I wanted to get your thoughts on the exciting news about the upcoming XenForo 2.4 release! If you haven't seen the latest update, feel free to check out the official thread here:

 

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/coming-soon-xenforo-2-4.225302/

 

From what we know so far, there are some new features and improvements coming with this version, and I'd love to hear what you think! Here are a few questions to get the conversation started:

 

• What features are you most excited about in XenForo 2.4?
  
• Are there any updates you think will benefit your community the most?
  
• Any concerns or things you'd like to see improved in this upcoming release?
  
• How do you feel about the overall direction XenForo is taking with these updates?
  

Feel free to share your feedback and any other thoughts you have! Let’s get a good discussion going so we can be prepared for what’s coming! 😊

 

Looking forward to hearing from you all!

I’m looking forward to the new Tiptap editor. It’ll be a nice improvement from the current one.

I’m looking forward to the new Tiptap editor. It’ll be a nice improvement from the current one.

Couldn’t agree more with you as I’m also looking forward to that. I’m hoping we’ll see 2.4 before the end of the year. I had a quick look at the editor and it looks promising. Crazy that the devs however need to come up with their own user interface though. So I’m really curious how it will end up looking.

I'm interested in the editor and whether it can abolish BB Codes like tables and whatnot by letting them be drawn better.

 

Also, divs would be nice so users could format text and images better with text wrapping around images to the left and right (on desktop).

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/xenforo-2-3-4-add-ons-released.226470/

 

Xenforo 2.3.4 got released. We're already upgraded to this version. Seems that they've done some good amount of bug fixes. (y)

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/xenforo-2-3-4-add-ons-released.226470/

 

Xenforo 2.3.4 got released. We're already upgraded to this version. Seems that they've done some good amount of bug fixes. (y)

I just upgraded my forum as well.😉

I'm waiting to upgrade as there's a style that I want in 2.3.3a, so I'm unsure if it'll even work on what I have.

I'm waiting to upgrade as there's a style that I want in 2.3.3a, so I'm unsure if it'll even work on what I have.

Themes shouldn’t break. There’s a few templates outdated but saving them shouldn’t break anything.

Themes shouldn’t break. There’s a few templates outdated but saving them shouldn’t break anything.

Checks our DMs after I send a message... 👀

 

I'm eyeing a DoH style and that is borderline unacceptable for UX.

Doesn't seem like there's any major upgrades coming. Seems they're going to fall behind IP. Board.

Doesn't seem like there's any major upgrades coming. Seems they're going to fall behind IP. Board.

Well I can’t argue there. Apart from the editor, there isn’t any feature noteworthy coming soon. 3.0 might change that but we’ll have to wait and see.

Xenforo has released its first “have you seen” post relating to 2.4.

 

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/add-on-update-notifications.227134/

 

Once we roll out XenForo 2.4 here, resource authors will find that we have added a new field to resources in add-on categories that will allow you to fill in your add-on ID. When you install XenForo 2.4 on your own forums, your forum will now periodically call back to XF.com with a list of your installed add-ons and their versions and report back with the latest version available in the Resource Manager. Where there is an update available, as demonstrated above, this will be indicated in your add-ons list.

 

Update checking can be enabled under "Basic board options".

 

Subject to time constraints, we are looking to add the following additional functionality either before or shortly after the release of XenForo 2.4:

• Improved notifications
  
• Custom update checking URLs for developers to populate in their addon.jsonfile so if the canonical source of your add-on is on your own website, we can request version details from there rather than our resource manager
  
• One-click install of upgrades (for free add-ons)
  

Huh, interesting.

I didn’t expect it to go in that direction, but I’m not upset about it either. Every now and then, I go through all the installed add-ons to check for updates. While I keep a closer eye on the more important ones, I tend to update the smaller ones all at once occasionally. Having a one-click install option and update notifications certainly wouldn’t be a bad thing.

I’m looking forward to the new Tiptap editor. It’ll be a nice improvement from the current one.

What the difference from the current editor?

What the difference from the current editor?

Less janky, hopefully. The current one has all sorts of exciting and annoying niggles to it.

Food for thought: https://xenforo.com/community/threads/xf-2-4-general-discussion-feedback-complaints-random-off-topic-posts-etc.225303/post-1719275

Food for thought: https://xenforo.com/community/threads/xf-2-4-general-discussion-feedback-complaints-random-off-topic-posts-etc.225303/post-1719275

Very well thought out and to the point. My post in that thread rings true no matter what Cris D said in his reply. If someone visited xenforo 10 years ago they would see the same things with the exception of a style change. They don't know that there was enhancements or new features.

 

It doesn't past the eye test an longer. They can't rest on their laurels any longer.

 

One comment about "build it they will come". When I was an admin at TAZ I came up with the idea that certain niches just attract users and you could build a forum and "they would come".

 

I created a team and we started 5 forums in what were the most popular niches. One was gaming and another anime. Don't remember tha others. Those 2 stuck out because they actually did take off. So back in the day it was somewhat true.

Both “we’ve made a lot of improvements” and “it doesn’t look like there are major changes from the outside” can absolutely be true, just as they are here. The problem is, immediately getting defensive about it means you can’t see the actual problem being raised that is there. That’s also why I went out of my way repeatedly to point out that there are improvements but they’re underselling it.

 

Of course the lack of headline features is a problem in its own right.

 

As for “build it and they will come”… it’s one of those things that’s highly specific. It glosses over the fact that you did still have to put work in, but certain niches were always easier to get off the ground than others. It definitely isn’t as easy now to do the same thing, and people attribute that to social media and other things - but they gloss over that it wasn’t ever quite as easy as they might have remembered.

 

Anyway, that was then, and this is now, and by now the rules have changed. Whatever might have worked then won’t fly now, and that’s OK, the world has evolved and so too must admins, the tools they use, and the strategies how they use them.

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/direct-message-labels.227393/

 

Finding dm's just got easier. Which is a good thing, since finding something sent earlier was a bit tedious to do.

Xenforo has released its have you seen post for the upcoming Tiptap editor for Xenforo 2.4 https://xenforo.com/community/threads/tiptap-a-new-editor-for-xenforo.227767/

 

 

[HEADING=2]Tiptap: A new editor for XenForo[/HEADING]

 

Rich text editors are hard. When you drill down into how they actually work, it's a wonder why there are so many of them, and why developers would willingly spend a significant part of their life working on one. At XenForo we have been through ... counts on fingers ... three different rich text editors in our history, so if we're being generous we can at least attest to what a feat of engineering they are and how difficult they can be to get right -- and all we have to do is implement them.

 

That's no easy feat either, though. We have an increasing number of features that we need from an editor, we have a layer of conversion from HTML to BB code (and back again), and we have an overall user base of millions of members across all of our customers who all seem intent on breaking our editor in weird and wonderful ways. So picking a new editor is fraught with risk and challenges. Sometimes, even when we pick the right editor, it doesn't always stay that way.

 

Over recent years we've been keeping a close eye on the developments within the rich text editor space and while there are a few interesting projects, there is only one very clear winner, and that is Tiptap.

 

Tiptap is a completely modular, open source and headless editor framework. Headless means that there is no provided user interface. Modular means you can enable only the functionality that you need. It is so modular that, technically, you don't even have to enable paragraphs or text (though that might impede its usefulness). It also has a fantastic extension system that allows us to not only create our own extensions, but also extend existing extensions! (more on that later).

 

Tiptap, which is itself powered by the amazing ProseMirror toolkit, does not simply attempt to decorate input with arbitrary HTML like most rich text editors. Rather, it has a very strict (but extendable) schema made up of Marks and Nodes. Marks are inline formatting (such as bold and italic) and Nodes are block-level formatting (such as paragraphs, quotes, and code blocks).

 

Strap in, because there's lots to show you. But first, an artist's representation of how it might look in either light or dark styles:

 

 

 

The overall look and feel of the editor isn't 100% finalised at this point, but the current iteration, as pictured above, does lean into being familiar. One of the notable changes currently is that we have moved the toolbar to the bottom of the editor, making the controls more accessible, particularly on smartphones.

 

Want it at the top? No problem, that's a single line of CSS to make that happen.

 

The toolbar is, as ever, managed entirely through the existing editor button manager in the admin control panel, so the toolbar itself can be made as full-featured or as minimalist as you like.

 

For a lot of things, you might not even need to use the toolbar. The brave amongst you might even choose to disable the toolbar entirely, thanks to the simplicity with which many editor features can be used.

 

As part of the overall schema that powers Tiptap, "input rules" can be defined by developers for each extension, which, in short, are "Markdown-style" editing:

 

 

 

Power users will not only be able to use Markdown-style syntax to produce content - which is enabled for a significant amount of editor functionality - but they will also be able to see the formatting change in real-time.

 

In fact, all core editor functions have a visual representation of their content, whereas they might not have previously. We are putting an end to seeing raw BB code syntax in the editor (unless you type it yourself, which still works):

 

 

 

This level of visual clarity for what your final content will look like extends even to code blocks, which are now fully syntax highlighted in the editor. The syntax highlighting is provided by highlight.js. As a result, we have upgraded our BB code syntax highlighting for code blocks to also use highlight.js going forward. We are including more languages (and more relevant languages) by default, and it remains easy to add additional ones to fit your particular niche.

 

 

 

It truly is a "what you see is what you get" experience, and to underline that even more, wait until you see what happens when you paste an embeddable link (best viewed full screen):

 

 

 

As we mentioned earlier, Tiptap is a completely headless editor, meaning we have built the entirety of the UI that you can see. This is now more consistent and more in line with the default XenForo styling than ever. With our previous editors, there was always a hybrid of different UI pieces: some from the editor itself, others that we bolted on. For example, in our current editor implementation there are three distinct UI components we use - Froala pop-ups (insert link), overlays (insert media) and menus (emoji). With the new editor, everything you see is crafted from default XenForo functionality and styling, ensuring consistency:

 

 

By the way, the "Insert image" menu of the editor now supports multiple file uploads, including when dragging and dropping!

 

While the new UI for the new editor will be very familiar to most, because we now have full control over what the editor can do, we are also experimenting with more innovative methods for writing content. Let's have a sneak peek now at what that might look like (best viewed full screen):

 

 

 

We haven't yet fully decided what form this new editing experience will take. It might be something that is user-selectable, admin-selectable or something that can be enabled as a hybrid with the toolbar. Your thoughts on this approach are welcome!

 

All of this additional functionality is possible, not only with the strong foundations provided by both ProseMirror and Tiptap, but also through an extremely flexible and well thought out system enabling us to build our own functionality. By virtue of that, add-on developers are going to have a great experience bringing new features to our new editor.

 

A full breakdown of exactly how this works is beyond the scope of this post, but feel free to spend some time understanding it and the editor docs. If you have existing editor-based add-ons, the great news is that as long as you have some basic understanding of JavaScript, you should be able to produce your own extensions. We are not implementing any additional frameworks; everything is based on vanilla JavaScript.

 

The astute amongst you might have already noticed that new lines work differently in the new editor compared to the current one, and there's a very good reason for that. We are pleased to announce that, finally, we are going to be using paragraph (<p>) tags properly starting with XenForo 2.4.

 

Hitting enter/return in the new editor now creates a new paragraph (with appropriate spacing). This may take a few moments to get used to, as hitting enter/return will now produce new line spacing equivalent to pressing enter/return twice currently. You can insert a "hard break" (producing a <br /> tag) with Shift + Enter. While this might require a brief adjustment, it is now consistent with how many applications and office suite tools work, so we don't expect it to take long.

 

The correct use of paragraphs doesn't stop with the editor, as we now correctly render content with paragraphs too!

 

We haven't even changed the underlying BB code syntax. This is achieved with a brand new BB code parser which intelligently detects the correct boundaries for paragraphs and is able to distinguish between line breaks and paragraphs.

 

Thank you for joining us on this first look into the new editor we're implementing in XenForo 2.4. We're excited to get this in your hands in 2025. In the meantime we have some additional things for the editor that we're still wiring up:

• Improvements to the developer experience for implementing custom editor functionality, BB code and custom buttons
  
• Making use of the new editor elsewhere in XenForo
  
• Further improvements to the UI and UX
  
• Finalising the introduction of the experimental experience as an option
  

This will be the final Have you seen...? thread for 2024 and we will be back in the new year with even more to show you as we approach the final stages of this release

Not sure I agree that the 'putting things at the bottom is better on mobile' but I'll wait to try it before reserving judgement.

 

Interesting how much 'we don't want no Markdown' has produced, especially since MD will by the looks of it be the default experience with no way to disable it.

 

No biggie for me, but I could see this being a dealbreaker for others.

Not sure I agree that the 'putting things at the bottom is better on mobile' but I'll wait to try it before reserving judgement.

 

Interesting how much 'we don't want no Markdown' has produced, especially since MD will by the looks of it be the default experience with no way to disable it.

 

No biggie for me, but I could see this being a dealbreaker for others.

According to Chris it can be moved to the top with a single line css. Would've been better if it was a clickable option though.

The problem with making it a clickable option is the mechanics underneath of how you actually store that preference. Yes, XF has per-user preferences but it's actually a whole set of subtasks for 1) loading that preference and turning it into CSS efficiently, 2) exposing a UI for that toggle somewhere and 3) actually saving that option - because I'm certain that the people who want the preference won't want to squirrel it away in the user preferences page where it will be hard to find (based on my experience of watching people run into this with SMF)

The editor looks interesting.

 

Hope to see more features added, but wouldn't expect too many until XenForo 3.0 is released. Then, my expectations would be a little wider.

 

X.x = minor features

X.0 = major features

 

At least that's what I've always thought about versioning.

Xenforo has released a new “Have you seen” post and this time, they’re introducing “chunked uploads” which will allow you to split files that are too large for some servers too process. This will now make it easier to upload bigger files if you’d like to do so.

 

“

Chunked uploads" is the process of splitting uploaded files into much smaller chunks which are then re-assembled on the server. The main reason you might want to do this is if you have very strict file upload limits imposed by your host, you want to upload much larger files, or you proxy your site behind services such as Cloudflare.

 

Cloudflare for example imposes a 100MB upload limit, regardless of what your server configuration may be. In some cases the default max upload size in PHP is as little as 2MB. Or, in some cases, your server config might be reasonable but you might occasionally need to upload larger files than allowed.”

 

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/chunked-uploads.229040/