyone.

The thing is floren when you bring the community into your "terrible terrible legitimate question" it's never going to go anywhere but downhill. Gee I feel part of the puppet show now.


I'll end by saying....

Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?

Repeat x1000

 

[Marc]

Are you sure ? I think you are off base. I think vBulletin is practically in free fall (vBorg feels like a ghost town). In contrast, xenforo continues to get stronger. Please read my take on things ...

To be honest from what I have been reading lately, incomparison to here its a live party. The only live party in here lately are constant questions about where everyone is in topics such as these.

First off, let me discuss my credentials in the area of keeping track of developers and addons. I am the person whom has wined the most about xenforo's support for developers and their support of Xenforo addons. I have endured the wrath of K,A,M,B and the "party faithful" (Forsaken, King K, et. al.) for repeatedly complaining on this topic. My "mission" to get an Apple Apps type store here with Paid addons in the listing resulted in considerable backlash. You can consider me complainer #1 on the topic of "Addons". To be honest, I have watched and read most of the posts about every addon. Off the top of my head, I could probably tell you "the status" of almost every addon developer (sad, I know, but it nevertheless true).

Once there are a couple who are vocal about not developing at present, you can be sure there are more who are less vocal.

So here is my take: The Addon community is getting stronger. The recent coders that have come are amongst the highest quality developers out there.

Whom I consider the recent recruits:

guiltar (Social Network Authentication (Twitter, Google, VK.com) + TMS templates + many others + others in pipeline)
vinavb ([******] Thread Tags)
Naatan (Template Syntax, Xenforo SSO)
Waindigo (Library by Waindigo)

These 4 are extra good and have made some great addons VERY recently.

Many of the longstanding members are still producing and supporting their addons:

xfrocks (Tag Me, Countless others)
Jaxel (XenPorta, XenMedio, etc.)
Darkimmortal - TaigaChat, Post Ratings, + more
Syndol (Bookmarks [Paid])
Russ (XFS Mobile Style)
Erik (Flexile)
Tilkißey + borbole - consistently produce helpful things.

Some of the longstanding members are back for more:
ragtek (Editor Templates [Paid])
Robbo (Simple Gallery)

We've also seen some excellent new Style Developers / tweakers:
cclaerhout (Advanced BBcodes Toolbar)
Matthew2D (Search This Thread)
TheVisitors (Tips and Guides)
Dinh Thanh (Automatic Style switcher).

We've got more and more people willing to do Xenforo work: SchmitzIT, Clickfinity.
Slavik and Deebs - and their ultra superb server knowledge.
Jake and Brogan (two best forum guys in the biz).

2 of them without even looking at the rest are in there own words not developing until they know whats going on. That being Ragtek and Robbo. And thats just a skim read. I could quite easily make the same kind of post on vbulletin.org and would get similar response.

And last but certainly not least the Heavy Hitters: IGN and digitalpoint.

IGN - ign.com - still going strong on Xenforo.

digitalpoint (Change Analyzer For Enhanced Search 1.0)


The bottom line: When you and your community are moving in a different direction than digitalpoint - you are most certainly going in the wrong direction. You can take one to the bank.

Actually I disagree. My site is nothing like IGN or digitalpoint. Both of these sites have the expertise to develop whatever they need in house, and to be honest had I the same level of expertise I would have probably gone the same route. However for the moment there is not the level of features nor movement for me to continue working with.

Dont get me wrong I love xenforo personally, I just cant do the things I need to as of yet. This is primarily the reason I still have a licence and will be using it.

 

[erich37]

My question for people requesting a development update is why. If it's for a business decision then I would never base it on what isn't released. If XenForo doesn't have the feature set you need right now either officially or through well developed third party add-ons, then pick a different forum package that does. As much as I love XenForo and recommend it, if it doesn't meet your criteria, it's not the forum software for you. I know several people who run XenForo forums and it fits their needs perfectly. Anything that comes out in the future is icing on the cake (or bloat, depending on who you talk to, heh). The only thing you should be concerned about is the status of bugs, which XenForo has relatively few of. There are other reasons for inquiring about the development status, e.g. a developer wanting to know about the mobile skin to determine if they should push forward with their own mobile skin or hold off. This is a complicated area but understandable.

Most of these threads are doing an extreme disservice to the XenForo community. People who may want to use XenForo will come here and see all of these threads, many with crazy supposition, and think XenForo is dead, dying, etc... rather than deciding if XenForo fits their needs or not. If you want XenForo to succeed then it needs an active, supportive community. Not this.

very well said!

XenForo is by far the best software-system out there. It is working perfectly for me, as there are literally no bugs and it is working flawlessly.
Most software-packages out there are full of bugs and just causing you nightmares. XF is headache-free software and fairly easy to use.

Stop whining and give the developers more time to go through their issues.
Think long-term, not short-term.... in all aspects of your life... and success will come to you.

 

[Sadik B]

Think long-term, not short-term.... in all aspects of your life... and success will come to you.

If everyone was so wise my friend...

This advice applies to both, "silent" Xenforo Staff, and "vocal" Xenforo customers!

 

[steven s]

Are you sure ? I think you are off base. I think vBulletin is practically in free fall (vBorg feels like a ghost town). In contrast, xenforo continues to get stronger. Please read my take on things ...<snip>

In my opinion.
Sorry but I disagree about xenforo getting stronger. It's deadlocked. Last announcement was 2 months ago for the Resource Manager.
Perhaps we all just need to wait for the legal issues to be put to rest?

 

[Walter]

Stop whining and give the developers more time to go through their issues.

I don't think any adult need such strong worded advice like "stop whining" and similar wordings coming from a few.
One of the big assets of Xenforo is it's community and it must be possible to express an opinion or voice legitimate concerns without having someone stepping in and getting personal.

 

[Floren]

I don't think any adult need such strong worded advice like "stop whining" and similar wordings coming from a few.
One of the big assets of Xenforo is it's community and it must be possible to express an opinion or voice legitimate concerns without having someone stepping in and getting personal.

You are a true gentleman, Walter. I did not wanted to reply to that post, the ignorance dose reflected into content was so high that would probably not make any difference.

 

[Astrum]

Alright, I'm not going to repeat myself. I will question the premise of these types of threads though with regard to the perceived lack of updates. Here's a graph I just made showing the number of posts per week in the "Have You Seen...?" forum which is where most features debut. It has annotations for the release of 1.0.0, 1.1.0, Enhanced Search, and where we are at present. It has one more (dashed) line indicating if 1.2.0 mirrored the feature reveal schedule that 1.1.0 did after the release of 1.0.0.

The red peak (1 update high) we skipped over is Week 15, we're on Week 18 of 2012. I would have put in the release dates of the beta versions, release candidates, and minor revisions, but the text tends to run over itself.

So if you think we're in a dry spell with regards to development updates, we are. It's also pretty expected.

Edit - Slight update to the graph to mark 1.2.0 which would be Week 32 of 2012 (August 6th - August 12th). This isn't even a guess as to its release, just shifting the 1.1.0 stuff over.

 

[Andy.N]

Kier has been looking under Announcements forum for the past 30 minutes.
Just saying.

 

[Slavik]

F5
F5
F5
F5
F5
F5
F5
F5
F5
F5

 

[Robbo]

Great. Now I'm going to get even less work done because I am doing...

F5
F5
F5
F5
F5
F5
F5
F5
F5
F5

 

[ragtek]

https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/reloadevery/

 

[TimeWizardCosmo]

He's probably tachy goes coventry and wondering why nobody reads his posts.

 

[Floris]

He's probably tachy goes coventry and wondering why nobody reads his posts.

rofl, best post so far. Imagine that .. You sir, just won the Internet.

 

[Robbo]

That was deleted fast. I just wanted to say, Skype looks so much better on mac! Wish people would give linux some more love.

On topic: I would also like more information. However I'm not going to act like a spoiled brat on here. I'm going to just wait or make any inquiries privately (and NOT screenshot them onto the forums). But hey, not everyone can be rational I guess.

 

[John L.]

It's a fine line, it always is. I suppose I can understand both as a developer and as a customer. The developer in me is familiar with the delicate balance of making regular updates to keep my clients informed of what's going on. However, there always comes a time when an update wouldn't make much sense. Unless you have reached a point in development where you have something to show, an empty post is just that...empty. Tell me, would you much rather have a "Have You Seen..." post showing some new completed features for an upcoming release of XenForo or an update stating that development "has not stopped and still goes strong"?

And then there is the customer in me that wants to know what is going on. I want to know that XenForo is being worked on and that there is something to look forward to. Patience is a difficult thing to ask from a client especially on an expensive product. And please do not get me wrong, XenForo is well-priced for what it does, but it's not chump change.

So both of these sides put me in a neutral state. Would I love an update, absolutely! However, do I want an empty update with nothing but words and promises...no thank you. C'mon guys, show me something .

 

[Ranger375]

Well that skype screen shot was reassuring...

 

[Andy.N]

Well that skype screen shot was reassuring...

What was it? version number?

 

[Robbo]

What was it? version number?

It displayed a post where Mike said there was nothing to report so they won't.

 

[Forsaken]

What I find funny is, the very first string of these threads were started by IPB fanboys and trolls, and were little more than FUD, and since than people have picked up on it and escalated it.

I'll probably be called a fanboy again, however anyone who has worked on any development project should know that when there is nothing to update on (Other than we're on this portion of this project, no eta) there is nothing to update on! They now have three products they need to develop and support, obviously updates will be further apart till they've been stabilized (Or released as is the case with the Resource Manager).

As far as no recent update to XenForo (1.1.3), that is most likely as there haven't been many crucial bugs that require a minor update.

I'd actually love an update, if only to stop this crap because it seems like theres a new post every week that just gets out of hand.