Which Direction?

Marc

Well-known member
This is something that interests me a fair bit and I should imagine it will to many other users. Vbulletin have pretty much a forum only peice of software (although they are trying to expand on it very very badly) ... ........ Invision promote themselves as community software and have blogs, galleries etc that are pretty well featured (can ya tell which one Im using currently yet? lol )

So my question to you guys, is which path area you likely to follow with xenforo? The "Its a forum path" where we get third party apps to do other stuff like galleries etc, or will you be adding to it as a peice of community software?
 
XenForo is a community forum plus, software.

By plus, I mean that there are many social networking features added in, i.e. private conversations, status, facebook integration, etc. I'm sure there will be more as time goes on.
 
I for one hope that they do decide to go for the route of adding blog, gallery etc .... Reason being that invision IMO have managed to do it very well and it is used. Would love to see Kier/Mike show vbulletin how it was supposed to be done LOL ..
 
I actually hope they don't. I'd much rather see these as add-ons simply because not everyone uses them.
I would think that they would slow the forum speed down as well. I'm rather enjoying being able to zip through these pages with very little page load time.
 
Ya see this is exactly what they are on invision, but they are official addons that used the application plugin system. They are all purchasable separately so therefore it can suit both forums like my own which need items such as the gallery, and for people like yourself who simply want a forum and a forum alone.....Whereas in vbulletin they simply threw the gallery in with part of the profiles and (as you said) slowed it down/bulked it over what some people required
 
I agree that while more addons are a good thing, that is what they should stay. Addons. That whole shoving the "suite" down people's throats is not a good idea in my opinion. Invision's approach is a lot better in that area. Even though I'm not as keen on Invision as I used to be.
XenForo to the rescue! :D
 
Things like CMS, Blogs, Galleries should be (free) addons that are developed by official XF staff and seamlessly integrated with minimal bugs so that they actually perform like integrated software.
 
I don't agree that they should be free. Not if they are developed by Mike and Kier. Why should they put god-only-knows how many hours into developing a blog/gallery/whatever to seamlessly integrate with the forum software, for nothing?? That's absurd, imo.
 
It depends on the route they take really. I'd be willing to pay for them if I was to use them. I bracketed the free bit because it's open to suggestion and depends on if it's going to go ahead.
 
Things like CMS, Blogs, Galleries should be (free) addons that are developed by official XF staff and seamlessly integrated with minimal bugs so that they actually perform like integrated software.
Joomla/Drupal have a 5 year head start on CMS.
Wordpress has a 5 year head start on Blogs.
Menalto Gallery has a 5 year head start on Galleries.

I see no need to reinvent the wheel, or compromise XenForo by including a half-baked add-ons. I'd rather XenForo be the best forum software out there, and enable me to snap in whatever other plugins I want.

Even if XenForo had the perfect Blog, which was feature-comparable to Wordpress, elegant, smooth, and perfect, it would still be the lesser choice because Wordpress has thousands of plugins and themes.
 
Joomla/Drupal have a 5 year head start on CMS.
Wordpress has a 5 year head start on Blogs.
Menalto Gallery has a 5 year head start on Galleries.

I see no need to reinvent the wheel, or compromise XenForo by including a half-baked add-ons. I'd rather XenForo be the best forum software out there, and enable me to snap in whatever other plugins I want.

Even if XenForo had the perfect Blog, which was feature-comparable to Wordpress, elegant, smooth, and perfect, it would still be the lesser choice because Wordpress has thousands of plugins and themes.
but they're not seamlessly integrated with the xF software.
 
Id also like to eventually see these as supported addons. But only if its done in the way IPB does.. vB's suite (all or nothing approach was half baked at best.. Ive never had a problem paying for a good product. and IPB's gallery is the bomb. vB's Albums are a bomb. IPB's Blogs are also way ahead of vB.. Frankly i cant or wont transfer to xF until i can use blogs and a CMS on my largest forum.
 
XenForo is a community forum plus, software.

By plus, I mean that there are many social networking features added in, i.e. private conversations, status, facebook integration, etc. I'm sure there will be more as time goes on.

With all due respect, the blog, gallery, etc, are becoming standard.
 
IPB's gallery is the bomb.
Menalto Gallery > PhotoPost > IPB Gallery > vB Photos feature

IPB's Blogs are also way ahead of vB.
Wordpress is way ahead of IPB or vB.

Frankly i cant or wont transfer to xF until i can use blogs and a CMS on my largest forum.
Do you buy everything in your house including groceries, computer parts, auto parts, etc. all from 1 store?

feldon30 said:
I'd rather XenForo be the best forum software out there, and enable me to snap in whatever other plugins I want.
but they're not seamlessly integrated with the xF software.
Yet.

Within the limits of GPL, XenForo should empower me to integrate. Then I don't have to settle for the "bundled CMS", the "bundled Blog" and the "bundled Gallery".

I am not saying that somewhere down the road, XenForo might not have a great CMS, Blog, Gallery, etc. But I don't see XenForo succeeding if they get bogged down in the Suite model during the first year or two of release.

If the forum is amazing, and I can integrate it with best-in-class solutions from other providers, then while a few people will continue to ask: "Where's the CMS?" "Where's the Blog?" "Where's the Gallery?" the rest of us will be enjoying powerful communities that don't compromise.
 
The direction is forward! Currently, forward is at break neck speed! The focus is on making XenForo available for people to use. There will come a point when XenForo will consider how to address creating or offering a gallery or CMS or Blog. There are numerous options and much discussion to be had before then and right now the matter in hand is the forum
 
Even if XenForo had the perfect Blog, which was feature-comparable to Wordpress, elegant, smooth, and perfect, it would still be the lesser choice because Wordpress has thousands of plugins and themes.

So what? :). Why do I need thousands of plugins if I just need to offer my members a section on my XenForo powered website where they can Blog, using the exact same userfriendly simple interface (that they know so well because they use XenForo every day)? This...

but they're not seamlessly integrated with the xF software.

... is what I need. But I do understand the need of people for Wordpress. It seems and endless discussion about the pros and cons. Glad I am not standing in M&K's shoes. :cool:
 
So what? :). Why do I need thousands of plugins if I just need to offer my members a section on my XenForo powered website where they can Blog, using the exact same userfriendly simple interface (that they know so well because they use XenForo every day)?
If you only want such a basic blog, then users can create their own threads in a "Blog" forum, and everyone else can just reply. I don't think there are that many forum admins who want such limited blog functionality. I use:

* Block comments by IP or e-mail.
* Recommended Links
* Categories and Tags (and filter by both)
* Pages (Privacy Policy, etc.)
* Events Calendar local to my blog.
* WP-SpamFree -- so far it has blocked 20,000 spam comments in 2 years on my site.
* Surveys -- I can create surveys with multiple choice, single choice, or text entry values, and I can view the results as a series of bar graphs. I can also export all the answers to a CSV.
* Insert photo gallery into a post.
* RSS Output
 
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