Xenforo must have Addons.

[iAdam]

Hello,

Sorry if this has been discussed before, but I couldn't locate any thread dedicated to Xenforo only.

I'm starting a new online community/forum and I want to hear suggestions about your "must have" Addons to enhance the forum functionality and user experience.

There's hundreds of Addons and it's not easy to figure out which one to have. I know it all depends on what I want to achieve, but I also believe that there should be some common ground for all successful forums.

Please share your addons in use so We can learn and save time searching for the right function/addon.

Thank you

 

[zappaDPJ]

I guess the answer to that would depend on which version you are intending to run

 

[iAdam]

Sorry I forgot to mention Xenforo version. I got the last one 2.1.1.

 

[sbjsbj]

There are similar threads like this over on xenforo.com.

It really comes down to what you want to do, really. There is no addon which will help you to get successful.

The key is to provide content. You must provide a reason for users to visit your site and use your content. Opening a forum, creating some nodes, having the best-looking design and bunch of expensive addons won't help you a bit.

The software is pretty well-rounded right now out of the box (talking about XF 2.1), specially for new forums.

I would suggest you these things:

• Don't buy any kind of theme or an addon yet.
• Think about what you want to provide as content.
• Then you will realize what you lack, what feature you would need to provide that content.
  
• Invest your money for obtaning content.
• Then invest your money for addons to provide the content you obtained (or are willing to create on your own).
  
• Stick to free addons to get a taste of how it is to have enhancements.

If it is another gaming, general talk, movies type of forum, don't waste your time.

People are so lazy right now. 10 years ago and more you had hundreds of people providing for free content a.k.a. users created topics. Today, nobody bothers with that as most people are on their smartphones lurking and absorbing what Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook and Youtube provides them. They literally do nothing, just stare at the screen and absorb whatever is provided. So, think about, what you can provide so the zombies out there have something to come back to your site.

 

[Anton Chigurh]

I couldn't locate any thread dedicated to Xenforo only.

Whole dedicated forum full of 'em:

https://theadminzone.com/forums/xenforo.314/

 

[iAdam]

Thank you for your valuable suggestions. I totally agree with you statement content is always king.
It is amazing how social media affected online communities and how people use the internet. I've been away from forums as I was super busy with life and now that I'm back to my old passion, i'm trying to work on few projects. The only advantage I have is that I own some good domain names which are brandable and descriptive. I know it is difficult now days compared to ten years ago but I still believe that forums are much better way to discuss specific topics than social media.
I will follow your advice and focus on content, the rest will come accordingly.

 

[iAdam]

Whole dedicated forum full of 'em:

https://theadminzone.com/forums/xenforo.314/

I saw that category but for some reason I thought it was for technical support. This more of how to use addons and tools to manage the community.

 

[Anton Chigurh]

I saw that category but for some reason I thought it was for technical support.

Nah that's all discussions xenforo.

To your question, yes there are many xF addons available and a robust development community there. I only use one or two - xenforo out of the box is feature-rich, incorporating features many other platforms need addons for. You best bet IMO is spend some time browsing their addons section, found HERE for official addons, and HERE for custom dev community-driven addons.

Best of luck on your project, let us know how it comes out!

 

[sbjsbj]

I thought, since you asked this question iAdam , and nobody gave you a direct answer to your question, I thought I make a list of devs for newcomers to XF.

At the same time I didn't want to be one of those lurking zombies and wanted to provide a bit of content to theadminzone to show a bit appreciation.

 

[iAdam]

Thank you for the summary and the help I will make sure to go thru it and pick what's good for my forum.

 

[Anton Chigurh]

nobody gave you a direct answer to your question

Because there really are no "must have" addons for xF, and it would be subjective anyway. Who's to say what's "must have?" What's "must have" to one person might well be "meh" to the next. You didn't really give him a direct answer either.

The OFFICIAL addons are considered "needed" or they wouldn't be official addons. But other than those, it's eye of the beholder.

 

[sbjsbj]

Because there really are no "must have" addons for xF, and it would be subjective anyway. Who's to say what's "must have?" What's "must have" to one person might well be "meh" to the next. You didn't really give him a direct answer either.

But at least giving him some kind of direction would have been nice. I also avoided it in my first post thinking that someone else will guide him a little bit. Since nobody did, I did it.

The OFFICIAL addons are considered "needed" or they wouldn't be official addons.

I would disagree with that. They are officially sold but I wouldn't call them needed at all. I would say 90% of boards can live without those addons. 10% because of ElasticSearch.

 

[Anton Chigurh]

But at least giving him some kind of direction would have been nice.

"Some kind" of direction is subjective too. I gave him links to where the addons could be found. That's some kind of direction. You gave him lists of addon devs but no addon suggestions. That's some kind of direction. He didn't ask for "some kind" of direction, he wanted addons named that are considered "must have." No one including you, gave him that because there's really no answer.

They are officially sold but I wouldn't call them needed at all.

I didn't either. They are CONSIDERED needed by a large number of people however. Again, as "must have" as can be ascertained in a subjective way.

 

[southernlady]

Must haves....none. Need/Want haves are a completely different category.

 

[fixer]

I like the backup utility the best

makes it easier to convert to Invision Community

 

[thenashy]

Coming from XF1.x where we have 30+ addons, we've found XF2.1 to be a lot better out of the box. When we go live in a few weeks we will be running;

- TH Nodes (Cosmetic)
- Siropu Ads Manager
- Lukas W Editor & BB Code Manager
- XenAddons Pickem (Sports tipping)
- Rellect AdBlock Detector
- Nobita Schedule Content
- Tapatalk

 

[doubt]

Tapatalk

How satisfied are you with it?

 

[thenashy]

How satisfied are you with it?

We are only holding onto Taptatalk for a few long term members. It works fine, but the lack of advertising options, and customisation of ad placement annoys me. To the point where we don't display advertising on TT.

Compared to just viewing the site on mobile, most of the staff believe TT is not worth the time, effort or cost. A few people love it, so to me, it's worth it. For now.

We are going to implement a push notification service to try and counter it, as that seems to be the biggest thing keeping those on TT.

 

[Anton Chigurh]

We are only holding onto Taptatalk for a few long term members. It works fine, but the lack of advertising options, and customisation of ad placement annoys me. To the point where we don't display advertising on TT.

Compared to just viewing the site on mobile, most of the staff believe TT is not worth the time, effort or cost. A few people love it, so to me, it's worth it. For now.

We are going to implement a push notification service to try and counter it, as that seems to be the biggest thing keeping those on TT.

Unfortunately apple doesn't support PUSH yet. So your TT users using apple phones won't budge from the TT app.

 

[R0binHood]

Well, they do, but you need some kind of an app in the store in order to be able to deliver them.

Or get a dev to develop a pushover integration.