What is the future of XF?

[back]

I feel that XF is getting bloated now. How will management make sure that it will be future proof? Are there plans to make the software run faster or make it headless?

Personally I would like to see a JS frontend which supports native streaming threads like Facebook or Twitter.

 

[Slavik]

In what way is it bloated? Is there an issue with any load times currently that have a need to run faster?

 

[MySiteGuy]

Bloated, yet it's 100x more often people complain that they want MORE features. XF's staff can't win, lol.

 

[Mouth]

I feel that XF is getting bloated now.

Over 2 years without any community input, and this is your returning, and unexplained, statement?
Don't be surprised if your topic gets ignored or replies are of little value.

 

[Walter]

Define bloated. Xenforo 2 runs faster on my servers than Xenforo1?

 

[Hall of Famer]

Seems to be just a trolling post, lol.

 

[beerForo]

Define bloated.

Bogged down with options, which it is not. There are so many add-ons that take care of what I consider basic duties, but I am glad they are not in core. If they catered to everyone's "basic needs" it would be bloated. So I am happy to use add-ons as it is all relative.

 

[back]

I mean, if I look to newer technologies like React and Angular, XF feels slower.

 

[Slavik]

I mean, if I look to newer technologies like React and Angular, XF feels slower.

How does comparing a platform/libraries to a fully functional system have any relevance?

 

[DarkGizmo]

 

[TPerry]

View attachment 266156

I'll take the former for $1000 Alex.

 

[Wildcat Media]

I'll take the former for $1000 Alex.

Daily Double™!

 

[webbouk]

The issue has been resolved in XF3.0

 

[Rasmus Vind]

The world is turning to a fully client side rendered model while XenForo is 95% server rendered. It worries me because I don’t want to rewrite all my **** again if the XF devs decide to make a new front end .

 

[Arantor]

I personally dislike the “render everything on the client” model because I’ve yet to see any site where this produces a better experience for the user.

 

[Kier]

The world is turning to a fully client side rendered model while XenForo is 95% server rendered.

That makes sense for applications like Facebook and Twitter where there is lots of rapidly-changing, unstructured content such that there isn't really a concept of 'a page', but in the case of a forum you are far more likely to encounter multiple related items that far more represent 'a page' so server-side rendering is far more efficient.

 

[Rasmus Vind]

That makes sense for applications like Facebook and Twitter where there is lots of rapidly-changing, unstructured content such that there isn't really a concept of 'a page', but in the case of a forum you are far more likely to encounter multiple related items that far more represent 'a page' so server-side rendering is far more efficient.

Thanks for speaking to me Kier . I’m glad to hear such changes aren’t planned. I’m looking so much forward to seeing what’s coming.

 

[Lukas W.]

That makes sense for applications like Facebook and Twitter where there is lots of rapidly-changing, unstructured content such that there isn't really a concept of 'a page', but in the case of a forum you are far more likely to encounter multiple related items that far more represent 'a page' so server-side rendering is far more efficient.

I'm not sure I follow that argument. Both Twitter and Facebooks default page are a list of multiple content types, but the same applies to Xenforo's news feed, which in a modern setting would be the default page as well.
Both Facebook and Twitter have dedicated content views with comments that are all related to the main item and to each other (nested comments, etc.) which are practically identical to forum threads on a macro level.

There's a lot of arguments for both sides, server- and client-side rendering, and as a compromise, a lot of modern applications provide a mixture of both (plus static pages). For old-school forums where SEO and content discovery are key, server-side rendering is pretty essential, but a modern community could leverage a client/mixed rendering a lot.
I think switching over from what comes out of the box makes little sense at this point, providing the tools for third parties to build their own solution would be huge though. That would include a more powerful API with access to pretty much every functionality plus proper authentication, and maybe a more modern API layer like GraphQL.

 

[dknife]

That would include a more powerful API with access to pretty much every functionality plus proper authentication, and maybe a more modern API layer like GraphQL.

Yes yes yes. I'm having to essentially build a GraphQL intermediary between a frontend and XenForo.

 

[Will Franco]

I mean, if I look to newer technologies like React and Angular, XF feels slower.

Non-technical person here. Does that mean loading time or coding speed?