XenForo 2.0 Discussion

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regularly check and vote on every suggestion in the suggestions forum
You would only Like (vote) a suggestion that you agreed with.

I for one do regularly check both suggestions forums. Do bear in mind though that not everyone owning XenForo actually visits these forums on a regular basis and some only if they have a problem or even not at all.

Some suggestions for XFMG do have a reasonable number of Likes and these are clearly the popular ones. Others have very few or none. If you look at some of these, many are a bit niche and some are ill-considered.

Maybe the reason why many XFMG suggestions don't have many votes is because most people don't think the suggestions are worth adding? As a long-time user of XFMG, I do agree that some improvements would be welcome (Categories for Albums, the long-promised video uploads, adding tags and fields to the upload page). However, on the whole I do like XFMG the way that it is. I certainly don't want the radical overhaul and changes that are being suggested by some, which on the whole are those that don't actually own or use XFMG on their sites.
 
You would only Like (vote) a suggestion that you agreed with.

I meant every suggestion that you find interesting. I find plenty of suggestions interesting or agree with but I don't realistically expect that each one will also be implemented (soon). And the fact that only a small percentage of overall XF owners even visits this forum was my whole point. Mailings would have a far wider reach than the suggestion forums alone do.
 
I meant every suggestion that you find interesting. I find plenty of suggestions interesting or agree with but I don't realistically expect that each one will also be implemented (soon). And the fact that only a small percentage of overall XF owners even visits this forum was my whole point.
I like every suggestion that I agree with. :)

I suggested some time ago that the staff could filter what they feel are the most worthwhile suggestions and run, say, a monthly poll of 20 choices that would also be promoted every month in a mailing to ALL customers. That would give everyone a far clearer picture of what at least the semi-active majority wants, not just what a small percentage of regular suggestion forum followers vote on.
There are several problems with this. Firstly, not all customers may want an email about suggestions and the last thing XenForo would want is being marked as spam and customers then not receiving important emails about upgrades and security fixes. Secondly, some suggestions are not always practical either now or at all (for example the tabs manager suggestion for XenForo which many people want but hasn't been implemented in 1.x for reasons given by Mike). Thirdly, how do you pick on which suggestions to promote and which ones not to? Some members would complain if staff picked some suggestions and not others, so it then comes back to popularity on the forums which is Likes in the first post...

I do agree though that staff could weed out some of the dross that is posted in the Suggestions forums though, particularly those that make little sense, are very niche and also the ones that the devs have no intention of ever implementing.
 
If you go out of your way to find problems, then you'll find them with every idea. If done properly, it takes a single click to unsubscribe from a mailing you don't want to get, so that's really a non-issue. Of course there would need to be a separate setting for those who would want to receive such mails as well and only those who want to receive the currently existing mailings.

The whole point of staff picking the suggestions to present in such mailings would be to filter out ideas that are not practical or feasible for one reason or another. As for how do you pick what gets suggested - taking the Likes received up to that point into account would be sensible, plus including the staff's personal preferences. Staff picks is as good a subjective criteria as it gets and it plays a major role in what order things get implemented as it is. The purpose of the mailings would be to expand on the very limited exposure that suggestions get in the suggestions forum via presenting them to more people in a more concise and easily reviewable manner that does not require an inordinate amount of time sifting through the suggestions forum. This would result in a better understanding of what features the customer base at large would like to have, not just what the most active minority voting in the suggestions forum currently does.

As for the "some members would complain" rationale... some members would complain even if everything (or nothing) was implemented. If K&M's aim was to make sure that nobody complained about what they were doing, they wouldn't last long in the forum software development business.
 
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There is a fine line that's drawn between what we 'want' and what we 'need'. Someone's need may not be someone's want and vice-versa; which is where 'options' would be applicable. The Vulcan IDIC of 'Infinite diversity in infinite combinations' would apply very nicely in terms of features wanted or needed when it comes to users requests for any software, but that would mean that the software would never be finished; at least not to everyone's satisfaction.

There are many add-on's that fulfil a need/want of some kind, perhaps a look at what is being downloaded most (I know not all add-on's show download quantities, which is a shame) as part of the criteria for adding new or enhanced features. Realistically, the new or enhanced features being considered should be presented to the end users in some form or another to gauge their reaction. It's a waste of time and energy adding or enhancing a feature if very few, or no one, is interested in it. The developers are not fortune tellers or mind-readers so some means of soliciting opinions and feedback would be welcome on what is being proposed. I'm not implying that 'every' change be noted, just major features or enhancements that are being considered.

;)
 
I'd like to see more polls as a way of deciding which features should be added, it seems the like system only works to that purpose in the more active threads?
 
Here is a Vote Add-on I made on Paint. You could vote on which suggestions you want.
You could vote once per user or if you really want you could vote many times but have to pay.
And a thread would be linked to it.

Capture.webp


ho ho ho! if i knew how to code i would be the best developer and make the coolest add-ons!!

:cool:
 
As from what I understand, everyone interprets "CMS" differently.

I doubt there is a need for a full-blown "CMS" (whatever that is, I have no idea), but I think what Admins want is to bring Thread-content forward to the "Homepage".
It is just a matter of creating a flexible "Homepage" which shows content from the "first post in a Thread" or from individual "Posts" from somewhere within a Thread.
Maybe some sort of "Widget"-system in order for every webmaster to create his individual "Homepage".


Give Admins the ability to feature stuff (text, pictures) from "Threads" at the "Homepage" in order to give users and visitors some sort of "entry point" in order to jump into Threads and engage in posting.
A list of "Forums" (as currently) is probably not very appealing for many end-users and probably also quite hard to grasp of which Forum to choose and starting to post or reply.


Since XF does not provide a real "Homepage" at www.xenforo.com , I think this is what Admins are looking for.
Like for example Brogan's "Featured Threads" or "XenPorta" or "XenZine" or whatever the "Homepage"-layout may look like.


For people who are used to using Forums, it is easy.
But for all others, it is not so easy to choose some sort of "Category" first in order to see some "Content".
Therefore, provide the ability to move "Content" forward to the "Homepage" (which still needs to be created at the very first page when you visit e.g. at www.xenforo.com)


No need for a "CMS".

:)


check out this video here:

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/xenforo-portal.77816/#post-891588


:cool:
 
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I would love to have the entire XenForo (2.x) nothing but widgets. :)
  • Define a route, configure a layout for it, and add widgets of your choice in it.
  • Customize the style globally, overwrite it with route level styles, and widget level styles respectively.
  • Every widget does one thing and does it well. Data provider modules can be shared or each widget can have its own data provider in place.
  • Default installation can ship pre-configured to mimic the current functionality, layout, and components.
 
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What is really missing on XenForo, it's the ability to easily move the navigation to the header, etc. On XenForo, it's really a big challenge to move the navigation to the header and especially in responsive. On IP.Board, the advantage is that we can customize a style from A to Z by being able to really stand out from others without too much difficulty... For the web designers, it's a great system.

What I expect of this new version? Have a better system of stylization and if possible remove the tab links to have easier to move the navigation where we want. We are forced to stay with this navigation under the header and it's really annoying.

I would like to really be freer and have less difficulty to custom a style on XenForo.

If you, the developers see my message, really consider a more attractive system of stylization for the web designers please.
 
What I'd like to see in XenForo 2 is...

* Responsive ACP
* A more intuitive ACP (Related options grouped logically rather than all over the place)
* More extensive permissions (I cant stop a specific usergroup from replying to PCs, etc)
* Navbar/Menu customisation and placement options. Custom tabs.
* Better sidebar management/movement options.
* Discussions included in the stats (like posts) as default
* Prefix Listing options, otherwise there's not a lot of point in searchable prefixes
* Ability to enable/disable things like Trophy points, likes. tagging, alerts across an XF install
* Ability to send out an alert to specific usergroups or every user.
* A calendar with Agenda view and thread integration
* Some sort of dual account detector using cookies or such like
* Better mobile browsing, more responsiveness in things like headers/banners without the large gaps above and below

...there's more I would want but they probably come under addons rather than native functionality like the above ones.
 
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I forgot to add that I would like an extension to the Like options. The ability to add as many or as few extra options as possible.

There would be 4 classes Positive, Negative, Neutral and Null. The first 3 are self explanatory but the 4th can be used in secret forums or chat forums where you dont want the like/dislike to be added to the overall total.

Also the ability to have forum/node specific ratings would help encourage communities within communities. We all know we have certain groups of users who stay within their favoured forums. Why not give them more incentive to post quality content within their home forum on the site.
 
How about javascript fw?
jQuery will be used? Or may be it will be any other MVC / MVVM js framework ?
Right now developing the rich javascript application is too complicated.

jQuery is a good tool for animation and DOM manipulation, but is not good for large javascript application.
 
We're not planning on bringing in an explicit JS framework like Ember, Angular, etc. Going along the full single page app route is not something we're targeting at this time. (Of course like in XF1, there is a JS framework built on top of jQuery to make various manipulations easier; there are different approaches in how this works in certain areas.)

Just going back a bit: we've picked LESS and are using the Less.php (see: http://lessphp.gpeasy.com/) library which is a port of the original project and thus more likely to be maintained and updated. Bear in mind that you do still have access to the standard XF templating system as well. At this point, we have no plans to change the CSS preprocessor.
 
@Mike, It is too hard to extend the current XenForo javascript code without a lot of copy/paste :(
I understand that the routing feature of this frameworks not needed right now, but data binding feature is must have.
For simplicity of development of non-conflicted javascript add-ons model-view libraries are really helpful.

Do you look into rivets.js (a simple model-view binding) or epoxy.js?

P.S. Sorry for my bad English. I hope you understand what I mean.
 
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We're not planning on bringing in an explicit JS framework like Ember, Angular, etc. Going along the full single page app route is not something we're targeting at this time. (Of course like in XF1, there is a JS framework built on top of jQuery to make various manipulations easier; there are different approaches in how this works in certain areas.)

Just going back a bit: we've picked LESS and are using the Less.php (see: http://lessphp.gpeasy.com/) library which is a port of the original project and thus more likely to be maintained and updated. Bear in mind that you do still have access to the standard XF templating system as well. At this point, we have no plans to change the CSS preprocessor.
+1 for not tying XF to a framework like ember, angular, etc

Adding capabilities and extensibility like @Yoskaldyr and others are requesting would be a nice addition though. We've had to resort to some hacky stuff to get certain customizations on the js side.
 
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Some suggestions for XFMG do have a reasonable number of Likes and these are clearly the popular ones. Others have very few or none. If you look at some of these, many are a bit niche and some are ill-considered.

That is a pet peeve of mine. Running big boards as I do, along with smaller forums, I can tell you right away that we run into issues on a big board that most small board admins would never see or ever imagine. Member behavior especially. Yet if I suggest something that makes my moderation staff's job easier, it has zero interest among anyone with a smaller board and will receive little or no "likes." And it is not like we all have a bottomless budget to have add-ons written for every little feature or change that we need.

If the big boards are just considered a "niche," then I start to wonder if we've chosen the correct product to run our larger communities...
 
That is a pet peeve of mine. Running big boards as I do, along with smaller forums, I can tell you right away that we run into issues on a big board that most small board admins would never see or ever imagine. Member behavior especially. Yet if I suggest something that makes my moderation staff's job easier, it has zero interest among anyone with a smaller board and will receive little or no "likes." And it is not like we all have a bottomless budget to have add-ons written for every little feature or change that we need.

If the big boards are just considered a "niche," then I start to wonder if we've chosen the correct product to run our larger communities...
It is a difficult balancing act to make sure that most features will work with all of your users as a whole. If they were not concerned about larger boards, I do not believe that they would have worked on adding things like elastic search. I have faith that they will strike a balance between good ideas, and heavily liked ideas.
 
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