Will you be upgrading to XenForo 2.0?

I notice you stopped replying at XenForo.com because, clearly, XF is doing something totally opposite to what all the other forum software is doing, right? Well, I disagree. All of the forum software developers are following a similar pattern right now. Making minor improvements in third point releases, major features in second point releases and general framework overhauls in first point releases. Which, actually, is more or less the exact definition of semantic versioning.

You know, IPS 4.2 was announced recently and prior to that, did anyone know they intended to improve the likes system? Or any of the other improvements that have been talked about. They are really great improvements, some of them similar to ideas that we have talked about and might want to do in the future. But, have they announced them months/years in advance? Did they announce all of these intentions with 4.0? Or even 4.1? No. Of course not. Frankly, it would be stupid to set an expectation that might eventually have to be pushed back, and back and back. So we, as all the other developers do, announce features that ARE coming, not MIGHT be.

Yet, apparently we're getting singled out because what we're doing is somehow different to everyone else, when really it isn't.

We've been very up front about our intentions for XF 2.0 right from the beginning. Granted, the announcement was perhaps slightly too early, and the timescale isn't perhaps quite what we envisaged, but we're clearly in the final stages right now and our cards are absolutely on the table. We've explained a great deal about all of the new things in XF2 and that puts us in exactly the same standing as all of the others. Some will tell you that actually we exceeded their expectations because people got the incorrect impression that we would only be trying to reach feature parity with XF1. Well, that's far from what we've actually done. Here's just a few new features and improvements:

• Emoji (utf8mb4) support
  
• Retina (2x) avatar support
  
• Dynamic letter avatars based on user name
  
• Retina (2x) smilie support
  
• Navigation manager system
  
• Widget system
  
• Dedicated "what's new" area
  
• Enhanced post editing system
  
• New rich text editor
  
• Per browser toggling of the rich text editor
  
• Unread alert/conversation indicator in favicon, title tag
  
• Cross tab communication system
  
• Off canvas navigation for mobiles, generally improved responsive design
  
• Sticky form submit rows
  
• Custom thread fields
  
• Default help pages added to the help pages system
  
• Likes in conversation, "countable" like control
  
• Multi-quote in conversations
  
• Moderators may now ban users directly (by permission)
  
• Moderators may now approve/reject user registrations (by permission)
  
• BB code and mentions support in reports, resolution/rejection alert included in comment
  
• Member tooltip replaces member card
  
• Horizontal scrolling tabs system
  
• CSS transitions/animations in most cases
  
• Customizable member stats system
  
• New generic payment framework
  
• Extended external/connected accounts framework
  
• IP match and email ban records now include reason field, logging
  
• BB code media site embed HTML now customizable templates
  
• Responsive media embeds
  
• New attachment uploader system (no Flash)
  
• Attachments shown in previews
  
• New share page system: new sites, less overhead
  
• Guest quick reply with dynamically loaded CAPTCHA
  
• ReCAPTCHA v2 (NoCAPTCHA) by default
  
• Extended code block syntax highlighting
  
• Support for multiple inline moderation types per page
  
• Drag and drop sorting of node lists and other content types

And this doesn't even cover any of the new features or improvements for developers. And there's likely a fairly large amount of stuff missing from this list for end users. A fairly large chunk of this stuff WAS announced as a vision of what we intended XF2 to be. Far from, as you say, forgetting our end-users.

Our immediate future involves getting this out of the door. Beyond that, I'm certain we have the same aspirations and strategy as all of the other forum software developers with regards to their as-yet unannounced first and/or second point releases. Do you know what's going to be in vBulletin 5.3? Do you know what's going to be in IPS 4.3? Do you know what's going to be in WotLab 3.1? No, and I'm sure not many people outside of those companies do.

So why would XF 2.1 be any different?

Chris D said:

And this doesn't even cover any of the new features or improvements for developers.

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But Chris, 3rd party developers are evil*. You should have all the functionality anyone could ever ask for either built into the core or as official addons.

* Unless they give their time and the resulting product(s) away for free.


Fillip

Apparently 1st party developers are pretty evil too.

Chris D said:

Apparently 1st party developers are pretty evil too.

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I know, right?

Tracy Perry sorry to burst your bubble but I never said I expected a 'full roadmap' simply something tangible of what they have a vision of providing once they have sorted out the foundation. Hell even a house builder has some idea of what will go into the house s/he is designing even before the foundation is laid. And I've already said that both XF and IPS teams are not perfect and have their own faults. Some 3rd party developers have already said that they will not be coding for XF2. How many $$$ have people spent on 3rd party add-ons only find out that they may not be available in XF2 and some of those that are going to code haven't actaully come forward and said whether they will be charging again for those add-ons. This is why I am asking what is visualised as being included in the core to offset this unknown. I don't think that is a big ask when we are the ones investing in the future.

As for IPS I've followed them since it was free and I've been involved with forums for 20 years. And no IPS don't provide full roadmaps of what is to come but they do tell you what is going to appear in updates as they are doing them - a quick look back at the release notes show this, so you have an idea of what to expect in version xxx. And again, yes, 4 presented a lot of hurdles to surmount and things changed, many for the better and some elements that were ditched were missed. At least with IPS the core feature set is growing and the need for 3rd party add-ons is small compared to XF.

Don't read my beefs the wrong way either, I have great respect for the developers of both softwares, but (and this applies to both) they both display a degree of negative transparancy that disappoints a lot of their users. With costs accellerating in the real world you have to pitch yourself towards the vendor that provides the best value for money - as of today that, for me, is IPS and if I have a problem I know that they will be there to sort it; can that be said for any 3rd party developer who, at a whim, may decide to abandon ship?

I'm not griping for griping sake - with either side - I need to know how much I will need to spend to get what I, and my expected users, need somewhere down the line and I need to know that if I need support it will be there. And, as I do not, and never will, monetise any site that I develop any costs come from my pocket.

Uncertainty of any kind is not good for business and even more so when a core product is heavily dependent on 3rd party developers to fill the gaping holes that the 1st party developers don't fill, nor give any kind of indication that they will be considering filling those gaps as a first party developer.

So, going back to the title of this topic - no I won't be upgrading to XF2, but (and this is the main point) once XF2 matures I will take another look at it, if, at that time I am still interested in creating sites based around forums and if it delivers what I want I may reconsider. That same line of thought applies to any forum software that is around at that time when it comes.

At this present time IPS can provide me with what I want and with the uncertainty that lies ahead with XF2 it is a no brainer for me to choose IPS (I hasten to add, at this time). This decision is based upon a number of factors, cost being one and the blank wall that faces me with what the future holds with XF2. I have, what I consider to be, a very important project to hand (most definitely not a vanity project), something that I plan to be long-term (should it work out) and because the whole of the cost is being borne by me I have to decide what is going to give me the best value for money for what I need.

In the past, I used XF from version 1 and bought into a lot of (excellent) add-ons to give me the platform I wanted for my projects; in my mind they all seemed great projects, but the reality was often completely different - you can, if you wish, call that an experimental stage: And I will not deny that it was a fruitful stage in terms of the knowledge and experience I gained, albeit an expensive one. As I am approaching retirement, money becomes a concern when it comes to vanity projects. I can't afford these any more and regrettably, from what I can see in front of me now, and from the uncertainty of what is to come from XF in terms of core features (either now or in the near future), I have had to make a choice and I've made it.

There never was and never will be any intention to display any disrespect to any of the forum developers (and there are only a few mainstream contenders that are within reach of your average person - not company or group - to choose from) but one item that seems farthest from their minds during the developement stages, is total cost and expenditure from their end users to achieve the platform they desire. Of course it would be impossible to cater for everyone's vision, but setting out your stall with a vision is not giving away any great secrets for core features that are already out there. If they can be done better, that's amazing - but let's face it, there's nothing really new out there that hasn't already been done.

So I will close my comments on this topic here, otherwise the discussion will become circular with no one being right or wrong, simply a matter of exchanging opinions based on circumstances and where there is disagreement it would be best to just agree to disagree when those opinions differ.

I'm off now to do research for my new project (which will take several months) and when it's done you are all welcome to view it.

Oh BTW Chris D

Chris D said:

Yet, apparently we're getting singled out because what we're doing is somehow different to everyone else, when really it isn't.

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I've had this out with other forum software developers in the past, so you're not the only one's that's been grilled lol. Mind you, I will admit that the end result was the same - seems I'm a lone wolf when it comes to asking for simple answers; come to think of it, software developers would make excellent politicians.

Tracy Perry said:

My main beef is folks comparing the 2.0 release of XenForo to the upcoming 4.2 release of IPS... it's an unrealistic comparison.

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Err... why is it when both are in dev not released. If we're comparing latest versions here... then XF 2 and IPS 4.2 is the latest. You can't pick just one of them in development and not the other to compare, that's being one-sided.

GTB said:

Err... why is it when both are in dev not released. If we're comparing latest versions here... then XF 2 and IPS 4.2 is the latest. You can't pick just one of them in development and not the other to compare, that's being one-sided.

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Tracy already addressed this:

Tracy Perry said:

Compare XF 2.0 to IPS 4.0
IPS 4.0 failed to bring features that were present in the 3.x line forward to the 4.x line (some of which are STILL not there and some of which they later removed and are planning to re-implement in the 4.3 line)
XF 2.0 is shooting for feature equivalency with the 1.5 line (as noted above something that IPS failed to do).
I'm fairly certain based upon previous history that once we are into the 3rd major release of the XF 2.x line you will have seen similar improvements/additions in it.

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I don't believe Tracy is saying that you should ignore the advancements IPS 4.1 made, and 4.2 will make, when you're a new forum owner trying to decide a forum.

I believe what Tracy is saying is that if you are comparing how underwhelming XF2 is for you, compare XF 2.0 to IPS 4.0, where you'll find XF 2.0 is more impressive than IPS 4.0 was due to the feature parity and multiple other improvements.

If I am correct in my assumptions, then I fully agree with Tracy.


Fillip

Meanwhile our users are hopefully happily oblivious to the turmoil their admins are going through comparing platforms!

Maddox said:

IPS the core feature set is growing and the need for 3rd party add-ons is small compared to XF.

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I think this is where people get riled up.

That is EXACTLY why I went with IPS over VB initially, and why I still do not consider XF.

Third party development is great and all, but if that feature is built into the core, that is even better. It is not even a money issue, but a support issue.

While I do have some truly great third party plugins, over the years some of those plugins that we were dependent on, the developers decided to leave and we were SOL. While we are big enough to pay for plugins, did not consider looking into hiring someone to develop just for us.

This is what I like about the IPB suite... 98% of what we needed was built into the core software and or plugins, with no need to depend my business on an 18 year old developer who may not be around in 6 months to do an update or you have to compete with their drinking, partying or girlfriend/boyfriend time. While third party development has significant benefits, and absolutely zero issues for small items, it is a significant risk for large scale applications or components that your forum depends on.

This is why I have zero issues paying a renewal every 6 months for the IP Suite, including Nexus/Commerce and IP.Chat.

Chat I am a bit irritated about. Was something that was central to our forums and we paid for the 50 user chats, and had zero issues doing it because it integrated oh so well. Now that it is being EOL'ed, did have to find a third party solution and went with an open source platform that is far more powerful and stable... yet does not integrate as senselessly as IP Chat did. Even though it is free (Rocket Chat), I would gladly continue to pay for IP Chat.

If XenForo provided what the IP Suite does at its base, without depending on third party developers for basic functionality, I would gladly pay the same or higher than IPS prices.

Core or third party plugins does not matter look at vBulletin 5 and IPB 4.0 they dropped lots of stuff in does versions that where added later or not at all. Third party plugins have the same issue if developer stops you have an issue. What both also have is that you are depended for features and improvements one way or another. Basicly it does not matter at all you are always depended.

we_are_borg said:

Core or third party plugins does not matter look at vBulletin 5 and IPB 4.0 they dropped lots of stuff in does versions that where added later or not at all. Third party plugins have the same issue if developer stops you have an issue. What both also have is that you are depended for features and improvements one way or another. Basicly it does not matter at all you are always depended.

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You make a great point, and you are right for some features. For something trivial, it may be removed in next generations, however you have to ask yourself... what is more likely to happen... 1. A "large" developer like IPB, VB or XF stopping ALL support for that feature, or 2. An independent developer either stop upgrading that feature, that platform or development all together.

This is particularly critical in situations we face ourselves today, forums are a DYING industry so people Will be leaving to greener pastures. Who do you think is going to quit first? The guy/gal who sells a few plugins for $40 or less, or the large developer who collects hundreds of thousands if not millions in fees?

In either case, over the last 9 years I have had IPB/VB drop features that I need once (and that will be May 1st when IP.Chat is going EOL. This was always a risk is it was on their servers and not a huge feature for most boards, it was for us.

On the flip side I have had developers and plugins be EOL or just developers went missing at least 5 or 6 times. Fortunately in most of those cases that was integrated into the next version of IPB or there was a built in solution for IPB.

So while it is true that a core feature may not be brought over into the following version, you are silly to think that you are taking less risk by going with a third party developer solution than a feature that is native to the app.

This fact is why I believe Internet Brands bought VBulletin. How do you make sure you have development for the hundreds of forums you own? Buy the developers whose first priority is to the parent company. The last thing you want to do is to buy a business in a dying industry where there is no more support.

The bottom line is that you'll need to choose what will work for you and your site. You can not plan for every event. But look at how its going vBulletin was created after another company made a mess of it. Xenforo after vBulletin and they messed up later. IPB messed up with 4.0 and they are making it up in 4.1 and 4.2 especially. Can Xenforo mess up, yes offcource they can but for now they warned that 2.0 is most framework and that we are going to see new stuff in 2.1. But they can mess it up. Not one company can say we will never mess up because mistakes will be made.

I think the way to get XF2.0 to take off would be to release some killer functionality for it that's not available ifor the 1.x version. Then everyone would want to move over.

That won't happen till at least 2.1, for now they are concentrating on feature parity.

we_are_borg said:

But they can mess it up. Not one company can say we will never mess up because mistakes will be made.

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though one factor will lessen that chance = extended public alpha/beta testing and hearing feedback and suggestions from customers and alpha/beta testers

fingers crossed for my suggestions hehe

• https://xf2demo.xenforo.com/threads/unbundle-css-assets-without-css-php-if-using-http-2-https.2046/
• https://xf2demo.xenforo.com/threads/webp-and-webm-support.1395/post-15992

I hope they get rid of that plus sign in the corner of all the images in posts

It ruins the image threads and is distracting when the entirity of the image is important

R0binHood said:

I hope they get rid of that plus sign in the corner of all the images in posts

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Any chance of a screenshot of that next time you're on please?

It's part of the lightbox:

Thanks. That's prompted me to sign up as we are an image heavy site.