XenForo - Has the vBulletin / IPB killer arrived ?

[TNCclubman]

Without a photo gallery for the members and a calendar system (hopefully with event attend/not attend) it isnt a killer per se, because it has other features that currently smoke vB. Once it gets those set-up, (not in the initial release... hopefully xenforo 2.0) It wont even be a discussion.

A huge factor is going to be how extensible the software is, and from the looks of it, developers won't be disappointed. I'll say from a personal perspective, I rather work with an intelligent OO platform than, say vB 4, which was released before it was fully refactored and is really a headache to work with.

If the XF keep developers in mind, the modifications people need will be developed for it.

[DieselMinded]

I was one of the first members on xenforo ,

and i have not got to try the xenforo admin cp , but alot of the way the front end works is awesome !

as for IPB looks can be deceiving , i would say that 1/2 of the things you take for grated on vbulletin is not on IPB in any form , good luck finding a MOD for it as i went threw all there mods in 3 hours.

vBulletin 3 is by far my favorite .... im trying to get my ipb site up to par in functionality, now dont get me wrong there are some things IPB does better than vb. but until you get your hands dirty you don't see what its lacking because you don't really think of it as a "Feature"

I can write a book on things i dont like about vb4 and another book about things i dont like about IPB , but in 3 years and with a certain someone picking me up when i fall vb3 is as close as im going to get to a software that does what i need it to.

The only reason why i even looked towards IPB when starting Truck Pullers.com was i was so excited about vb4 screenshots ect... then i got to use it and i was like hummmm this isnt what i expected , then i was contracted to build a vb4 site and let me tell you what ..i would rather take a butt whippin before doing that again. so here i was thinking how much i didnt like it looking at the forum index and the gernal layout of the log in and everything...

then i clicked on an IPB site and was like OMG , it appears that's VB copied the Source code from IPB , no way... its a replica

i was very disappointed , im vb to the bone!

so i asked myself....

Why would i invest in something that's brand new and full of bugs when i can buy an established software and it looks the exact same?

Now knowing of what i took for granted , i would of still picked IPB because im not starting a forum on a soon to be EOL vb3 series , got to think about the future. xenforo would of been an option a year from now, however i have put extensive amounts of modifications to the IPB board im close to where i want it to be so we will just wait and see what happens .

as for now and knowing what i know , vb3 is the best hands down but i wont upgrade until weeks so i don't get exploited again ! 3 times in 3 years vb

I'm still here and hope that vb3 goes all the way to 3.9.9 before they EOL it

[sross]

Well imo IB is at a serious crossroads. VB4 is essentially like Windows Vista are really big "OOOPS WE F"D UP BIG TIME!", yet here I am typing this on Win7 64 which is pretty good OS. MSFT managed to get their crap together. IB needs to sort their crap out big time. I am impressed with xenforo so far, even amazed at how fast it is developing. If I can import my vbull community into xenforo, have a vbgallery equivalent, good mods and all then it would be a consideration. On the otherhand if IB would just get their crap together I could be content with vbull for many more years. So.. to answer the question "Is XenForo the vBulletin killer?" well.. that is up to IB!

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Please stay on topic. The topic is XenForo, not vBulletin or IB.

[Shelley_c]

The Personal Conversation feature is great. Has anyone of you tried it yet? So much easier to use and view than standard layout PMs (imo).

[BirdOPrey5]

I've used it but don't see that much of a difference to be honest... PM's were never something I thought needed improvement.

[Boofo]

Originally Posted by Shelley_c

The Personal Conversation feature is great. Has anyone of you tried it yet? So much easier to use and view than standard layout PMs (imo).

Isn't that like Xenon's old PMs as Threads hack?

[Spinball]

Ok so a conversation is displayed like a thread, yes, so you can follow it much more easy than PMs. But you can also invite people into the conversation, so they can read it from the start. And then remove them from it if you want. You can also specify the permissions whether people invited into the conversation are then able to invite other people.
Beyond this, there will be the ability to report conversation messages to the moderators to be handled by the reported message system.

[Grover]

Originally Posted by Spinball

Ok so a conversation is displayed like a thread, yes, so you can follow it much more easy than PMs. But you can also invite people into the conversation, so they can read it from the start. And then remove them from it if you want. You can also specify the permissions whether people invited into the conversation are then able to invite other people.
Beyond this, there will be the ability to report conversation messages to the moderators to be handled by the reported message system.

It is just amazing, the whole of XenForo.

I have been posting on XenForo since the introduction 2 few weeks ago and it is just simply addictive. Like somebody else pointed out already above... I haven't had such a pleasurable experience at/in any forum-powered website in... I don't know how long.

--------------- Added 15 Aug 2010 at 11:06 ---------------

Okay... repost.

What I tried to say is this: It is just amazing, the whole of XenForo. This is what a lot of customers have been expecting from vBulletin 4. But things went quite different...

I have been posting on XenForo since the introduction 2 few weeks ago and it is just simply addictive. Like somebody else pointed out already above... I haven't had such a pleasurable experience at/in any forum-powered website in... I don't know how long. As a loyal enthusiast promoter and very active community member of vBulletin (I run one of the most successful vBulletin powered websites in The Netherlands (5 million hits per month and counting) I was a big, big fan of the product until after the 3.8 series (let's say it in those words then ).

I think one of the KEY factors in XenForo's success will be the outstanding UI/UX. What I loved about the vBulletin 3 series was it's fantastic UI/UX (for that time) and you see the same quality now appearing in XenForo. Most of my (paying) customer suggestions to vBulletin 4 the last couple of 9 months were aimed at the lack of quality concerning the UI/UX of that product. I believe it's fair to say that it is just... well... just take a good look at XenForo to see what a good UI/UX is all about.

I strongly believe the UI/UX is an important key element, I would even say vital for the success of any software-product nowadays. I know not everybody sees it that way (remember the success of MySpace for example?), but for me it is KEY in deciding what software platform is the best for my community website. This was always vBulletin 3.x

And the developers behind XenForo understand this. They have the same vision and apply pixel-perfection when it comes to the UI. When you work with XenForo you can just see and feel in no-time that so much thought and care has been put into the whole UI/UX. This - IMHO- sets XenForo completely apart from any other major forum product available on todays internet market. Again, I tried very hard to offer all kinds of UI suggestions in the last 9 months to the product I have once loved so much, but it just wasn't picked up. I won't share how everything felt for me after the 'Gold' version was released, because I am not alone in this by now and this thread should be about XenForo as I've understood.

So, when I saw XenForo and used it for a few hours I was almost immediately sold. Why? Because... it literally solves ALL of the many, many, many UI/UX issues I saw and experienced and reported in the new version of vBulletin. Really. Solved. So it is very simple: should I spend more and more and more of my free (!) time trying to offer suggestions/ideas/feedback/bugreports to improve a product without seeing much results or should I go for a fresh new product that provides us with an outstanding fresh, innovate, intuitive userfriendly UI/UX immediately?

Also it is clear the development team behind XenForo have a strong vision when it comes to the essential value of the UI/UX of their product, so for now and in the future we can be sure the frontend will be in good hands and will keep being delivered to us in this outstanding professional quality.

Mind you, we only know the frontend by now and haven't seen the backend of XenForo. But, if the backend is as good as the frontend, then XenForo will become a serious alternative for people to look at who are not happy anymore with their current platform or the future of it. And I predict this will be a lot of people.

Exciting times. Very curious to find out what 2010/2011/2012 will bring in the world of forumsoftware!