XF 2.3 What's new for developers in XenForo 2.3?

As promised, this week we're going to take a quick look at some of the more developer-centric changes coming in XenForo 2.3.

If a certain topic interests you more than others, click one of the links below:

• JavaScript
• SwiftMailer to Symfony Mail
• Doctrine Cache to Symfony Cache
• Updated Emogrifier
• Registry preload event
• Native IP conversion methods
• Support for class strings
• Updates to <time> tags - short date format
• Template names in HTML output
• AbstractCollection nth method
• Smart Javascript cache buster
• XF.createElement
• Template macro syntax changes
• Direct messages

Please note that the following libraries are no longer bundled with XF 2.3:

• ccampbell/chromephp
• doctrine/cache
• league/flysystem-ziparchive
• swiftmailer/swiftmailer
• symfony/debug
• web-token/jwt-signature-algorithm-eddsa
• web-token/jwt-signature-algorithm-hmac
• web-token/jwt-signature-algorithm-none
• web-token/jwt-signature-algorithm-rsa

While we do have a little more to show you, the next couple of weeks is going to be focused on getting XenForo 2.3 ready to be installed here and some additional "Have you seen...?" posts may arrive between then and a public beta release. Until then, thanks for coming on this journey with us.

 

[Chris D]

Except some users are going to think it really means deleted and will be surprised when other people still have access. At minimum, if we use the term "Delete" then we really have to push the narrative that this is basically email, not some kind of private thread. I am not sure everyone actually thinks of DMs that way.

I guess my question would be, what do FB and X do? Do you Leave a DM or Delete it? Because that's what people are going to relate to and is basically the reason for changing the name to DMs in the first place.

You deleted this but you make a good point.

Still deciding but my preference is to go with Delete for the button which currently says Leave and the title of this overlay will be “Delete conversation” and explains clearly what that means, which I think the current Leave overlay does make clear.

This is basically the same as X.

 

[James]

You deleted this but you make a good point.

Still deciding but my preference is to go with Delete for the button which currently says Leave and the title of this overlay will be “Delete conversation” and explains clearly what that means, which I think the current Leave overlay does make clear.

This is basically the same as X.

And messenger. It says delete (just delete, not delete convo/chat/etc) followed by the attached - clearly stating "your copy".

 

[Forsaken]

You deleted this but you make a good point.

Still deciding but my preference is to go with Delete for the button which currently says Leave and the title of this overlay will be “Delete conversation” and explains clearly what that means, which I think the current Leave overlay does make clear.

This is basically the same as X.

Never be the same as X.

 

[Chris D]

Well, not just X.

 

[beerForo]

“Delete conversation” and explains clearly what that means, which I think the current Leave overlay does make clear.

There's also two options when you click Leave, how will that work?

Leave conversation
Leaving a conversation will remove it from your conversation list.
Future message handling

• Accept future messages
  Should this conversation receive further responses in the future, this conversation will be restored to your inbox.
• Ignore future messages
  You will not be notified of any future responses and the conversation will remain deleted.

Leave

 

[Chris D]

How will it work? It will work the same as it does now with some language adjustments.

 

[beerForo]

Seems odd to "delete" something but have to choose to receive or ignore future messages.

 

[Chris D]

It will be well explained. It’s really not difficult to grasp, but apparently there’s a subset of people who even struggle with understanding the word “Leave” in this context so having the button named “Delete” should help those people.

In any case, delete is correct in the context of what actually happens. It is deleted “for you” and that’s the entire point. Just in the same way as when you delete an email, it doesn’t delete it from anyone else, and doesn’t stop anyone else from replying. The “ignore” option is a bonus, but aside from that it’s basically how emails work.

 

[beerForo]

Righto, that's what I was asking, if that follow-up options page would be tweaked to make sense. Cool.

 

[Suzanne O]

So similar to how facebook’s messenger app works?

 

[DezLifer]

Is it possible to implement embedded commerce?
For example, user balance and withdrawal of funds?

 

[beerForo]

No

 

[DezLifer]

No

Why so strict? Moreover, I would like to hear an answer from a more senior person

 

[beerForo]

Look in the add-ons area (Resources). You are asking in an area where the answer is No (2.3 features).

 

[Chris D]

Why so strict? Moreover, I would like to hear an answer from a more senior person

No

It’s useful to a bunch of people, and we understand that, but it’s not something that a large majority of forums need.

Perhaps an official add-on one day but it’s not our current focus.

In the meantime there are, as far as I can tell, at least one or more add-ons that should fill this need.

 

[⭐ Alex ⭐]

Template names in HTML output​

Viewing a page of XenForo HTML output and trying to work out how it was built, when it may contain snippets of many different templates can be challenging.

Or at least, it was.

While we have previously output a data-template attribute in the <body> tag to help developers and designers identify the main content template in use, we have now expanded the system considerably.

Now, by enabling the Embed template names in HTML option from the Appearance options section, your HTML output will include data-template-name attributes that make it easy to identify the template responsible for the particular part of the page you are inspecting.

View attachment 294097

These attributes are shown only to authenticated administrators.

<html data-template-name="PAGE_CONTAINER" id="XF" lang="en-US" dir="LTR" data-xf="2.3" data-app="public" ...>

<div data-template-name="thread_view" class="block block--messages" ...>

These data-template-name attributes are not part of the templates themselves, but rather they are added by the final output renderer, so you don't need to worry about keeping them updated, or cluttering up your template editing experience.

In practice, data-template-name attributes are added to the outermost rendered HTML tag in each template. There are a handful of instances where there is content in a template prior to an HTML tag, in which case the renderer will output that content prior to the labelled tag, but it will still be far easier to identify the responsible template than before.

The value of the data-template-name attribute is not limited to template names alone. In cases where the output comes from a template macro, the value of the attribute will include both the name of the template and the name of the macro.

<article data-template-name="post_macros::post" class="message message--post" ...>

View attachment 294096

Note that when enabled, these data-template-name tags are only output to authenticated administrators, so you should not rely on them as CSS selectors, unlike the original body[data-template] selector that is safe to use.

We have used data-template-name rather than reusing data-template as used in the <body> tag to avoid any potential CSS collisions where on-page styling has been attached to the data-template attribute, although we will probably use data-template for this feature in XenForo 3, and move the data-template attribute from the <body> tag to the <html> tag with a more descriptive name like data-content-template or something like that...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I dread editing CSS in general but at least now Ill KNOW which template it is in, instead of search for templates and finding 5 templates that class or value is in, and having to make an educated guess or just go through each one until I find what I need.

This is my top 2.3 update aside from OAUTH!

 

[⭐ Alex ⭐]

If you edit templates using an IDE

THIS IS A THING? Why on earth is my PhpStorm sitting there collecting dust when it could have been making editing templates a dream!

We have mentioned this elsewhere but we have taken the decision to rename "Conversations" to "Direct messages".

Same, I renamed Conversations in Chat 2 to Private Messages.

As for the chatter, everyone can use whatever phrase they like in 2.3 thanks to phrases.

 

[TPerry]

I know I'm a southerner, but "Leave direct message" doesn't sound right to me. It sounds a bit like "leave a voicemail", which has nothing to do with actually exiting something. I think either "Leave conversation" or, more preferably for me, "Remove direct message" would be better.

Kick to curb is well known by most.

 

[cwe]

I know I'm a southerner, but "Leave direct message" doesn't sound right to me. It sounds a bit like "leave a voicemail", which has nothing to do with actually exiting something. I think either "Leave conversation" or, more preferably for me, "Remove direct message" would be better.

"GTFO"

 

[ge66]

"Begone"