XenForo 2.4 coming soon

[Cedric]

Coming soon: XenForo 2.4

We are excited to announce the upcoming release of XenForo 2.4, bringing you exciting new features and improvements! While XenForo 3.0 continues to be developed behind the scenes, we've decided to harness the team's enthusiasm and momentum to deliver an interim update that will enhance your...

xenforo.com

I consider this great news. More communication, more development.

 

[Baw$e]

I'm still running Xenforo 2.2. I'll wait until 2.4 before thinking about making the upgrade.

 

[zappaDPJ]

I consider this great news. More communication, more development.

It's a big step in the right direction for me. I migrated away from XenForo because of issues with the current editor. Hopefully the new editor will have better compatibility across a wider range of browsers/devices and less unpatched security issues.

 

[Cedric]

It's a big step in the right direction for me. I migrated away from XenForo because of issues with the current editor. Hopefully the new editor will have better compatibility across a wider range of browsers/devices and less unpatched security issues.

Curios, what issues did you have?

 

[zappaDPJ]

Curios, what issues did you have?

More than I care to remember but here's a few.

Froala has for years had multiple issues with Firefox which is the browser of choice for many of my forum members. Smilie insertion is a particular problem. You can't for example type after inserting a smilie without pressing 'END'.

It's unusable on some Samsung hardware and at one time, all Apple devices although that might have been addressed. I believe there are still a lot of more minor problems with iOS e.g. a 'Return' causes auto-capitalization to be lost.

My biggest issue with it is security. Xenforo claim, and to be clear, I have no reason not to believe them, that output from the editor is sanitized which negates the security issues that go unfixed over multiple releases. As I run forums for an organization that provides services to some of the UK's biggest corporations, I can't take any risks running unsecure software.

At the time of posting Froala has 1,073 reported issues.

Issues · froala/wysiwyg-editor

The next generation Javascript WYSIWYG HTML Editor. - Issues · froala/wysiwyg-editor

github.com

 

[TPerry]

I consider this great news. More communication, more development.

I REALLY hope they are going to offer some development that benefits the actual end users and not concentrate so much on the third party developers that XenForo has become so dependent upon.
I also hope that what they do decide to offer is more than the simplistic bare-bones offerings that they historically have offered.
I know at least one developer has commented on the some of the limitations on the 2.3 "improvements" that they offered.

If you want a simple forum, then XenForo is really your better solution.... but when you begin wanting to offer a more encompassing WEBSITE than a simple forum, XenForo quickly shows it's warts.
As an example.. there are numerous improvements that need to be made to both XFRM and XFMG.... but they seem to be the bastard step children of the first party add-ons.
We won't even being discussing WHY you can't do searches based upon custom fields, one of the strong points of XenForo (and something that has been suggested for around 6-7 years already).
It would be so nice if my users could search based upon any of these that are created in some areas of post entry.



Never mind the fact that XenForo offers the ability to mirror images from a forum to XFMG... but if there are any custom fields attached (as an example in the above)... you are SOL on that data also being imported. Mapping custom fields between the two should not be that big of a deal. but the problem is... it never occurred to the XF developers and since it was not a "we though of it" issue, it becomes a "we ignore it" issue. And when you suggest it, it gets no response. Which is par for the course for most suggestions made... they sit in la-la land for a decade or so and ignored.
It is rather disappointing for someone who has been with them for over a decade and had such high expectations from the early 2011/12 era to now to see how far their drive to excel has fallen.

 

[Yoda]

What is probably top of your wish list for when 2.4 is released?

 

[ZachJ]

Coming soon: XenForo 2.4

We are excited to announce the upcoming release of XenForo 2.4, bringing you exciting new features and improvements! While XenForo 3.0 continues to be developed behind the scenes, we've decided to harness the team's enthusiasm and momentum to deliver an interim update that will enhance your...

xenforo.com

I consider this great news. More communication, more development.

I can't wait for 2.4 let alone 3.0. I'm so pumped!!

 

[TPerry]

You will have one of the 2.2-2.3 waits most likely for 3.0 to come out.
Just from reading, I have a feeling that they are going to be doing a lot more than simple style engine overhaul in it now that they are continuing the 2.x series.
And honestly, that's probably a very smart thing for them to do. A major overhaul would be welcomed by many to the look and workings of XenForo to fit more into the modern user process of internet users.
While working on it, it would probably be a smart move to see about implementing a framework in 3.0 that could work with a generic mobile app that they would make available on the Apple and Android app stores. Top that off by creating an index of sites using XenForo that the app could search by the end user broken into niches and similar. They already have the majority of that information on hand in their licensee files. But that is most likely something that they will choose to ignore even though they could monetize inclusion in that directory as an add-on service.