Well done KAM

[DRE]

1) Thanks for the shout outs on my addons. I'm always open for suggestions too.

2) The term CMS is thrown around these forums entirely way too much. XenForo is a CMS. It lacks a bunch of the content types by default but it is a damn fine "Content Management System". bd Widget Framework adds the one absolute core feature required for a cms and that's customizable blocks. Everything else (your blogs, articles, galleries, etc) will be added in time I'm sure, but it's a very solid CMS to build upon as a developer.

3) I'm working on a shop but I'm sitting on the fence of if it'll released as I'm making it very specific to the needs of http://xenmods.com and it's strictly for digital goods (zip files, basically replacing fetchapp for myself).

4) I doubt I'll make a full casino, but I may end up making a couple of card games at least against the computer, possibly against other players.

I'm on the fence of selling the idea to people that Xenforo is a CMS because using it as a CMS starts getting expensive when you need things that currently don't exist for Xenforo vs a established blog like Wordpress. I actually wrote a long post about how Xenforo is a CMS and almost posted it but then changed my mind when I realized I spent more money on my forum trying to get stuff made for it than I did for Wordpress. I know you're kind of undecided on your shop that's why I only mentioned Microcart and if you need help creating a Casino you should PM @Bob B since he already has one working for his Xenforo forum.

 

[Daniel Hood]

I'm on the fence of selling the idea to people that Xenforo is a CMS because using it as a CMS starts getting expensive when you need things that currently don't exist for Xenforo vs a established blog like Wordpress. I actually wrote a long post about how Xenforo is a CMS and almost posted it but then changed my mind when I realized I spent more money on my forum trying to get stuff made for it than I did for Wordpress. I know you're kind of undecided on your shop that's why I only mentioned Microcart and if you need help creating a Casino you should PM @Bob B since he already has one working for his Xenforo forum.

Oh yeah, I'm not saying it's ready for use as a CMS for the average person. I'm just saying going off the actual definition of CMS, XenForo is one of the most well developed ones. It just doesn't have enough content types to be considered a ranking one, yet. That will come eventually though, whether through addons maturing or once they're done with forum features, through KAM.

OP, I'd be interested once you get setup in what Administrator tools you're missing. I haven't run a big enough forum to know what's needed but even I feel like there's something. I've been tossing around the idea of improving the admin search to show all content that has been made through that IP (user accounts are currently shown, I want to show threads started, users made, posts made, reports filed, etc). Not sure how the reception of such a tool would be though.

 

[Razasharp]

Thanks both.

I agree that XF is more like a CMS. Even vB was useful to power all sorts of sections - we used it for our news, articles, and user blogs sections - all they were were normal forum sections and threads but with different styles to look like different sections - the section homepages were Logicians WebTemplates (as was the homepage). It served us very well, and I would probably do the same with XF.

The benefit it that everything, shows in latest posts - so posts/comments in the other sections are less likely to be missed.

I won't be moving for a few months yet - still got some other stuff to finish off, but will let you know if I feel anything is missing.

 

[DRE]

Oh yeah, I'm not saying it's ready for use as a CMS for the average person. I'm just saying going off the actual definition of CMS, XenForo is one of the most well developed ones. It just doesn't have enough content types to be considered a ranking one, yet. That will come eventually though, whether through addons maturing or once they're done with forum features, through KAM.

OP, I'd be interested once you get setup in what Administrator tools you're missing. I haven't run a big enough forum to know what's needed but even I feel like there's something. I've been tossing around the idea of improving the admin search to show all content that has been made through that IP (user accounts are currently shown, I want to show threads started, users made, posts made, reports filed, etc). Not sure how the reception of such a tool would be though.

I think that's a great idea and if you look at some of the spam modifications that are out there, they also have several ways of finding user content through the AdminCP (albiet, for spam purposes).

 

[DRE]

but with different styles to look like different sections - the section homepages were Logicians WebTemplates (as was the homepage).

For different styles for each sections you can do it three ways (or all three, doesn't matter)

1. Xenporta allows you to assign a style to each Category.

2. Advanced Styling Rules lets you assign a style to a page or section. Multiple options for this: http://xenforo.com/community/resources/advanced-styling-rules.283/

3. Force Style on Thread Prefix by @Chris Deeming who makes great addons for Xenforo btw. http://xenforo.com/community/resources/force-style-on-thread-prefix.1346/

I used Logicians WebTemplates when I was on vBulletin 4. I mainly used it for a tinychat page and about me section. Thankfully Xenforo has it's own pages system which is sorta similar to WebTemplates but it runs faster and is cleaner in design.

 

[Paul B]

You can force a style on a node without add-ons.

Styling the forum index can be done very simply using EXTRA.css.