XF 2.0 What's new in XenForo 2.0

Much of this information will be familiar to those who were following the development process over at the XF2 Demo Forums, but this is something of a ‘greatest hits’ list of some of the important changes and improvements to XenForo since the 1.x generation.

Greatly-enhanced mobile-friendly style

The new XenForo 2 style is the first thing you will notice in XF2. The entire style has been redesigned with a fresh new appearance, but also with mobile browsing at the forefront of the design. When the viewport shrinks, on-page content shrinks, shifts and reorganises itself automatically to optimise the browsing experience for small displays.

A sticky header automatically activates when the window is scrolled, allowing the most important navigation controls to remain available at all times.

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Emoji support* 👏 ✍️

All textual content in XenForo 2 now supports emoji, from message text to forum titles.

Retina avatar and smilie support

Avatars and smilies now support high-DPI imagery, allowing for a crisp, high resolution display to match the text on displays that support 2x resolution graphics, such as Apple's retina displays.

Navigation manager

Both the public-facing systems and the admin control panel now have completely customizable navigation systems, allowing the content of the navigation bars and side-navigation blocks to be entirely controlled by the site administrator without any need to resort to template modification.

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Widgets

Widgets are small blocks of content that can perform a variety of tasks, such as displaying a list of members online, or latest posts etc. Widgets can be placed into various pages within the public-facing side of XenForo using a simple interface, allowing you to build rich content-discovery systems into almost any area of the public forums.

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Enhanced message editing

Rather than opening an overlay, editing messages is now done entirely in-place, with the content of messages replaced by a full-fledged message editor that allows the complete range of editing and posting actions, including attachment management.

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Alerts in favicon

When new alerts or unread conversation messages are available, the site icon (shown in the browser title bar) will have a badge added to it, showing that there are items waiting to be viewed.

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Custom thread fields
An extension of the custom user field system, threads can now have their own custom fields, with all the functionality previously available for user fields. Thread fields can be displayed before or after message content, and can be made editable and optionally required before a thread is posted.

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Member tooltip

XF1's member card has been replaced with a new member tooltip, which appears on the first click on a member's name. A further click will load the member's full profile page.

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CSS transitions replace Javascript animations

Leveraging modern browser capabilities, almost all of the animations seen in XF2 make use of CSS transitions rather than Javascript animations, resulting in smoother, less processor-intensive transitions between states.

Customisable member stats

The old member list page has now been replaced by an all-new, customizable member statistics system. Individual statistics (such as members with the most posts, most recently-registered members etc.) can be built using an interface in the admin control panel, and are then displayed as an expandable block on the members page.

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Generic payment framework

XenForo 2 has a new payment system that is open for development, meaning that add-on developers can quickly and easily build payment gateways for providers that are not part of the core system. Using this system, XF2 ships with a number of ready-made payment options that are easy to integrate with various system enhancements that administrators may define.

Attachments shown in previews

Content previews, such as those seen when hovering a thread title on the thread list page, now include attachments for a more complete and integrated preview experience.

Enhanced code block syntax highlighting

The [CODE] block system has been greatly enhanced to display syntax highlighting for a much wider range of programming and scripting languages through the use of [CODE=language] tags.

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What’s New and Find Threads

To aid in content discovery, XF2 includes a brand new 'What's new' system, which can fetch new content from all sources across the system, including threads and posts, profile posts, media items and resources. The architecture of the system is fully extensible, so add-on developers can hook into What's new in order to add their own content types to the results.

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Additionally, a new Find threads system provides quick links to unanswered threads (with no replies), threads you have started, and threads in which you have posted.

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New media embedding features

The BB Code Media system has been significantly enhanced, and now supports embedding Facebook posts, Tweets, Instagram photos, Reddit posts and comments, Spotify and Soundcloud tracks, albums and playlists and a whole host of others.

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The integration of oEmbed support allows almost any media to be embedded simply by pasting a link to the media within a message.

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Quick thread

Quick Thread is a brand new system for XF2. Above the list of threads on a forum page you will find a title entry box. Focusing this box and starting to type a thread title will load a quick message editor, in which you can post the content for the first post of your new thread. Hitting the save button will then post the thread, leaving you on the forum page rather than redirecting you to the thread page. This makes the process of creating a new simple thread extremely quick and easy.

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Thread prompts

In conjunction with Quick thread, Thread prompts allow the title input box to display a configurable prompt, giving members a hint as to what kind of content they should be posting in any given forum. Multiple prompts may be defined and assigned to forums, and an applicable prompt will be selected at random to be displayed to the user when the page loads.

Keyboard shortcut system and enhanced keyboard navigation

XenForo 2 includes an easy method to assign keyboard shortcuts to commonly-used controls, such as searching and opening the alerts list. These shortcuts are defined with simple template edits, and allow for very rapid navigation with a keyboard.

Additionally, the system can determine whether the user is currently using touch, mouse or keyboard navigation at any given time, and will highlight the currently-selected link or control appropriately when keyboard navigation is enabled, while hiding the selection when using touch or mouse methods.

New custom field options

Custom fields have had an overhaul for XF2, and now include a star-rating type, along with various validation options including dates and numbers. These enhancements apply to all custom field types, including user fields and thread fields, and are automatically available for any custom field types defined by add-ons.

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HTML 5 input types

To make data input on mobile devices more friendly, we make more extensive use of HTML 5 input types, allowing specialised keyboards to be displayed in place of the standard character keyboard. For example, when an input requires only a number, a telephone-style keyboard is displayed.

Developer / designer mode

While XF1's WebDAV system has been retired, XF2 has a whole new range of enhancements for rapid style development, including a system whereby templates can be edited directly in the file system using any editor of your choice. In designer mode, when the system detects a modified template, it will be compiled ready for the next page view that requires that template.

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CLI tools

For add-on developers and large board administrators, XF2 now includes a comprehensive suite of command line tools, allowing operations such as upgrades and add-on manipulation to be done from the terminal rather than having to operate through a web interface. This can be of huge benefit for long operations, such as recompiling all templates or upgrading a large site.

* Note that while emoji support is enabled by default on new installations, sites that have been upgraded from XenForo 1.x will require a script to be run in order to convert all text to a new emoji-supporting character set (utf8mb4). This can be a relatively long process, and administrators should perform test-runs to determine how long the process will take for their final upgrade.
 
There is indeed reasonable talk about newsletters generally, though a lot of them are in the context of a couple of newsletter related add-ons. There's definitely a number of customers who want it, would use it and use it well. I don't, however, think that represents the majority. I suspect that most people would just use the "Email users" function in the Admin CP and that would be ok for their needs.

In terms of analysing the perceived demand for it, we'd go by the Suggestion thread that is open for it:
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/newsletter-function.713/

This doesn't currently indicate that there's a big call for it. Though it certainly is a valid suggestion, and it will be considered in the future, but as it stands it doesn't currently paint a picture of it being a priority.

It appears half way down page 10 when viewing the forum based on first message likes:

https://xenforo.com/community/forum...page-10?order=first_post_likes&direction=desc
 
There is indeed reasonable talk about newsletters generally, though a lot of them are in the context of a couple of newsletter related add-ons. There's definitely a number of customers who want it, would use it and use it well. I don't, however, think that represents the majority. I suspect that most people would just use the "Email users" function in the Admin CP and that would be ok for their needs.
Why not split the difference and offer a simple Summary Email (manual, weekly, monthly, whatever) with a greeting, a listing of the top (5,10, whatever) threads and space for an additional admin comment. Then you can leave development of more sophisticated newsletter add-ons to the aftermarket. Win-win-win (XenForo adds a core feature many customers will use, customers will have a built-in rudimentary newsletter-like feature to drive traffic, and add-on developers are still free to create fancy, full feature newsletters.
 
Explore sendy.co
I have everything set up for it now using an advanced HTML newsletter with features, plus then SES to send.
My point though is we're still lacking something more than just a box with - pop your email here, you can use text if you want or html. But.. to use HTML (you know, for rich newsletters) you have to look elsewhere. :sneaky:

Not saying that we're not getting bangs for bucks here, but I would have hoped that looking into this - especially as we use it to contact clientèle in a direct way, a bit further and just added that little something extra to make it easier for us to send some sort of newsletter as and when we can. Just a shame that it hasn't been taken into consideration..
There is indeed reasonable talk about newsletters generally, though a lot of them are in the context of a couple of newsletter related add-ons. There's definitely a number of customers who want it, would use it and use it well. I don't, however, think that represents the majority. I suspect that most people would just use the "Email users" function in the Admin CP and that would be ok for their needs.

In terms of analysing the perceived demand for it, we'd go by the Suggestion thread that is open for it:
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/newsletter-function.713/

This doesn't currently indicate that there's a big call for it. Though it certainly is a valid suggestion, and it will be considered in the future, but as it stands it doesn't currently paint a picture of it being a priority.

It appears half way down page 10 when viewing the forum based on first message likes:

https://xenforo.com/community/forum...page-10?order=first_post_likes&direction=desc
No I agree, it's not a priority but if you look around, (as I know you would have and did) you will see that there's a set amount of us who have been requesting something about the NL for some time.. same as (dare I - events calendar of sorts :X3: (no not core I know) etc)
So it's more of a show of disappointment that nothing more than the same box we have now, hadn't been expanded upon for us to send good quality NL out to members really.
For now what I have, does the job. But for when we migrate - if there's no generator add-on out by then, will have to use a HTML generator markup site of sorts just to be able to send rich content emails, which I personally think is just a bit meh. But that's something that's seriously not do or die for this XF2 release... Just a shame that there's nothing been looked at really.
 
Speaking of "send email to users" in XF2. Is there now finally in the footer of those emails an "unsubscribe link" by default? This is legally required in many countries if you send emails from ACP.
 
Great to see this. Will this link unsubscribe only from manual emails send by admin with the ACP option "send emails to users" or will this also affect thread-subscriptions?
 
I am currently using Xenporta 2. I can only upgrade to XF2, if Xenporta 2 will be upgraded for XF2. It is not sure when this will be exactly. I love that addon but I have to make sure that I know what I am doing in case this new Xenporta will take too long.

Are there any other alternatives out there for XF2 to have a basic portal page like Xenporta 2 or is it already possible with XF2 to make something similar with XF2 out of the box?
 
Sendy.co officially supports this HTML Generator: https://xenforo.com/community/resources/sendy-newsletter-generator.5378/

xF2 update should be round the corner...

We need a newsletter option in the XF2 core so that we do not depend on external products. Sandy and all other services change their restrictions all the time. If you barely have income with your forum, but more than 12.000 users in your newsletter, you simply cannot afford to pay those services.

And I rather give xenforo more money to build a good scalable newsletter system instead of every month or for every sending xxx dollars to all those providers.

There is already a very professional free newsletter script called "phplist"- Click here for downloads. You do not need to reinvent the wheel. Simply make a bridge to XF2 so that it is working incl. bounced emails, unsubscribe etc. out of the XF2 ACP.
 
The importers will switch from beta to stable once we are satisfied they function correctly.

The more people that use the importers, the quicker that will be.
 
Did I imagine that XF2 would have drag-and-drop nodes? I could have sworn I had read that at some point in the past and have been expecting it ever since, but apparently I was wrong.... :unsure:
 
It does. Click the “Sort” button on the node list in the Admin CP.

Reminder to everyone; please post support queries in the correct forum rather than in here.
Ah! Just a different implementation than I was used to, but I'm not gonna complain about having to click an additional button. Thanks, Chris, that's awesome. And sorry for posting in the wrong forum. I was just playing with the demo and came to this thread to see if I saw anything about it and didn't (probably just overlooked it), so thought maybe that feature had been axed somewhere along the line, assuming I hadn't just imagined it....
 
OK, question. (Prompted by another post.)

I notice there is now a Star Rating type for custom fields in the user profile. Maybe I'm a bit thick (maybe?), but what would this be used for in a user's profile? It's a neat idea, but I'm trying to wrap my head around what I could use it for.
 
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