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.

 

[Jimsef]

A nice customized version of the standard Xenforo Style goes a long way these days imo.
Has suited our needs nicely...

Absolutely… compared to phpbb the default theme is nice, and easy to customise!

 

[Arnox]

Forums with discussions about everything don't stand a chance these days, because people choose Reddit. It has to be a specific target...

Hard disagree. I run a very general-purpose forum focused on freedom of speech and I still seem to be getting a steady trickle of new users without any real promotion being done. A lot of people (including me) hate Reddit. If they find a good regular forum for what they're looking for, they absolutely will use it.

Honestly, it's my arrogant opinion that a lot of forums I see could really do with some generalization. If forums somehow really get popular again, they can go into more niche subjects once more, but as it stands now, really niche forums seem a death sentence to me.

The forums that I see constantly promoted in search results and are super active are more general forums. XDA for general hardware developing. GBATemp for games and general consoles. The High Road for military and combat. Etc. It's definitely harder, but I'm still a believer in, "If you build it, they will come."

 

[FTL]

I remember being able to post on your sites at one stage. A shame i can't come back on there.

Meant to add that you've not been banned on felineforums.com so you can continue to post there if you want. Since you love cats, as do I, think it's the perfect forum for you.

 

[Suzanne O]

Meant to add that you've not been banned on felineforums.com so you can continue to post there if you want. Since you love cats, as do I, think it's the perfect forum for you.

Yeah I think I might do that soonish

 

[Suzanne O]

Jeez, when did Vertical Scope buy ProBoards?

A few years ago. I have a bunch of friends over there but the problem is that proboards do all of the moderating.

 

[Sal Collaziano]

A few years ago. I have a bunch of friends over there but the problem is that proboards do all of the moderating.

That really is something. They probably own the majority of forums that exist on the internet.

 

[Suzanne O]

That really is something. They probably own the majority of forums that exist on the internet.

They seem to be after a lot. But anyway i wouldn't go to proboards because they do all the moderation which is not what you want for your forum. Also it looks ugly now.
Ugly with the comments under the posts.

 

[Davyc]

Just to throw in my two cents about the default theme - it is incredibly versatile and very easy to tweak and manipulate using a combination of the existing styling options and some creative CSS. This is the homepage of my revamp of my Rock Music site, opening up soon once I have one last feature installed. So, with a little work and imagination, the default theme can be pretty much what you want it to be.

 

[Jimsef]

That looks great.

I have to second the point that it is easy to customise. I come from phpbb and had to use a different style and customised that. Every time there was an update the style needed to be updated and the customisations fixed. Being able to work with the default style is really great!

 

[Suzanne O]

That does look great.
However, if you're worried about the default theme, you can always try @Russ's pixelexit or @DohTheme

 

[KSA]

Another announcement about still working on it. Logging out now, might check back next decade just in case.

 

[yavuz]

Another announcement about still working on it. Logging out now, might check back next decade just in case.

View attachment 324511

Köksal Baba is the best

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[frm]

Everybody is going on about 2.4... but my question is, what about 2.3.7?

While a lot of the bugs reported don't affect many, as 2.3.6 is relatively stable, bug reports that have been fixed for the 2.3.7 release go back as far as February (5 months), if not longer, like January for bugs found in 2.3.4/2.3.5 fixed in 2.3.7.

Resolved bug reports

xenforo.com

Is the focus to get 2.3.7 a solid last release where the bugs will be minimal (1 or 2) that can easily be patched, or, what's going on here?

 

[Sebastiaan]

I suggest that they keep their full focus on version 2.4 for now and continue development at a high pace. As long as there are no critical security issues or blocking problems in 2.3.6, it’s more efficient to concentrate on the new version.

 

[frm]

I suggest that they keep their full focus on version 2.4 for now and continue development at a high pace. As long as there are no critical security issues or blocking problems in 2.3.6, it’s more efficient to concentrate on the new version.

My impression of the fixed prefix is that it has been patched and is "ready to go" for 2.3.7 already. So, from the active fixed reports, there's nothing to do besides putting it simply, releasing it.

Is it a business strategy to release 2.3.7, coinciding with 2.4 RC1, to get as many renewals as possible from customers, who otherwise could've gotten the most stable 2.3 update, 2.3.7, with their current license that also offers a peek at 2.4 and a carrot on a stick to renew for the stable 2.4 release in a year? Or is that tin foil?

 

[FTL]

Is it a business strategy to release 2.3.7, coinciding with 2.4 RC1, to get as many renewals as possible from customers, who otherwise could've gotten the most stable 2.3 update, 2.3.7, with their current license that also offers a peek at 2.4 and a carrot on a stick to renew for the stable 2.4 release in a year? Or is that tin foil?

You know, from everything I've seen of the XF staff here and company business practices, I don't think that's the case. The company's behaviour has never been one to exploit their staff for money and that's a really great aspect of being their customer. If you want to see that kind of behaviour, just look at Invision as I'm a good example of someone who's lost out due to this and whose business they've lost, not that they care.

Waaay back in 2013, before I ever got near to starting a forum, I was an admin at a now long-defunct forum that ran Invision that had been owned by someone else. When he shut it down, he offered to sell me the Invision license at a good price. At the time, there was a formal process for doing so similar to XF's, and after a couple of hiccups from Invision's transfer process, I had it.

It lay dormant for years as starting a forum ended up on the backburner, then, in early 2021, when I started to seriously consider setting up my forum, I looked at the various forum software products out there, eventually deciding on XF, partly due to price (Invision's not exactly cheap, is it?) and partly as the core forum functionality I preferred, especially that it has post numbers while Invision does not and the devs refuse to bring them back, apparently for ideological reasons, which is a dealbreaker for me.

I still reactivated the license though at some point so that I could play around with it locally, to get a feel for what it's like to set it up from scratch and that activation lasted for just 6 months, plus they generously gave me a discount too to be fair. However, I could renew it at any time afterwards, or even sell it, which I was considering as I knew I was highly unlikely to ever use it in any serious way.

Then, they had a wholesale change to their license rules when they changed how the product is sold (all modules at once rather than pick'n'mix). I now have a dead license that I can neither reactivate nor sell, so if I wanted to use the product, I'd have to buy a brand new license at full price, rather than a significantly discounted renewal. This will happen even if one buys a new license today and let it sit expired for too long which I think is an unfair contract term. I'm not even sure that they legally had the right to do that with my "legacy" license as I'd never signed up to such unfavourable terms and would never do so, but I don't have the time nor energy to look into this issue and it would take legal action to get my due if they have don't have the legal right, so have just taken the hit and written it off.

Those are very sharp practices done by an established company and I really don't appreciate being stitched up like that, so they've lost my business forever. I don't care how good their product becomes, or if they reinstate post numbers, I'm not gonna be dumped on like that again.

I get the impression that they've done this as part of their push to get everyone onto their very expensive cloud product, phasing out the self hosted product. I've seen lots of speculation for the longest time that Invision v6 will be cloud only, so it will be interesting to see if that's the case when it's released.

When I see criticism of XF, like lengthy development cycles and other aspects, plus I've had my own grumbles too in the past, I keep this in mind, that they don't stitch up their customers for money and that's really important.

Finally, I'll add that I've been on XF Cloud now for over two years and there's not been a single outage or hiccup with it, which I really appreciate. A solid, reliable service that I can recommend.

 

[Suzanne O]

You know, from everything I've seen of the XF staff here and company business practices, I don't think that's the case. The company's behaviour has never been one to exploit their staff for money and that's a really great aspect of being their customer. If you want to see that kind of behaviour, just look at Invision as I'm a good example of someone who's lost out due to this and whose business they've lost, not that they care.

Waaay back in 2013, before I ever got near to starting a forum, I was an admin at a now long-defunct forum that ran Invision that had been owned by someone else. When he shut it down, he offered to sell me the Invision license at a good price. At the time, there was a formal process for doing so similar to XF's, and after a couple of hiccups from Invision's transfer process, I had it.

It lay dormant for years as starting a forum ended up on the backburner, then, in early 2021, when I started to seriously consider setting up my forum, I looked at the various forum software products out there, eventually deciding on XF, partly due to price (Invision's not exactly cheap, is it?) and partly as the core forum functionality I preferred, especially that it has post numbers while Invision does not and the devs refuse to bring them back, apparently for ideological reasons, which is a dealbreaker for me.

I still reactivated the license though at some point so that I could play around with it locally, to get a feel for what it's like to set it up from scratch and that activation lasted for just 6 months, plus they generously gave me a discount too to be fair. However, I could renew it at any time afterwards, or even sell it, which I was considering as I knew I was highly unlikely to ever use it in any serious way.

Then, they had a wholesale change to their license rules when they changed how the product is sold (all modules at once rather than pick'n'mix). I now have a dead license that I can neither reactivate nor sell, so if I wanted to use the product, I'd have to buy a brand new license at full price, rather than a significantly discounted renewal. This will happen even if one buys a new license today and let it sit expired for too long which I think is an unfair contract term. I'm not even sure that they legally had the right to do that with my "legacy" license as I'd never signed up to such unfavourable terms and would never do so, but I don't have the time nor energy to look into this issue and it would take legal action to get my due if they have don't have the legal right, so have just taken the hit and written it off.

Those are very sharp practices done by an established company and I really don't appreciate being stitched up like that, so they've lost my business forever. I don't care how good their product becomes, or if they reinstate post numbers, I'm not gonna be dumped on like that again.

I get the impression that they've done this as part of their push to get everyone onto their very expensive cloud product, phasing out the self hosted product. I've seen lots of speculation for the longest time that Invision v6 will be cloud only, so it will be interesting to see if that's the case when it's released.

When I see criticism of XF, like lengthy development cycles and other aspects, plus I've had my own grumbles too in the past, I keep this in mind, that they don't stitch up their customers for money and that's really important.

Finally, I'll add that I've been on XF Cloud now for over two years and there's not been a single outage or hiccup with it, which I really appreciate. A solid, reliable service that I can recommend.

Well stated mate.

I totally agree with you as well.
Xenforo are an actual small business that's based in the UK.

So when it comes to renewing my licenses i have that in my mind. I'm helping them survive the rush of all the things they are asked to provide for us customers.

All those others who are whinging don't realise that they need to pay for the work they want done.
It's like ordering a cup of tea or coffee that had the wrong milk in it that you don't normally have.

They want perfection. It's not going to be perfect, but it will have some features that we will like.

 

[frm]

You know, from everything I've seen of the XF staff here and company business practices, I don't think that's the case.

I don't think so either.

Just odd not to have 2.3.7 out with as many fixes as there are now, and the conversation of "when 2.4" to carry on to this extent without that release. The explanation by, presumably, a developer (of other software), is to focus solely on pushing out 2.4, as 2.3.7 would take time away from 2.4.

I suggest that they keep their full focus on version 2.4 for now and continue development at a high pace. As long as there are no critical security issues or blocking problems in 2.3.6, it’s more efficient to concentrate on the new version.

But, to my understanding, if a bug is resolved/marked fixed, it's ready for packaging already. So, I don't know what the holdup for a 2.3.7 release would be. That is, unless they want it to be the last stable release with minor bugs that may appear, but be trivial, after release, and aiming for only security releases until 2.3 EOL.

 

[mjda]

It's like ordering a cup of tea or coffee that had the wrong milk in it that you don't normally have.

No, it's nothing like ordering tea or coffee. Not even remotely other than the fact they both cost money.

If my coffee has the wrong milk I give it back and they make me another one.

Also, if I pay for a coffee and end up not getting it, I get my money back and I go get coffee somewhere else.

 

[Wing]

Well stated mate.

I totally agree with you as well.
Xenforo are an actual small business that's based in the UK.

So when it comes to renewing my licenses i have that in my mind. I'm helping them survive the rush of all the things they are asked to provide for us customers.

All those others who are whinging don't realise that they need to pay for the work they want done.
It's like ordering a cup of tea or coffee that had the wrong milk in it that you don't normally have.

They want perfection. It's not going to be perfect, but it will have some features that we will like.

But what if the milk ends up spoiled?