[XI] Blog [Paid] [Deleted]

[Forsaken]

To be fair, no one has said 'soon' and all I got was a "ready when it's ready" response which wasn't very helpful.

Giving a more precise estimate doesn't make much sense when we're still considering what will be included in beta 2, as well as making sure we've caught the majority of bugs and oversights. For a beta that has only been released for 8 days, it's done much better in comparison to many products, with very few things that could be considered major or critical.

Blog management was left out of the first beta because it'll need a lot of attention put into it, just like the importer was left out as well. We even discussed it earlier today, if that'll reassure you in some way.

The vagueness is to prevent pestering and missed deadlines as much as possible, as we can't know when something will come up that might delay the next update.

Yep I wasn't trying to be negative or impatient. It looks like an absolutely amazing addon and one that'll form a key part of our site, it's just a shame it can't be used yet.

It's fairly stable, and can be used on a live site, though I wouldn't recommend it for most unless you're intending to bug test or are wanting to have your community give their input in what could be suggested, which I would actually suggest if you want it to be a core component of your site. Suggestions put forth in early beta are more likely to get discussed, and will sooner be incorporated into the product if they're accepted.

 

[Grover]

What features do you need? What would you like to see? What is it missing? Onimua, and anyone else for that matter, can't effectively build a better program without feedback.

If you feel something is missing, make a suggestion. If people don't make suggestions we have no clue as to what needs to be added, and the blog will never work
for you.

Hello Forsaken and King, I am completely new to add-ons, so I'm not quite sure how things work and if what I say is valid. The thought I have now: how can I make a suggestion if I don't know how this product works in the first place? I am used to make lots of suggestions (to vBulletin in the past (before Internet Brand's continuous debacles) and to Xenforo), even if a new version of a product is not downloadable yet. It is possible to make suggestions based on public beta versions (stating the obvious). But how does it works with an add-on like this? I would love to be able to testdrive it first on a demo site (before purchase) and make my suggestions accordingly. If people can use a demo product beforehand, wouldn't that stimulate purchases and also subsequent suggestions?

 

[Onimua]

To be fair, no one has said 'soon' and all I got was a "ready when it's ready" response which wasn't very helpful.

You had asked when it would be out of beta, and that was the only safe reply I can give. Until all features are in and all minor adjustments are made I can't give any realistic ETA. That's the simple truth, not me dodging the question. It's not like it will be another 7 months or something though.

Hello Forsaken and King, I am completely new to add-ons, so I'm not quite sure how things work and if what I say is valid. The thought I have now: how can I make a suggestion if I don't know how this product works in the first place? I am used to make lots of suggestions (to vBulletin in the past (before Internet Brand's continuous debacles) and to Xenforo), even if a new version of a product is not downloadable yet. It is possible to make suggestions based on public beta versions (stating the obvious). But how does it works with an add-on like this? I would love to be able to testdrive it first on a demo site (before purchase) and make my suggestions accordingly. If people can use a demo product beforehand, wouldn't that stimulate purchases and also subsequent suggestions?

A demo will be set up with Beta 2 on our site when it's done, which should have most of the basics covered that are missing for blog management in Beta 1 and then some.

Suggestions and bug reports should be handled on our site though.

 

[Grover]

A demo will be set up with Beta 2 on our site when it's done, which should have most of the basics covered that are missing for blog management in Beta 1 and then some.

Suggestions and bug reports should be handled on our site though.

Great, thank you Onimua. Keep up the good work... I believe a proper integrated blog product is what is missing in XenForo. In fact, it is a reason (next to the lawsuit/whole XenForo situation and lack of official communication on it from Xenforo) for me to hold back upgrading from vB3.8

How many sites are running Xi Blog?

 

[DRE]

I know adept gamer is, I'm not sure of any others, and my site will be running it eventually.

http://adeptgamer.com/forum/blogs/


What features do you need? What would you like to see? What is it missing? Onimua, and anyone else for that matter, can't effectively build a better program without feedback. I have yet to see "bromancing" going on, but XI Blog v1.1 is far better than it was in v1.0, and is only going to get better.

We can start here:

Hey would you consider doing username subdomain?

Not at this time.

That's really just a cosmetic thing, and I'd rather have actual features than something that adds no real benefit to the blogs functionality...

That's not right.

Ask your average blogger from wordpress, tumblr or any major blog site what their exact blog url is and they can tell you instantly.

Now ask a XI Blogger what their URL is and they won't know without having to look it up.

Binky Bainbridge's XI Blog url is http://www.dodgeboard.com/forums/index.php?blog/binky-bainbridge.523/

Holy crap. Look how long that blog url is? Let me find a shorter XI Blog...

Here we go: http://www.bglife.ru/blogs/4108/

Who is going to remember their user ID?

And another one: http://www.xenfacil.com/blog/kentaurus.8/

The last blog would look better as a url if it was http://kentaurus.xenfacil.com

Just like when your on tumblr. http://kentaurus.tumblr.com

We can remember those. We can tell our friends to check out or search our blog easily without having to look online. Easily accessible information at your fingertips, is a real benefit to blogs, nothing would be more important than actually knowing what your blog address is at the top of your head without having to google it. Most forum users do not remember their userid.

You do realize theres a huge difference between a hosted/self-hosted blog service dedicated to being a blog/microblog in comparison to a forum add-on that adds user blogs, right?

You're right, it has the benefit of making the URL look nice... Which is cosmetic, and has no real benefit outside of looking better than the default. Compared to more important features that directly effect usage and whether or not blogs are successful on a site, subdomains have no real importance.

Vanity URLs is not just a nice cosmetic addition but it's also a mnemonic one. I explained in my previous post that the average user will not remember their blog url. It's important that they remember their blog url not only because it makes it quicker and easier to share but also because it makes it easier for them to find their blog instead of having to search for the website they posted it on first.

K lets steer you away from thinking my suggestion is purely for cosmetics and look at the meaning of the word mnemonic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic

'any learning technique that aids information retention. Mnemonics aim to translate information into a form that the human brain can retain better than its original form. Even the process of applying this conversion might already aid the transfer of information to long-term memory.'

You say that it has no real importance but I disagree. Not only does vanity urls make your blog easier to remember, I honestly believes it makes it easier to search. If something makes your site easier to find in search then you should at least consider it SEO-worthy.

 

[Onimua]

Great, thank you Onimua. Keep up the good work... I believe a proper integrated blog product is what is missing in XenForo. In fact, it is a reason (next to the lawsuit/whole XenForo situation and lack of official communication on it from Xenforo) for me to hold back upgrading from vB3.8

How many sites are running Xi Blog?

I've got more up my sleeve that will further integrate my add-on with XenForo. Beta 1 doesn't fully cover all the points I want, and Core (our framework in which our add-ons sit on top of) will making use of a number of other integration points to further connectivity throughout an installation.

I have no numbers like that to be able to tell you (though generally that's confidential information anyway).

 

[Forsaken]

We can start here:

It isn't a priority, and won't be discussed until after a stable release is made.

One of the few ways I know of doing this will require modifications of Apache, and a wildcard DNS entry. This will mean it'll be limited to only people with a VPS or a dedicated, limiting the scope of the feature, which is something we've tried avoiding.

Also, due to how XI Blog allows for multiple blogs per user, this could lead to thousands of subdomains on a site. Given that users are likely to want to change their URL, and the fact that XI Blog allows multiple blogs per user, this could quickly become an issue of how to manage tracking of individual URL's. Also, if this was added, a way to change he URL portion would likely also need to be added, without the numeric identifier used in the blogs they will not properly redirect like forums do.

As I said, the feature is mostly cosmetic. While it might potentially drive people to use the blog, there is the fact that adding and managing it is too much to even discuss at this time when there is already a huge amount of changes planned.

 

[DRE]

It isn't a priority, and won't be discussed until after a stable release is made.

One of the few ways I know of doing this will require modifications of Apache, and a wildcard DNS entry. This will mean it'll be limited to only people with a VPS or a dedicated, limiting the scope of the feature, which is something we've tried avoiding.

Also, due to how XI Blog allows for multiple blogs per user, this could lead to thousands of subdomains on a site. Given that users are likely to want to change their URL, and the fact that XI Blog allows multiple blogs per user, this could quickly become an issue of how to manage tracking of individual URL's. Also, if this was added, a way to change he URL portion would likely also need to be added, without the numeric identifier used in the blogs they will not properly redirect like forums do.

As I said, the feature is mostly cosmetic. While it might potentially drive people to use the blog, there is the fact that adding and managing it is too much to even discuss at this time when there is already a huge amount of changes planned.

I was suggesting this as a paid premium feature since it requires a wildcard and config.php edit.

Couldn't multiple blogs be under their own section just as if it was another category?

But whatever I'll wait.

 

[Forsaken]

I was suggesting this as a paid premium feature since it requires a wildcard and config.php edit.

Couldn't multiple blogs be under their own section just as if it was another category?

But whatever I'll wait.

As I said, it's not even up for discussion at this point, so you'll be waiting quite a while.

 

[Jeremy]

Hello Forsaken and King, I am completely new to add-ons, so I'm not quite sure how things work and if what I say is valid. The thought I have now: how can I make a suggestion if I don't know how this product works in the first place? I am used to make lots of suggestions (to vBulletin in the past (before Internet Brand's continuous debacles) and to Xenforo), even if a new version of a product is not downloadable yet. It is possible to make suggestions based on public beta versions (stating the obvious). But how does it works with an add-on like this? I would love to be able to testdrive it first on a demo site (before purchase) and make my suggestions accordingly. If people can use a demo product beforehand, wouldn't that stimulate purchases and also subsequent suggestions?

As Onimua said, it'll be set up with Beta 2. However, you could base comments on what has been said about the add-on. The earlier the suggestions are made, the more likely its to be discussed for inclusion..

To be fair, no one has said 'soon' and all I got was a "ready when it's ready" response which wasn't very helpful.

Considering the blog is Onimua's baby (XI works as a partnership, where we each develop on our own, use a base core, and support each other), I can't actually comment onwhen a feature is going to make it into the product. I do know that its slated for a beta, where that is beta 2, beta 3, beta 4, I'm not sure and only Onimua can be certain of that.


The "ready when its ready" response is more or less about stable, since it could take 28 betas if released frequently, or just 2. That's the way software development works.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

Based on my own early assessment of this add-on... I could honestly say that once the bugs are sorted and all the current features are working correctly, this will be the biggest add-on for Xenforo, the most popular. Other blog solutions pale in comparison to the first beta of this one.

I do agree development is slow on this, though I also concur that now having it, this is going to be quite an essential item in many XF installs. I don't like having to be patient awaiting this as a usable product... but I will be due to my own initial assessments of it.

A very well designed product.

 

[Jeremy]

Based on my own early assessment of this add-on... I could honestly say that once the bugs are sorted and all the current features are working correctly, this will be the biggest add-on for Xenforo, the most popular. Other blog solutions pale in comparison to the first beta of this one.

I do agree development is slow on this, though I also concur that now having it, this is going to be quite an essential item in many XF installs. I don't like having to be patient awaiting this as a usable product... but I will be due to my own initial assessments of it.

A very well designed product.

Seeing the commits from Onimua, the development isn't slow. v1.1 was rewritten from the ground up to make a better foundation for the future, and several things were added into the Core framework, so that took refactoring.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

True... sorry. I'll reserve judgement on beta releases until they happen, as you're right, a complete rewrite is time consuming. Poor choice of words.

 

[Onimua]

Seeing the commits from Onimua, the development isn't slow. v1.1 was rewritten from the ground up to make a better foundation for the future, and several things were added into the Core framework, so that took refactoring.

I dislike your stalking of me while I work.

 

[Jeremy]

I dislike your stalking of me while I work.

BUT THIS KEYBOARD IS ON FIREEEEEEEEEEEE! Well, I got emails every commit. I was too lazy to find the setting to turn them off. Stalking will end(ish) soon(ish). I literally laughed for about a minute or two when I read that.

 

[Forsaken]

Based on my own early assessment of this add-on... I could honestly say that once the bugs are sorted and all the current features are working correctly, this will be the biggest add-on for Xenforo, the most popular. Other blog solutions pale in comparison to the first beta of this one.

I do agree development is slow on this, though I also concur that now having it, this is going to be quite an essential item in many XF installs. I don't like having to be patient awaiting this as a usable product... but I will be due to my own initial assessments of it.

A very well designed product.

Development was only sue initially because there were other things that were being done (developing the storefront add-on, developing the Core framework, product and feature planning etc).

Once I started initial pre-beta testing, I got new betas everywhere between a few hours to a week, and the week was because I had to focus on other projects at that time.

If future betas seem slow, thats because we're waiting a small amount of time until bug fixes aren't being found, or until feature planning and such is finished. Waiting a short time between releases is much better than getting super buggy releases.

 

[Onimua]

In light of the latest XenForo news... I will keep doing what I planned, but with much more fervor.

 

[Brandon Sheley]

So I got my old post imported into the new blog and now when I go to install or upgrade to the latest beta, I get this message

LNBlog is installed; installation of XIBlog cannot proceed. DO NOT UNINSTALL LNBLOG! A future version of XIBlog will allow you upgrade from LNBlog. Until then, please use XIBlog 1.1.0 Beta 1 on a private installation.

but at least I was able to edit the database enough to get the post from my other site imported

 

[Onimua]

You'll be able to upgrade to v1.1 soon.

 

[DRE]

You'll be able to upgrade to v1.1 soon.

What about converting from Better Blogs?