Coming Soon: XenForo - the future of AVForums

**Stuart Wright** · 28-07-2010, 7:31 PM

Tonight I was amongst an exclusive group of people invited to view a demonstration of XenForo software.
It has been developed by the key ex-developers of vBulletin software and it is very impressive.
Brand spanking new and using the very latest coding techniques, I hope when people get to see it, they will be as excited as me.
XenForo™
A growing list of interesting features is here.
It will be some time before we upgrade to the software because it's not available just yet, and it will take a while before all the specialised extra features we need (like iTrader) are created for it.
But if you want to get a 'sneak peek' of where AVForums is going, you can take a look.

**Stuart Wright** · 29-07-2010, 12:17 PM

One interesting new feature in Xenforo is the 'real time' timestamp on messages. On our forum, if you open a thread, it displays the date and/or time the messages were posted. View this thread for a while and the displayed timestamps will become invalid. They weren't posted a minute ago, they were posted 5 minutes ago.
With Xenforo, these timestamps are updated every minute to reflect the actual time they were posted. From 'a moment ago' to 'a minute ago' to '2 minutes ago' and so on.
This feature has negligible impact on speed and resources.
It is one example of thinking out of the box and implementing a minor but useful feature which defines a modern and slick forum. Attention to detail is what it's about.

Sniper Ash6 · 29-07-2010, 2:04 PM

That looks very good Stuart, I look forward to it

SkilledNutter · 30-07-2010, 4:37 PM

Do you know that feeling when you have been using something for so long and you love it, then someone says we are going to change it. Right now I have that feeling

lol

But with everything I have seen done to improve this site over the last three years that I have used it, I know it will be good

DaveHope · 31-07-2010, 8:42 AM

Looks to be early in development so I can't find too much about it, but any word on the scalability? Does it leverage stuff like memcached, CDNs for resources etc?

**Stuart Wright** · 31-07-2010, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveHope

Looks to be early in development so I can't find too much about it, but any word on the scalability? Does it leverage stuff like memcached, CDNs for resources etc?

Memcache has been mentioned on their forum already and the way the back end works will be at least as good as vB. They do have large sites in mind as well as the smaller sites which make up the majority.

DaveHope · 31-07-2010, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stuart Wright

Memcache has been mentioned on their forum already and the way the back end works will be at least as good as vB. They do have large sites in mind as well as the smaller sites which make up the majority.

Cool, will have to keep my eye on it then

Marc · 31-07-2010, 11:30 AM

lol i was just looking at the article about the new pagination options including jump to page and thinking how much of a godsend that would be then i see a reply from you saying "occasionaly i *do* come up with good ideas" so can i assume that was your recommendation?

**Stuart Wright** · 01-08-2010, 11:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marc

lol i was just looking at the article about the new pagination options including jump to page and thinking how much of a godsend that would be then i see a reply from you saying "occasionaly i *do* come up with good ideas" so can i assume that was your recommendation?

Yes I was chatting to Kier about the pagination and suggested that it would be cool if we could click the arrows and the page numbers would change. Later that day he showed me the finished product! Slicker than I had imagined.

majnu · 03-08-2010, 10:19 AM

Would we get to see this demo? Where am I meant to take a look? **God Help Me**

**Flimber** · 03-08-2010, 10:27 AM

XenForo™

sleaver · 03-08-2010, 4:52 PM

I've had a look a few times now and up until the last time I thought it look really great, however it then hit me that some things could be mistaken for Facebook. Knowing most people either hate or love Facebook are you not worried about this or are you hoping your new style will detract from the Facebook look and feel?

majnu · 03-08-2010, 6:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flimber

XenForo™

I saw that link which took me to the community. I just thought there might be a video which shows the user interface and added user features which go above and beyond VBulletin.

**Stuart Wright** · 03-08-2010, 7:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by majnu

I saw that link which took me to the community. I just thought there might be a video which shows the user interface and added user features which go above and beyond VBulletin.

I think Floris created a video showing the page selection animation. But I think that's it for now.

DrGekko · 04-08-2010, 10:42 AM

Is there any way of making the itrader process less cumbersome... I find the process quite time consuming and archaic, especially after a few days have lapsed. If there was a way transactions being logged and saved on your profile when you log in (eg. like ebay - "awaiting feedback" list) then this would make the process much easier.

poppy10 · 04-08-2010, 7:33 PM

Looks, good, but seems to be at a very early stage of development, surely it will be months before it is ready and stable enough to be rolled out on high-traffic sites like avforums

**Stuart Wright** · 04-08-2010, 9:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by poppy10

Looks, good, but seems to be at a very early stage of development, surely it will be months before it is ready and stable enough to be rolled out on high-traffic sites like avforums

Yes, I expect so. We'll be approaching 2011 or into the new year before we can consider upgrading.

c_bob_a_builder · 06-08-2010, 9:09 AM

Quote:

Would we get to see this demo? Where am I meant to take a look? **God Help Me**

info on features and demo videos here

XenForo Overview | XenForo Community

**Stuart Wright** · 10-08-2010, 9:24 PM

Check out this video which shows how to insert images into your posts.
The video is best viewed full screen.

Inserting Pictures into Messages Using XenForo from XenForo on Vimeo.

Sniper Ash6 · 10-08-2010, 9:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stuart Wright

Check out this video which shows how to insert images into your posts.
The video is best viewed full screen.

Inserting Pictures into Messages Using XenForo from XenForo on Vimeo.

That looks extremely good. Useful while simple.

SG-22 · 11-08-2010, 10:05 AM

Just thought I'd reply after checking out the XenForo website. Fair play everything I've seen so far leaves me thinking 'Why haven’t we had this sooner!'

It seems like Childs play. Adding images to a post/viewing a person profile without leaving the page your viewing will certainly take a lot of strain off the servers and (hopefully) speed things up. Should be great for both exciting and new members alike!

Can’t wait to try it!

Marc · 11-08-2010, 10:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SG-22

Should be great for both exciting and new members alike!

i would like to register myself as an exciting member

SG-22 · 11-08-2010, 10:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marc

i would like to register myself as an exciting member

Must. Learn. To. Type. Slower.

**Stuart Wright** · 11-08-2010, 1:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SG-22

leaves me thinking 'Why haven’t we had this sooner!'

It's not available to use, yet. But we will be upgrading to it as soon as possible. I reckon 6 to 9 months.

MarkE19 · 11-08-2010, 1:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sniper Ash6

That looks extremely good. Useful while simple.

+1

Mark.

mudstuff · 11-08-2010, 5:31 PM

Hmm, looks....good but I'm not overwhelmed. They seem to be talking it up an awful lot in their forums without providing any justification. Stuff like "just because you've seen it on another forum doesn't mean it should be on XenForo" and "XenForo is revolutionary" etc.

All this seems slightly unsubstantiated atm.

Any chance of editing your top post Stuart and including a bullet list of some of the highlights of what it offers over vB and how these would be useful to AVF?

I'm ever interested in new developments to AVF (love the forum list) but I've not come across anything "revolutionary" about XenForo yet...

**Stuart Wright** · 11-08-2010, 9:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mudstuff

I'm ever interested in new developments to AVF (love the forum list) but I've not come across anything "revolutionary" about XenForo yet...

It's an evolution, I would say, but a pretty spectacular one. Edited the first post to link to the 'Have you seen...' forum.

mjcairney · 10-09-2010, 12:55 PM

Today is the first chance I've had to sit down and have a good look at some of the Xenforo offerings and must say I am impressed. Usually my inclination is to stay with the current, and therefore known, option but must say that I am looking forward to this new system being introduced.

Cheers,

Martin.

qwerty321 · 10-09-2010, 8:50 PM

Any news on how the forum will be handled on mobile devices? Tapatalk was perfect until the support stopped and at present it isn't the easiest to browse the forums on my iPhone. Will you be using an app or have a mobile friendly site as well?

majnu · 19-09-2010, 4:24 PM

Anyone know which forums are using Xenforo atm?