XF 2.4 XenForo 2.4 status and what's new under the hood?

Where are we?​

TL;DR: We're working hard to release XenForo 2.4 ASAP, but it's taking longer than expected due to scope changes and strategic decisions to wait for certain upstream developments that will benefit the long-term roadmap. Here's an analogy to explain why:

Software development is like planning a cross-country expedition with multiple destinations.

When you set out for version 2.4, you're not just driving to the next town over. You're charting a course through unknown territory with several strategic stops planned along the way - each representing a major milestone or feature release.

But the challenge is the landscape keeps changing along the journey.

• New roads open up (better technologies emerge)
• Bridges get washed out (dependencies break or become obsolete)
• You discover scenic routes that would benefit all future travellers (opportunities for architectural improvements)
• Weather conditions shift (market demands or user needs evolve)
• Your vehicle needs unexpected maintenance (technical debt must be addressed)

You can't just focus on reaching the immediate next stop. You must consider how each decision affects the entire journey ahead. Taking a shortcut to reach 2.4 faster might leave you stranded when trying to reach 3.0, 4.0 or even 5.0.

This is why scope changes occur: experienced developers are constantly recalibrating the route based on new information, ensuring the expedition can successfully reach not just the next destination, but all the strategic waypoints that follow.

The delays aren't detours, rather they're course corrections that keep the long-term journey viable.

To be slightly less cryptic, these are some of the specific challenges we have faced along the way:

A new Tiptap version is coming​

When we announced that Tiptap is coming to XenForo 2.4 it was 95% complete, and we then took a bit of a pause to work on other projects, which we have talked about since and will be discussing in this thread. Since then, Tiptap have announced Tiptap V3 which is currently in beta. Given how core the editor is to the forum experience, it makes a lot of sense to ship XenForo 2.4 with Tiptap V3 rather than Tiptap V2 as originally planned. While the changes involved are not too extensive, we also don't want to ship 2.4 with a dependency that is still in beta and subject to change. While we are not planning to wait for Tiptap V3 to be stable, necessarily, we do at least want to give it a little bit more time so we have a higher degree of confidence that we're shipping a stable editing experience.

We started talking about a rewrite (again)​

While this is not currently the direction we've decided to go in, it's responsible for us to at least consider all routes available to us to help us reach our destination.

After nearly 8 years since the release of XenForo 2.0, many of the technologies we use are showing their age, many of the decisions we made have started to slow us down more than we would like, and as a framework, XenForo becomes a less productive framework to work with. The solution to this problem can be to start from scratch, but we have ultimately decided that this is not something we need to do at this stage.

Instead, over the next few versions, including 2.4, we will be attempting to make iterative architectural changes to the framework so that we all have greater tools at our disposal to improve both the developer and user experience, particularly focusing on the implementation of developer tools and features that have become commonplace in other frameworks, such as Laravel.

Some of our best features are simply not finished​

There are one or two features that we see requested consistently from customers in our community forums and feedback channels, and we're excited to confirm they are coming in 2.4! However, it serves no one well if we release such highly-anticipated features before they are ready and before they have the usual level of quality, polish, and extensibility you would expect from a XenForo release. We'd rather take the extra time to get them right than rush them out and disappoint users with a subpar implementation that requires immediate patches or lacks the flexibility for customisation. We'll be sharing exciting details about what these features are and how they work in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

We can't keep up!​

I just counted and there are about 15 features that have been merged or are pending to be merged into XF 2.4 that we haven't announced yet. Some of these are smaller and aren't worthy of a dedicated HYS of their own (so they'll probably be rolled into a "miscellaneous" HYS or two), and some of these are going to be mentioned below, but while we have been "cooking" (as the kids say these days) it has meant that things like code reviews, and writing HYS posts hasn't been easy to balance. There is also potentially more stuff coming from generous contributions from esteemed developers such as @Xon and @digitalpoint, assuming we have time to implement (otherwise they will wait for... a future version).


With all of that now being said, while 2.4 is taking longer than we wanted, we have been busy and we are very much nearing the end of development.

And, while disappointing (to all of us) it is important to maintain perspective. XenForo 2.2 was released in September 2020. XenForo 2.3 was released nearly four years later. XenForo 2.4 is not 3 more years away.

But, you clicked this to find out what's new, right? So let's go.

 

[Trekkan]

I upgrade when I think there is a reason to upgrade since the cost is the same. Why anyone would do it differently (Other than as mentioned, simply to help support the product), I have no idea.

Sure XF could pump out version after version and require people to pay more and more money, but really... who's going to deal with that crap for long? Idiots with too much money? I don't think there are enough of those around, plus... there is such a thing as integrity. Which is why XF and team are still awesome.

 

[Suzanne O]

Looking forward to seeing what comes out with all the new features

 

[MichaelDance]

To be fair, this doesn’t help. I know, you can never satisfy everyone, and it’s natural to complain. But personally I’ve lost my trust in the development. There’s been too much talks, delays without actions.

Perhaps I’m wrong, and I say this all respectfully, but we need to see some actual progress and not yet another “HYS” coming soon feature that takes another months and months to come.

I do believe there’s so much more than what we see or hear, but some transparency and communication is long overdue.

Lost my faith in this company long ago, version 2.4 ages after 2.0 was released proves my point.

The sad thing is I wanted Xenforo to be amazing, they’re the guys behind the best VBulletin versions, they left and made their own and it was great… but it seems their passion has gone, other priorities, I’m assuming they have another job which takes priority than XF.

That’s fine but they’ll never have the same community they built. You’re an example you’ve moved to IPB, like myself. I can never use VB not after what they’ve done to it, XF is in the dark ages and IPB is the only one going forward.

 

[craigForo]

I strongly disagree, that is a pretty “terminally online” take. how useful chat assistants like CharGPT can be for everyday people.

I agree with your view of chat assistants.

I used ChatGPT to do extensive (IMO) work on MariaDB yesterday, spending about two hours to complete my work. If I used Google, Stack Overflow, or any other platform, I would have had to spend more time to accomplish my task. The traditional search platforms will take a backseat to the chat assistants, IMO.

 

[Matt C.]

I’ll throw in my two cents since everyone else already has.

Yes, the XF development timeline is slow. Painfully slow. And the software is, dare I say, somewhat outdated now.

I’m not going to run over to IPS, even though they have better content discovery, a more complete package, faster loading times, etc.

I stick with XF because of the community and customization. XF is stupid easy to customize and they give you so many tools to make the software exactly how you want it. And obviously, XF has a way better 3rd party developer community.

IPS is currently chasing a different customer base, and I don’t have confidence that they will support a self hosted version past 5.0. Don’t quote me on this, but I believe they’re on record saying they will support self hosted on IC5, but make no mention supporting past that.

That’s fine, let them do their thing. I’ll stay with XF.

 

[ebikes.com]

I upgrade when I think there is a reason to upgrade since the cost is the same. Why anyone would do it differently (Other than as mentioned, simply to help support the product), I have no idea.

Here's the problem.
The number of internet forums is dwindling by the year.
That means their possible income stream is essentially drying up for companies that write forum software.

Software is hard and expensive to develop. It requires maintenance and security patches. User's tastes changes over time, which leads to design entropy, which creates more work. How the internet works also changes, so you constantly have to keep up with that.

Without funding, something that is expensive and difficult to produce can't live.
So i pay as a vote for them to keep going.