vB3 Admin - Misc Inquiries about XenForo…

[adwade]

I have run vB3 for over a decade and am looking into XenForo now. I have requested a DEMO and played with it a bit, but don't quite understand a thing or two…

Namely,
1)Under Display Location it states "These fields will never be displayed on a user's profile."
Does that mean PROFILE FIELDS can not be part of a users viewable profile? If so, it sort of defeats the purpose for our needs.

2)Is there anyway to import a set of choices for a drop-down selection?
I ask, because we run a bicycling website where each user declares their state/country & region within the state/country (i.e. N,NE,NW,S,SE,SW,E,W), so folks can sort of find one another. In vB3 I just copied/pasted a list of all States & Countries for my drop-down choices. In XenForo, it looks like you add each choice manually?

3)Also, is there a limit to the number of choices and if so what is that limit?(i.e. Enough for ALL States & Countries)

 

[adwade]

That said, I assume [mono] is monospaced text?

In which case, you might actually want to use the Post Content Find / Replace add-on to convert them to [code] tags instead.

This is probably the closest equivalent to [mono] in XenForo

Yes, it's mono spaced text, but as you denoted converting such to [code] would make it stand out even a bit more.

 

[adwade]

9)What is the auto addon installer? I've seen it be referred to a few times in some discussions, but can't seem to locate it via search, nor do I find such in the Admin-CP.

 

[imthebest]

Add-on Install & Upgrade
Install and Upgrade by Waindigo

I personally do not recommend using these and instead I suggest you to use the traditional method (which you must be used to if you are coming from vBulletin: upload files and then install the add-on using the XML file).

 

[whynot]

What is the auto addon installer? I've seen it be referred to a few times in some discussions, but can't seem to locate it via search, nor do I find such in the Admin-CP.

That's an addon to install automatically addons.
Don't look for it in the ACP.

 

[adwade]

I personally do not recommend using these and instead I suggest you to use the traditional method (which you must be used to if you are coming from vBulletin: upload files and then install the add-on using the XML file).

Thanxx for the reply. Yes I'm used to the traditional method with vB, but I've used the Advanced Product Management MOD to install & keep track of things.(i.e. Release Date, Product Author, Installed Version, etc.) So I wasn't sure what was being referred to, when folks mentioned an auto addon installer.

 

[adwade]

10)If I understand correctly, XenForo has a built-in Template Modification System nowadays? If so, then TMS 1.3.1 is no longer required for such?

I never used it on vB, but the concept always interested me…especially when it came time to upgrade versions.

 

[Chris D]

Correct, but it is more of a development tool than a styling tool.

It's a much more convenient way for add-on developers to apply changes to the Master Style than the old way (which is now deprecated). That particular add-on may enable the template modifications to apply on a per-style basis, though.

Putting that concept to one side for one second, generally modifying templates directly in XenForo is considered to be pretty safe. Come upgrade time, any changes you have made will remain, any changes we have made to the templates will cause the template you have edited to be marked as "outdated". To solve that, there's a very handy and easy to use 3 way merge tool which, for the most part, should allow you to automatically merge your changes in with ours.

It gets slightly more complicated if you have modified something that we have also modified, or where the changes otherwise intersect, but it's all laid out on screen so you can hopefully quite easily resolve any conflicts.

Another option in this situation is to just revert the changes to the template (this loses your changes) but you then should be able to add them back in manually with relative ease.

 

[adwade]

11)In our present vB forum, users use State and City (reqd user profile fields) as a way to locate on another. On each user's profile page, both the State and City are LINKED to our members list. When they click on their STATE, they are shown a listing of other riders who also live in that same state. When they click on their CITY, they are shown a listing of other riders who also ride in/around that same city. Once at the members listing, they can click on also click on the same values from there.(see screen shot)

Is there a way to do something similar in XenForo? I've looked around in my demo and cannot find anywhere to add a user profile field to the members listing that is displayed. I'm going to cross my fingers and hope there is some way to accomplish, as it's a prime feature on our vB board.

 

[Chris D]

Unfortunately there isn't anything similar by default, but there may be an add-on that provides that.

 

[adwade]

Come upgrade time, any changes you have made will remain, any changes we have made to the templates will cause the template you have edited to be marked as "outdated". To solve that, there's a very handy and easy to use 3 way merge tool which, for the most part, should allow you to automatically merge your changes in with ours.

WOW, to me, this is certainly impressive. I had no idea XenForo had this capability built-in. Very nice!

 

[adwade]

Unfortunately there isn't anything similar by default, but there may be an add-on that provides that.

Well it doesn't have to be on the members listing, it was just easiest to there in vB. As long as a user could click on a State or City listing somewhere on the board and then be shown who else is also riding around in that area we could probably work with that.

I would hate devolve to having each user perform a search for one another, but is there an Advanced User Search function in XenForo? If so, are user profile fields searchable?

 

[James]

Well it doesn't have to be on the members listing, it was just easiest to there in vB. As long as a user could click on a State or City listing somewhere on the board and then be shown who else is also riding around in that area we could probably work with that.

I would hate devolve to having each user perform a search for one another, but is there an Advanced User Search function in XenForo? If so, are user profile fields searchable?

See if this helps: Advanced Member Profile Search

 

[Chris D]

I would hate devolve to having each user perform a search for one another, but is there an Advanced User Search function in XenForo? If so, are user profile fields searchable?

This was mostly my point.

Profile fields aren't searchable by members. There is a custom field search in the Admin CP but that obviously won't help your specific use case.

Hopefully the link James has posted above will help.

 

[adwade]

Thanxx @James for the resource mentioned above. It does look like it allows for searching based on data in user profile fields.

Just trying to think of a way to collectively group members together somehow. I'm not referring to the @User system here, but is there any kind of TAG system for users similar to Thread Tags? By that, I mean when you click on a Thread Tag you are shown a list of all threads with that same tag. If so, I was thinking maybe I could TAG each user based upon their State/Country.

Lastly, User Criteria by Waindigo looks to be able to add users to different user groups based on user profile fields. I would hate to develop a different usergroup for each State/Country, but could doing so somehow work towards my end goal of allow users to locate one another?

 

[James]

I think there are addons out there for you to utilise and also plenty of tutorials on how to create a custom page so worst case scenario you could post an addon request or have a stab yourself.

I'd say set up a test install and give your addons a try; fairly sure they'd work!

Note that at present clicking the location field takes you to Google maps and pinpoints it. You'd just have to change that to the search URL from whichever addon you use/create.

 

[adwade]

I think there are addons out there for you to utilise and also plenty of tutorials on how to create a custom page…

I'd wondered about that, if a custom report page could be created to work in similar fashion as to how our vB3 does now.

I'm closer to pulling the trigger on XenForo, but just trying to make sure there's no show-stoppers for our community. Different isn't bad…as long as it doesn't equal missing primary features for us.

 

[adwade]

..and also plenty of tutorials on how to create a custom page

I've looked some, but I must be looking in the wrong places here. Could someone point me to a spot where tutorials are about creating custom pages for XenForo?

 

[TPerry]

I personally do not recommend using these and instead I suggest you to use the traditional method (which you must be used to if you are coming from vBulletin: upload files and then install the add-on using the XML file).

And I do recommend the one by Chris. I've never had problems with it on any of my servers/sites that I've used it on, and the auto-check for updates is a godsend if you have multiple sites running different add-ons.

 

[James]

I've looked some, but I must be looking in the wrong places here. Could someone point me to a spot where tutorials are about creating custom pages for XenForo?

[GUIDE] Custom Pages with Navigation Tabs
Have you seen this? I think it'll be fairly accurate still.

 

[0ptima]

Add-on Install & Upgrade
Install and Upgrade by Waindigo

I personally do not recommend using these and instead I suggest you to use the traditional method (which you must be used to if you are coming from vBulletin: upload files and then install the add-on using the XML file).

I use Add-on Install & Upgrade and upload all my addons then use option 3 to install them all in one shot.