xenforo, new forum software, great source for ideas

[Sierron]

I agree that a lot of what is in XenForo is also in phpBB. But I just tried the demo, and I do like how their ACP is set up. It's much easier to navigate (in my opinion) than the phpBB one is, at least for a new user (not as much for an experienced user).

Everyone is saying that over the other one. SMF users find smf easier than phpBB. phpBB users find smf harder than their own. The ones like this the ones like that.

phpBB is not simple, not fully-featured, not beautiful, not modern, etc.. What is phpBB?

Here ya go

@Topic:

Why does phpBB3 needs to copy things from a paid forum software which is some clone of another paid forum software? Isn't the difference from other software, what makes it good over the other one?

What i don't get: If you don't like phpBB3 or it doesn't is what you want, why are you even here in the dev board talking about other forum software is better?

[imkingdavid]

I agree that a lot of what is in XenForo is also in phpBB. But I just tried the demo, and I do like how their ACP is set up. It's much easier to navigate (in my opinion) than the phpBB one is, at least for a new user (not as much for an experienced user).

Everyone is saying that over the other one. SMF users find smf easier than phpBB. phpBB users find smf harder than their own. The ones like this the ones like that.

I was merely pointing out a certain feature that I felt was done well in that software. Yes, people have personal preferences, and are often biased toward things that they are used to (many people are afraid of change and of trying new things).

@Topic:

Why does phpBB3 needs to copy things from a paid forum software which is some clone of another paid forum software? Isn't the difference from other software, what makes it good over the other one?

What i don't get: If you don't like phpBB3 or it doesn't is what you want, why are you even here in the dev board talking about other forum software is better?

I think there's a big difference between saying one software is better than another, and saying that a particular software has certain feature implementations that can be learned from. There is nothing wrong with looking at another piece of software, seeing how they do something, comparing it to how it is done in another software, and deciding which is a better implementation.

I'm not saying that we should copy any other software, or that we should become like any other software; I and some others in this thread are simply pointing out other ways of doing things as ideas for things that might improve future versions of our own software.

[/a3]

If they're good ideas then I won't object, unless their patented.

I think the discussion should be whether any of the ideas are any good and how they would benefit phpBB users. Of course, things like bloat, usability, etc. are considerations.

[AmigoJack]

If phpBB is going to be squarely targettted at being the highest-security forum software, then naturally some usability features would not be implemented.

I'd always chose this over everything else. And I know how valuable phpBB 3.0.9 is because I do understand the code and see how much effort and experience was put in. Comparing with the code of a vB it gave me the creeps.

Over decades I see it again and again: most people are attracted by the package, not its content. They'll always buy Apple products, wear Nike clothes, eat McDonald's "food" and pay for obfuscated, thus hazardous code. Nearly nobody's interested in security, production conditions (fair trade), artificial food and reading formulas.

I haven't seen xenforo's code yet, but newcomers are always prone to teething troubles. Surely, if he comes from the vB team he might know what he's doing, but it's still a huge task and nobody knows how long it will last until he gets bored or frustrated and gives up everything. Most fancy UI effects in fact reduce accessability - just try it yourself and for one whole day use your computer without a mouse! Suddenly hover menus and such are unreachable and hide probably the most essential functions. But then again I'm no youngster anymore - I experienced too many hypes which all brought the same ineffectivity and so I'm naturally not excited about new approaches that fast.

Oh yeah - keep in mind users which tend to disable JS, those shall be forced to enable it for software like xenforo?...

Off topic: Mozilla Developer Network is not amused by phpBB (but I don't know why, neither am I a big Mozilla fan)