First, I just want to couch this by saying that we're not at a point where we can really give previews, sneak peeks, etc. If you haven't read my previous post discussing some of the concepts and considerations with 2.0, it's worth reading before you go any further: https://xenforo.com/community/threads/whats-next-for-xenforo.79603/page-38#post-889527 There are some specific bits that will have changed since then, but on the whole, it's still valid.
Fundamentally, XenForo 2.0 is still XenForo. We're not intending on going down a completely different path. You should expect the concepts and approaches you've learned from XenForo 1.x to still be relevant. To give a specific example, the code is fundamentally different, but the permissions concept is basically unchanged. Sure, there will be some UI changes and hopefully some other improvements, but we aren't necessarily coming in with the explicit notion of blowing things up for the sake of it. The most significant part of XenForo 2.0 development is reaching rough feature parity with 1.x. While there may be some smaller features or options that will be changed or removed, most features you use should still exist in some form.
From an end user standpoint, there will be UI changes. In some cases, it might be pretty much as is; in other cases, changes are certainly needed. I couldn't give any specific examples here yet. XenForo's UI is still based on approaches taken when we started developing it (and keep in mind the first beta was released over 5 years ago now). The way people interact with a website is vastly different today. But it's still XenForo. We'd anticipate the overall user flow to be similar to what it is now, though maybe we'll bring some other approaches in as options. Don't expect XenForo 2.0 to be a fundamentally different style of software from 1.x.
If you're questioning converting now or later, it's going to be hard for me to make a comment because most of that is down to your personal circumstances. I don't think I could tell you to convert or not convert based on 2.0; it's a project as a whole so no one would really be able to make that decision until they actually play with it (as a user and and admin). I appreciate that it isn't that helpful as we're not ready to show it off at this point, but there's always going to be a point in a project where that happens (unless there's no mention of it, but then that's just less information overall). Even once we show off some of the initial builds, there will still be an extended period of testing before we declare it stable. Essentially, it's still going to take a while for 2.0 to be ready. To be clearer, I wouldn't anticipate seeing that preview/alpha/beta/stable process until some time in 2016.
I understand it's a hard decision. I would say make decisions based on the state of things right now. No one can really guarantee whether a future release of any software is going to be great. That includes XenForo, but of course we'll do our best to make sure it is great.
Fundamentally, XenForo 2.0 is still XenForo. We're not intending on going down a completely different path. You should expect the concepts and approaches you've learned from XenForo 1.x to still be relevant. To give a specific example, the code is fundamentally different, but the permissions concept is basically unchanged. Sure, there will be some UI changes and hopefully some other improvements, but we aren't necessarily coming in with the explicit notion of blowing things up for the sake of it. The most significant part of XenForo 2.0 development is reaching rough feature parity with 1.x. While there may be some smaller features or options that will be changed or removed, most features you use should still exist in some form.
From an end user standpoint, there will be UI changes. In some cases, it might be pretty much as is; in other cases, changes are certainly needed. I couldn't give any specific examples here yet. XenForo's UI is still based on approaches taken when we started developing it (and keep in mind the first beta was released over 5 years ago now). The way people interact with a website is vastly different today. But it's still XenForo. We'd anticipate the overall user flow to be similar to what it is now, though maybe we'll bring some other approaches in as options. Don't expect XenForo 2.0 to be a fundamentally different style of software from 1.x.
If you're questioning converting now or later, it's going to be hard for me to make a comment because most of that is down to your personal circumstances. I don't think I could tell you to convert or not convert based on 2.0; it's a project as a whole so no one would really be able to make that decision until they actually play with it (as a user and and admin). I appreciate that it isn't that helpful as we're not ready to show it off at this point, but there's always going to be a point in a project where that happens (unless there's no mention of it, but then that's just less information overall). Even once we show off some of the initial builds, there will still be an extended period of testing before we declare it stable. Essentially, it's still going to take a while for 2.0 to be ready. To be clearer, I wouldn't anticipate seeing that preview/alpha/beta/stable process until some time in 2016.
I understand it's a hard decision. I would say make decisions based on the state of things right now. No one can really guarantee whether a future release of any software is going to be great. That includes XenForo, but of course we'll do our best to make sure it is great.
Months of waiting would be fine with me. It's enough work just keeping up with the maintenance releases and worrying about whether add-ons and styles are compatible.
