Customization Does adding new add-ons excite you?

[Cedric]

I know a shiny new resource or add-on won't magically build a thriving community, but there's something undeniably exciting about checking out the latest releases for XenForo. Whether it's a sleek new theme, a feature-packed add-on, or even just a small tweak that makes life easier, I always find myself drawn to the possibilities they bring.

Do you get that same feeling? What kind of resources catch your eye the most—are you all about the aesthetics, the functionality, or something else entirely?

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Typically, it does.

But for me, it's different. I don't like adding anything extra to the forum unless it adds a significant value to it.

Most of the time, an addon is just another way to take attention away from the forum. Your forum content is what is going to grow your forum. If you take attention away from the main core function of a forum, you decrease the likelihood of getting content that will help grow your forum.

So, since I rarely add them, usually when I do, it's exciting.

 

[Arantor]

For me it's always mixed; there's always the hope that it'll be amazing and do cool things, mixed with the inevitable feelings of 'oh I hoped it would also do that' (or, sometimes, 'I wish it did that without breaking') and 'now that's another thing that has to be maintained'

 

[Cloaked]

It takes more to excite me these days. Used to get excited browsing the addons at vbulletin.org. Seemed like there was always something new. These days you don't see the innovation you used to. The task addon and blog were first new things I seen on xenforo in a while.

 

[Cedric]

It takes more to excite me these days. Used to get excited browsing the addons at vbulletin.org. Seemed like there was always something new. These days you don't see the innovation you used to. The task addon and blog were first new things I seen on xenforo in a while.

What add on would you like to see?

 

[Cloaked]

What add on would you like to see?

I don't use many addons. The only one I use is the directory addon by Bob.

For a while I've been clamoring for a way to move old posts out of the database and into static files. That was during the days when I had a multi-million post forum. For old threads it was a perfect idea. If one of the static files got a new post it would move back to the database if it wasn't closed.

I collaborated with a user on the forum to create the archive. We successfully moved all the data by date specified to static pages. Only thing left to do was format the pages to look like the site. We stopped development when I sold the site.

It's still something I'd like to see. For big boards with huge database it would make things easier.

 

[Arantor]

Does it really, though, in this day and age?

20 years ago, databases weren't what they are now. For context, I've run sites on MySQL, where individual tables have a billion rows, and that is billion with a b, as in a 10 digit number of rows. Provided you didn't want to do something insane like select that entire table, MySQL was happy enough to fetch recent things from it. Huge is relative.

On a more practical level, I have been tech support on a 90+ million post SMF forum that ran on a single DB server and a single web server. That thing was getting 90k posts per day on average. (Sadly, it no longer exists. It was a beast.)

Tech to scale these things exists in ways it didn't back in the day - whether that's more hardcore caching, whether that's more stable multi-node DB with replication (so, one writing node, multiple reads off the same DB)

 

[Bawse]

Certain add-ons do, anything that improves my site excites me, especially if it's a big feature that may attract more users.

 

[Allan]

I don't use a lot off addons just some that makes the user experience better or ones that I like to make the forum function better. But I am happy to see them install and work without any complications.