XF 2.4 general discussion, feedback, complaints, random off topic posts, etc.

[Lee]

My advice would be to not comment if you don't have an understanding of the things you're commenting about.

"There hasn't been anything new".

Here's all the new things we've added since 1.5:

Have you seen...?

This forum spotlights some of XenForo's interesting features. Spotlights on features in upcoming releases will be posted here.

xenforo.com

Have you seen...?

This forum spotlights some of XenForo's interesting features. Spotlights on features in upcoming releases will be posted here.

xenforo.com

Have you seen...?

This forum spotlights some of XenForo's interesting features. Spotlights on features in upcoming releases will be posted here.

xenforo.com

Have you seen...?

This forum spotlights some of XenForo's interesting features. Spotlights on features in upcoming releases will be posted here.

xenforo.com

I hope that helps.

You’re fighting a losing battle…

 

[mjda]

Here's all the new things we've added since 1.5:

I hope that helps.

...but none of those are the ones I wanted so they don't count!

 

[Suzanne O]

You’re fighting a losing battle…

No need to blame him for this.
@Chris D has actually been producing minor updates as well as doing the major updates. Hardly his fault that he is copping so much stick over this.
Go and run 2.3.4 and see what he's done.

 

[Suzanne O]

Truth hurts don't it. Take off the rose colored glasses. I sure can't see anything new while I browse the site. I do confess I don't look very hard at the code so I might be missing these new features.

C'mon mate stop losing your mind at staff

 

[Alpha1]

Here's all the new things we've added since 1.5:

Do I remember correctly that there are quite a few new things in XF2.0 that were not listed in the HYS thread?

 

[M@rc]

Do I remember correctly that there are quite a few new things in XF2.0 that were not listed in the HYS thread?

Noindex threads and the Admin Panel Log Search weren't included in 2.3 HYS too.

 

[Arantor]

I think this is actually an interesting observation.

Yes, let’s be very clear that XF 2.x delivered a lot of functionality to a lot of sites. No one can or should take away from that, because they’re worthwhile improvements that people have undoubtedly benefited from.

However: taking the observation at face value for a minute, what is it really saying? I’m going to ignore whatever faith it may have been made in, good, bad, indifferent, ignorant, because it doesn’t matter.

The question: to someone who is not deeply rooted and familiar with the ecosystem, what compelling functionality does it offer to bring people on board with running a community (NB a forum and a community are not the same nor interchangeable)? Superficially, to someone not deep in the game, 2.x looks like a tidied up 1.5. And that’s a good thing on some level - consistent but evolutional UI, etc etc. but it hides the bigger, far scarier question: what is there to facilitate a compelling community experience?

It isn’t 2004, it isn’t 2014. It’s 2024. Users have higher expectations than they used to because they’ve been spoiled by other things.

If I were coming to evaluate XF now, today, as a new customer, what’s the selling point of XF over the other platforms? I’m serious: step outside of the comfort zone, you’re a hobbyist with sufficient means, maybe someone looking to build a community around something that is already monetised and you want to expand that into a community (maybe user advocacy, maybe support, maybe peer to peer support, maybe all of the above), and what is the narrative of XF that says “I am the right solution, not only for today but for tomorrow”?

Again, I’m not downplaying the improvements since 2.0 - but I’m already familiar with the ecosystem and what my choices are for a forum. Someone coming cold might look at this and go “what do I get for my $195 that I don’t from, say, SMF” and that equation absolutely does happen, just as they look at the $195 here and the $$$ of Invision and do that mental math.

But for someone not familiar with the details, what’s the high level narrative of improvements and the journey going forward? Invision clearly has laid out the narrative with “look we have courses, look we have these highly interactive features, look we have this bold new design” and with that they’re spinning a narrative of why you should get on their train and go where they’re going.

What does that journey look like for XF? Get a forum, and go collect a bunch of plugins (so you can’t easily price up the headline cost without doing a bunch of research), and maybe you’ll have something to suit?

There is a very real downside here that isn’t being leapt on, and that is the story for those people who are not yet converts. Or those that have left and found their way back.

Yes, the repeat business is awesome and the iterative features are appreciated, but there is a void of marketing for the people who can’t appreciate why the HYS stuff matters, and the reaction here in this thread is doing that narrative so poorly.

 

[Chris D]

Do I remember correctly that there are quite a few new things in XF2.0 that were not listed in the HYS thread?

As best as I can gather in 2024, that HYS thread does appear to be fairly exhaustive but I wouldn't be surprised if there was other bits that were missed.

I think a lot of people forget how much XF 2.0 added which is thanks to our various progress updates which expressed we were "aiming for feature parity". Though this was kind of unclear or misunderstood to mean that's all we were doing.

Noindex threads and the Admin Panel Log Search weren't included in 2.3 HYS too.

To be honest, I forgot log searching was added until just now

 

[FTL]

They might have good intentions. Yet major releases take years. When the first betas of a new release show up you see a new style and some backend enhancements and nothing else. There hasn't been anything new except for the style in v2 and all its iterations. Then again they don't profess to be anything more then a forum software company.

If not for loyal customers this ship would have sunk years ago.

Frankly that’s unadulterated bull.

Major releases have sometimes taken a while, yes. We’re working on that though, evidently.

We haven’t added a new style since 2.0 nor changed it significantly in that time.

Every version since 2.0 (including 2.0) has knocked off a number of significant features. To say there hasn’t been “anything new” is just an outright lie or wilful ignorance.

As for surviving off of loyal customers, all the new licenses we’ve sold in 2024 along with the ongoing growth in our Cloud platform (which is majority new customers) would disagree.

Not sure what your personal problem is but there’s no need to spout off nonsense like this.

@AWS way to demotivate the devs. If you really must make negative comments like this, then at least be accurate. Chris buried your argument here yet you laugh instead of conceding the point.

Having dabbled with programming over 30 years ago, I for one appreciate the time and effort that it takes to develop a large software project like XF, even when progress seems slow at times.

The stuff I did was routines and functions with only the odd small app that I created as a hobby. It often didn't take long to create the basic function, but then fleshing it out with error trapping, refinements and debugging took a helluva lot longer and was a significant effort. Clearly developing XF is on another level of complexity, time and effort, even with today's modern development environments which I didn't have, so that should be kept in mind when criticising the devs for apparent "slow progress".

Finally, what I find interesting is that despite PCs being a lot more advanced 30 years later, modern PCs work in exactly the same way as they did back then, even across platforms / architectures, not just the x86 world. Therefore, I'm quite comfortable looking at modern code and processes as none of the principles have changed.

 

[Arnox]

Well it was meant as an example, nothing more. As mentioned there are literally 100s of other suggestions and you can bet that a lot of them don't create much extra load if any at all and many will not be complex regarding implementation. So it does not make too much sense to dig to deep in this one. Either way the main issue is probably the lacking feedback for the suggestions and bug reports.

As much as I think there are two or three key features that XF probably needs, there's also an ASS-TON of very good reasons why we're using XF. And also consider, because of my site's super general focus, we have to accommodate a ridiculous amount of needs and desires that users new and old may potentially have. Because of that, my site needed the maximum amount of power, security, performance, and flexibility available in a forum package. XF provides ALL of that to us, easily. There's just no contest, man.

I think this is actually an interesting observation.

Yes, let’s be very clear that XF 2.x delivered a lot of functionality to a lot of sites. No one can or should take away from that, because they’re worthwhile improvements that people have undoubtedly benefited from.

However: taking the observation at face value for a minute, what is it really saying? I’m going to ignore whatever faith it may have been made in, good, bad, indifferent, ignorant, because it doesn’t matter.

The question: to someone who is not deeply rooted and familiar with the ecosystem, what compelling functionality does it offer to bring people on board with running a community (NB a forum and a community are not the same nor interchangeable)? Superficially, to someone not deep in the game, 2.x looks like a tidied up 1.5. And that’s a good thing on some level - consistent but evolutional UI, etc etc. but it hides the bigger, far scarier question: what is there to facilitate a compelling community experience?

It isn’t 2004, it isn’t 2014. It’s 2024. Users have higher expectations than they used to because they’ve been spoiled by other things.

If I were coming to evaluate XF now, today, as a new customer, what’s the selling point of XF over the other platforms? I’m serious: step outside of the comfort zone, you’re a hobbyist with sufficient means, maybe someone looking to build a community around something that is already monetised and you want to expand that into a community (maybe user advocacy, maybe support, maybe peer to peer support, maybe all of the above), and what is the narrative of XF that says “I am the right solution, not only for today but for tomorrow”?

Again, I’m not downplaying the improvements since 2.0 - but I’m already familiar with the ecosystem and what my choices are for a forum. Someone coming cold might look at this and go “what do I get for my $195 that I don’t from, say, SMF” and that equation absolutely does happen, just as they look at the $195 here and the $$$ of Invision and do that mental math.

But for someone not familiar with the details, what’s the high level narrative of improvements and the journey going forward? Invision clearly has laid out the narrative with “look we have courses, look we have these highly interactive features, look we have this bold new design” and with that they’re spinning a narrative of why you should get on their train and go where they’re going.

What does that journey look like for XF? Get a forum, and go collect a bunch of plugins (so you can’t easily price up the headline cost without doing a bunch of research), and maybe you’ll have something to suit?

There is a very real downside here that isn’t being leapt on, and that is the story for those people who are not yet converts. Or those that have left and found their way back.

Yes, the repeat business is awesome and the iterative features are appreciated, but there is a void of marketing for the people who can’t appreciate why the HYS stuff matters, and the reaction here in this thread is doing that narrative so poorly.

Again, as I said above, is it perfect? No. But I also definitely thing that XF has gotten so powerful (and especially if you include its many, many add-ons) that the cold hard truth is that the onus of success doesn't really rest on the XF devs anymore. It rests on the site administrator. If your site is doing badly, I hate to say it, guys, but it's probably your fault. At this point, you can't blame the tools anymore.

 

[Arantor]

the cold hard truth is that the onus of success doesn't really rest on the XF devs anymore. It rests on the site administrator.

The cold hard truth is infinitely more complicated than that.

The admin has always had to do the work. The “build it and they will come” if it were ever real, has always been much romanticised and mythologised.

But there are two aspects to this, and XF does have direct responsibility on the first, if only to update XF.com.

1) We have a person familiar with 1.x, comes to visit XF.com, sees the new theme, and asks essentially “what’s changed”. The answer they got wasn’t a high level “here’s the big awesome things since then” but what felt (to me) as a dismissive “go do some reading”. Tone aside, there is the question of being compelling. (After all if you say this on your website as the primary tagline, it possibly should be true.) The comparison here is 1.5 to today.

What are, say, three headline features that XF introduced in that time that make someone think “wow I want that”? Pointing at HYS doesn’t help because they’re all written for the audience of people already here, selling them on the next version. What’s the “shut up and take my money” feature introduced in the 2.x line?

And from actual experience (I’m formerly SMF dev team) I guarantee only existing customers already bitten by the editor will find “new editor” a compelling reason to upgrade. It does nothing to entice a new person who doesn’t have that experience, and might even be put off by that unless the editing experience is practically magical by comparison. (Because editing is by definition a core requirement of a forum. Saying “we have a new editor” invites “what was wrong with the old one” and while there are perfectly reasonable reasons for the choice at the time, if you get to that point you’ve already lost the argument if not necessarily the sale.)

As I said I came from SMF and on the road from 2.0 to 2.1 I asked the question why people should upgrade. Because maintenance isn’t compelling. Because you have a new theme isn’t compelling. Myriad minor quality of life improvements are all welcome but not compelling.

There needs to be something on the site showcasing the biggest, coolest, “I want that”-est features. And it needs to come with a story why these features are what you want and need. There is definitely some of that on the current homepage but honestly… it could have been written like that any time in the last few years. You have, in XF, a compelling product that doesn’t tell people why it’s compelling. Other products exist that “engage your audience” and “provide a safe space” and “share knowledge”, why and how does XF do these better?

And if you’re excited about features, you’ll tell anyone who’ll listen about them, rather than dismissively pointing them at a board. You’d go “well, there’s this cool feature, that cool feature, and you can read about the rest over at (link to HYS)”. Simple tone change goes a long way - after all if a developer doesn’t seem excited about their own product, what hope do the rest of us have? (I get how hard this is, more than most, but that impression counts a lot.)


2) It has been said for a long time now that content is king. That’s never been more true. Problem is, for a forum to be successful the bar has never been higher for content to build a community around. Article threads help, but so so often I keep seeing people talk about needing to add on AMS or XenPorta or some other addons to build and house content in.

The fact the ecosystem has these is great, but the fact that the XF team are choosing to leave this to third parties is an interesting choice - because anyone that goes out beyond here to look at what other sites are doing are going to find that XF doesn’t offer anything first party for pure content beyond RM and that has its pain points. (After all, if RM did content management, why does AMS exist? Answer: because AMS does things RM doesn’t.)

I am definitely inclined towards thinking that you need more options in the ecosystem for admins to be able to prepare, present and manage content to support their forum. I’m just not sure how sustainable it is in the long term that this is left primarily to third parties to address.

 

[smallwheels]

he onus of success doesn't really rest on the XF devs anymore. It rests on the site administrator. If your site is doing badly, I hate to say it, guys, but it's probably your fault.

Yes and no. Obviously we all see the strengths of XF, otherwise we would use a different platform. On the other hand, your argument is a little odd: By leaving a lot of functionality to be implemented via add ons there is a lot of load and responsibility shifted over from XF to site administrators and a lot of additional complexity that they have to deal with: You have to find wether there is an add on, you have to configure it, so check for conflicts, bugs and updates and if there's trouble XF say: Well, not our problem. Plus you have the risk that no one asses the code quality of 3rd party apps and the developer may be responsive or not or one day even no longer support the add on you depend on. So, yes, the responsibility for forum success lies on the site admin (it always did) - but XF could do a lot of things to make their life easier.

If I understand the announcement for 2.4 this is the idea behind this update:

XenForo 2.4 will focus on quality-of-life enhancements for admins, moderators, and users alike. (...) As we have done with previous releases, we will be looking towards popular suggestions when finalizing the feature set.

The interesting part is: When you look at the popular suggestions, sorted by popularity...



... 11 of the 15 top voted ones date back to 2010 (nincluding the "ignore" feature that we have been talking about earlier in this thread). What this means is up do individual interpretation:

• it may seem natual that older suggestions aggretate more votes as they had way more time to get them than new ones
• it may be that many other older suggestions have been implemented and these are just the ones left and they are left because they are to hard to implement or don't fit into the strategy
• it may be that due to the age at least some of the suggestions are not of real interest any more, outdated, and at least some of the people that voted for it are not interested in them any more or even no longer use XF
• it may be that suggestions are simply ignored when thinking about new features
• it may be that suggestions are not maintained (in terms wether they are for whatever reason ruled out)
• it may be that people stopped voting to suggestions b/c they felt they had no effect anyway
• it may be that the process of voting does not produce useful results (i.e. has generally a low participation)

or something completely different. I can't and won't judge. Someone recently wrote a brilliant truth somewhere in this forum:

Most users don't care too much for features once a very basic set it there. All they want is a space to communicate easily. It is more the administrators of the forums that are eager for features, not so much the users. Often more for their own playful attitude than for a real need and use.

I can unfortunately not remember who stated that and where, but I think that's true. If you install XF as it is and let it run there's not too much that forum users will miss and if so they can live with it. If as a site admin you start to customize you start a never ending journey down a rabbit hole and the deeper you get the more you loose contact to the basic functionality and overrate additional features. Often enough the best solutions don't have many features but few, but they have the right ones and focus on good usability.

Which brings me to next point: We all got used to how to administering XF. But I remember when starting with XF two years ago how dated it felt in the ACP in terms of looks, UX and administration (in comparison to younger software) and how cluttered and sometimes weirdly sorted the backend felt. W/o the search function within ACP and w/o the forum here (and the user manual) I would have been lost often (and sometimes this is still the case). Obviously you have to pay a price for flexibility and a high level of configurability - which is complexity of the backend. This is normal and even more if a product has a history and evolved over many years. And there are many products that are way worse than XF, to be fair. Still, some things are way more cumbersome than necessary. As a prominent example the need to use (s)ftp or alike to install or update add ons has been mentioned. But also simple things like i.e. a possiblity to filter/seach the list of installed add ons in real time (Ajax or similar). As some devs wildly add a [devname] before the add on name sorting is pretty wild and having to scroll a list of dozens is annoying.
Sometimes, when you configure something in a submenu point of the side panel and hit ok, the whole page including the sidepanel jumps up to the top of the sidebar and you have to scoll back down. Many options that you can configure in different places. There are a lot of things like that.
Possibly, if one would start from scratch today, UI and UX of the backend would be (way) different and some concepts would possibly be as well. But then again a complete overhaul and change of ACP would probably massively annoy long term users as they got used to it and would have to learn everything new.

So I really appreciate the idea of focussing on "quality of life" enhancements. Many add ons do that - things like the moderator panel by @AndrewSimm are a life saver. Tiny add ons that i.e. allow scheduled posts or sorting of sticky posts or bigger ones like multi prefix are things that - in my opinion - should be in the core.

A very neglected area are custom fields: They are a great feature and I was totally baffled when I learned that they are easy to implement, but it is impossible to do much with them, i.e. a simple statistic based on custom fields is already impossible if you don't dive directly into the database and the land of SQL.

The lack of an integrated backup solution for the forum is another thing (no, not everyone has or wants C-panel) and a reliably GDPR compliant cookie-consent is another. There are really many areas where quality of life of site admins could be improved. Thus I think your statement...

truth is that the onus of success doesn't really rest on the XF devs anymore. It rests on the site administrator. If your site is doing badly, I hate to say it, guys, but it's probably your fault.

... really is a two sided sword.

 

[SatGuyScott]

I must admit I am getting concerned about the future of XF, espcially after Themehouse went around posting the other day they will soon be removing their add ons and getting away from Xenforo.

My site uses and relies on UI.X and from the tone of their posts the other day I don't see them upgrading Ui.X for 2.4 and that scares me. Espcially after renewing all my themes with them a few weeks ago for another year.

Having gone through this in the past with vBulletin, I have seen what happened there when developers start abandoning ship. It wasn't good.

I love Xenforo and hope it can weather through and grow.

 

[CedricV]

I must admit I am getting concerned about the future of XF, espcially after Themehouse went around posting the other day they will soon be removing their add ons and getting away from Xenforo.

My site uses and relies on UI.X and from the tone of their posts the other day I don't see them upgrading Ui.X for 2.4 and that scares me. Espcially after renewing all my themes with them a few weeks ago for another year.

Having gone through this in the past with vBulletin, I have seen what happened there when developers start abandoning ship. It wasn't good.

I love Xenforo and hope it can weather through and grow.

I think you’re slightly overreacting. I haven’t seen any developers abandoning the ship. Sure, XF lacks communication but that has improved significantly lately. I can’t speak for ThemeHouse, haven’t seen their response of what you say, but TH has been hopping softwares ever since MyBB. Not saying that is a bad thing, just an observation.

 

[smallwheels]

I must admit I am getting concerned about the future of XF, espcially after Themehouse went around posting the other day they will soon be removing their add ons and getting away from Xenforo.

I dont't see this as dramatic as a risk for the future of XF but no doubt the number of add on suppliers that for various reasons left their add ons (paid or not) neglected, stepped out of here or of XF alltoghether is high.

This is (along with compatibility and update worries) one of the reasons why I stick to the default theme. While I may miss out on individualization by that I (probably dramatically) lower the risk of issues. Having the risk through functional add ons is enough trouble for me.

As mentioned earlier in this thread: For many if not most add on and theme developers XF is probably not a business case that would be good enough for a reliable, sustainable and decent income. At least not on a professional level in the western world. There are a few exceptions, but most seem to do it as a small side business along with their day job or as a hobby out of fun and dedication (or they share what they developed mainly for their own forum) or they come from other areas of the world where wages and cost of living are lower.

 

[SatGuyScott]

I think you’re slightly overreacting. I haven’t seen any developers abandoning the ship. Sure, XF lacks communication but that has improved significantly lately. I can’t speak for ThemeHouse, haven’t seen their response of what you say, but TH has been hopping softwares ever since MyBB. Not saying that is a bad thing, just an observation.

Here is the post. Ad he posting in a bunch of other TH add ons that people should grab them now as they will soon be deleted. He also mention Ozzmod may be doing the same.

D

Post in thread '[TH] Holidays [Deleted]'

Nov 25, 2024

That's very pity, because like a lot of others I loved the addon.

Is it only removed from here and still available at your official site? Or is it completely removed never to come back?
Maybe somebody can take over if it will not be developped again?

Hey sorry! It really probably wasnt maintained enough to deserve not putting the unmaintained prefix and we really (as a team) want to move on from XenForo. I think Ozzy is moving on, and we gave him our addons last time. So that speaks volumes haha, wouldnt even know who to give em to. It should work fine though as is.

• Dad.

• 
• 

Both made some great add ons.

 

[CedricV]

Here is the post. Ad he posting in a bunch of other TH add ons that people should grab them now as they will soon be deleted. He also mention Ozzmod may be doing the same.

D

Post in thread '[TH] Holidays [Deleted]'

Nov 25, 2024

That's very pity, because like a lot of others I loved the addon.

Is it only removed from here and still available at your official site? Or is it completely removed never to come back?
Maybe somebody can take over if it will not be developped again?

Hey sorry! It really probably wasnt maintained enough to deserve not putting the unmaintained prefix and we really (as a team) want to move on from XenForo. I think Ozzy is moving on, and we gave him our addons last time. So that speaks volumes haha, wouldnt even know who to give em to. It should work fine though as is.

• Dad.

• 
• 

Both made some great add ons.

@Ozzy47 has retired, but still maintains a few add ons. He has passed his work to @Painbaker which will continue to work on most add ons, and even some new ones. So I wouldn't really be scared you'll be left in the dark. Find appropriate replacements for ThemeHouse, and you're good to go.

 

[smallwheels]

Here is the post. Ad he posting in a bunch of other TH add ons that people should grab them now as they will soon be deleted.

I did that with a couple of them but no matter what: It is a question of time until at least some of them stop working properly, especially given the coming updates to XF2.4 and later 3.0.

While this...

@Ozzy47 has retired, but still maintains a few add ons. He has passed his work to @Painbaker which will continue to work on most add ons, and even some new ones.

is true...

So I wouldn't really be scared you'll be left in the dark.

... I am a little bit in sorrow that the load of maintaining, supporting, selling and keeping up to date more than 600 add ons by a single person may almost inevitably lead to burn out mid term, no matter how brave the person is.

 

[javakhir]

now I am confident of that we need this smile on the like list!

 

[Arnox]

Here is the post. Ad he posting in a bunch of other TH add ons that people should grab them now as they will soon be deleted. He also mention Ozzmod may be doing the same.

Wait... Why are they DELETING add-ons? WTF? That's ridiculous. Just make them free then if the authors want to retire. There is zero good reason to delete old content like that. The internet in general already has a bad enough problem with link rot.

By leaving a lot of functionality to be implemented via add ons there is a lot of load and responsibility shifted over from XF to site administrators and a lot of additional complexity that they have to deal with: You have to find wether there is an add on, you have to configure it, so check for conflicts, bugs and updates and if there's trouble XF say: Well, not our problem.

This is all assuming though that this load can actually be taken by the XF devs. It assumes they have both the funds and the time to address even just half of what these major add-on developers do. And we haven't even talked about feature creep here yet.

I think the only major feature XF might be missing is vB's Social Groups. (Letting users make and govern their own sub-forums on your site.) Or maybe a much better way to make and manage a massive number of sub-forums. Those are the only two major things XF is missing.

For example, you guys were talking about wanting a CMS, but the more I use forums, the more I find such unnecessary and even inefficient. The forum pretty much IS its own CMS. The only thing you could say against using the regular forum format as a CMS is that sub-forums don't have the option of displaying an article image somewhere near the thread title in the thread listings. That's it. That's literally the only problem I can think of.