Ozzy47

Former Developer
Customer
I have seen alot of questions and concerns about DBTech vBulletin and XenForo, I will try to put all the issues here.

If you have a question that is not posted here ya can post it in this thread!!

Question:
Are you going to have mods for XenForo?


Answer:
Yes. We plan to have most of our bigger mods ported over the XF in 2010, and all of our mods by mid 2011


Question:
Are you going to still support the mods for vBulletin?


Answer:
We are absolutely going to be continuing to develop for vBulletin.

Our personal opinions about the owners of vB etc will never affect the commitment we have to our customers


Question:
Since you are doing mods for XenForo will this affect the upgrades on the vBulletin mods I have purchased?


Answer:
We still very much intend to stay on the cutting edge of forum mods and software, and keep pace with the needs of our customers (including creating new products). There will be little to no difference in product creation/upgrade time with the addition of XenForo mods to our portfolio.


Question:
What is your current timeline for new mods?


Answer:
As far as a roadmap for the next 6-12 months, Things tend to change far too often in this market for us to have one of those. Products we could plan now would no longer be relevant, or things which just now are unneeded may become requested and popular.


Question:
Do you have a site for XenForo?


Answer:
Yes. http://xf.dragonbyte-tech.com/


Question:
Part of my issue with switching is, do I have the money (or desire to pay again) for the same mods I already have? Chances are, probably not. Which kinda sucks, but... I guess that's the way it goes.


Answer:
The plan at the moment is to make it easy for customers to switch (perhaps with a small fee to transfer licenses etc. Whatever we decide it certainly won't require complete repurchasing


Question:
Do you have any mods yet for XenForo?


Answer:
Yes we have two small mods as of 10/8/10 to get ourselves familiar with the XF structure.
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/dbtech-users-viewing-thread.5401/

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xfcredits.5336/


As I find more Questions I will post them here
 
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Question:
Just wanted to ask if you plan to release your great shoutbox for XenForo?


Answer:
We're hoping to port most/all our modifications to XF vBShout being a priority due to its demand here.

Right now we're waiting on the beta release before we can started on any of that, and with all the drama between XF/vB we can't commit to any specific deadlines.
 
It's a very good system, seems more or less bug free, is cleaner than vB, is friendlier to modders (and thus us) than vB...

Lots of reasons for the hype really =P
 
It looks ugly in my opinion. And the forum descriptions are rollovers... that's strange. I don't know, everything about it looks old. Like phpBB or something.
 
Hmmm, this is the first time I heard of XenForo. Just take a look at their announcement board and recognize some familar name.
Well some tech leader of vB....
 
It looks ugly in my opinion. And the forum descriptions are rollovers... that's strange. I don't know, everything about it looks old. Like phpBB or something.

Just register on Xenforo site and try it. It's very simple and this interface is very social (like facebook, twitter). I think is the most modern forum software from a user view (UI/UX, social features etc.).
 
The Xenforo enthusiasm are ended here? Now the stable version is coming very soon, i'm ready to buy it and some dbt addons...but i don't see any update from the dbt staff and any request buy the customers that can influence the decision of the DBT Team...*sigh*
 
Don't forget, DBT still has customers using vB and they need to support them as well. I'm sure that there is xF working happening, but at the same time, they can't (and I'm sure won't) abandon their vB customers, those customers who helped make DBT the success it is today.

People like myself, I'd like to switch to xF, but there are MANY mods that need to be converted to xF before I could think about moving, many of which aren't DBT mods. So long as the bulk of the DBT customers are on vB (pure assumption on my part), I'd assume the larger part of their focus will be there. That's not to say I know anything you don't, this just makes logical sense to me.
 
What Trekkan said essentially.

We do have a number of mods being ported to XF at the moment, but it is being done between updates and new vBulletin mods.

Our first responsibility is to our current customers - we've had very few indicate they have switched to XenForo, and we said that when we go into XF it won't cause any delays on our vb software - thats a promise we intend to keep.

XF is still part of our long term plans, but unless a bunch of customers tell us they have switched it will be done as and when time is available, and not be our main priority.

Hope that clears the situation up!

Cosmic
 
I have purchased a xenoforo license, and I am very glad to see that dragon bytes is receptive to it as well and are maintaining there priority to support current customers. I will likely launch a new forum with xenoforo when my current add ons are ready for it. and I expect I will purchase a new license for the new URL.
 
Hey all!

I'm glad I found this thread.

I am one of the ones bailing on vB - just not fast. I have four licenses and as I can, they are being switched to Xenforo. I've started work on my first board as of today.

I understand your previous post and as an ongoing vB customer appreciate it... I am crossing my fingers that your post templates mod gets updated for Xenforo soon! I use it in places of forms in lots of cases.

Regards,

Alisa
 
100% false.

There WAS a member with the name "dragonbyte" using our old logo for his signature etc, he's taken all of that down at my request though.

Cosmic
 
Bleh, XenForo...

Maybe it's just because it's the first version = but I don't care for it.
Yeah, it's clean = so clean it almost seems basic
Yeah it's pretty = if not having buttons, stats and info everywhere equals pretty
Yeah, it's slimmer = new code base, so of course it's slimmer - wait a couple versions for the bloat to set in

To me, this is the Firefox or Google Chrome of the Forum world.
Froofy people will want to feel special and run something, ANYTHING that isn't IE.
But when something breaks - or doesn't work = back to IE they go.

As a network engineer, I want buttons, stats and options available everywhere.
Basic users may prefer the dumbed down Facebook like appearance, but the power users will always want the tools right there...... and who's your most active/best users? The fanatics or the casual?

I think it's great DBTECH is branching out - just for the reason that it shows they're doing well.
I'll be 100% VB as far out as I can see...... and I look forward to 5.x whenever that shows up.

Like it or not, VB is the Microsoft or Cisco of the forum world - and people always throw tomatoes at the biggest player.
The thing about the biggest players = they don't go away.

-DB
 
To me, this is the Firefox or Google Chrome of the Forum world.
Froofy people will want to feel special and run something, ANYTHING that isn't IE.
But when something breaks - or doesn't work = back to IE they go.
Hardly, I went to Opera xD

But what with FF4 being as good as it is, I might just switch back to that...
 
To me, this is the Firefox or Google Chrome of the Forum world.
Froofy people will want to feel special and run something, ANYTHING that isn't IE.
But when something breaks - or doesn't work = back to IE they go.

VB= IE? Firefox=Xenforo? Very original comparison but...

Like it or not, VB is the Microsoft or Cisco of the forum world - and people always throw tomatoes at the biggest player.

A inappropriate comparison...on the web world you can be the king today, but just tomorrow being obsolete.In the past 10 years, PHP-Nuke are considered one of the best CMS. Now there are Drupal, Joomla and Wordpress.

In the past 5 years, every webmaster of an e-commerce website talks about Ecommerce and like it. Now there are Magento, and many many webmasters switched to Magento.

Few months ago, i considered Cometchat a superb chat...now i have discovered Arrowchat that are a new product, and i think is far superior.

The web changes fast.

I like much the dbt product, and waited many month for launching my project to buy many of this...but i think that the platform is more important to mods, and vb is outdated (vb 5? you have to wait 2012! :D)
 
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I understand what you're saying = the web IS fast.

But your comparing what I'd call a "flash in the pan" to over reaching tech.

Look at the "Linux is going to rule the world - Microsoft is toast" talk from a couple years ago. Where is Linux now? On webservers..... and.... oh yeah, that's it.
That's after it got support and big money from the likes of Novell, Red Hat and others. Expect for the tomato throwers - everyone's on Mac or Win7 (soon to be Win8).

Look at IBM and mainframe/performance computing, they said "mainframe computing is dead - Cray rocks, SGI is the bomb", wouldn't you know it know it, Cray is dead, SGI is dead, and IBM mainframes are back (they never left)".

Xenforo, PHPbbs and all the others may have an impact in the short term = but in the long term, VB will win. Whatever VB needs will be adopted, stolen, whatever.
Look at MySpace, the big daddy. Well big daddy is almost dead.
Facebook will suffer the same fate, and once Facebook is gone - you think that XenForo (which looks like it, is plugged directly into it, and which relies on that as it's biggest feature) will survive?
I don't think so.
It's all flavor of the week = scoop of the day nonsense.
All the new forums with updated CMS's, fancy graphics, or just wow factor doesn't change the fact that 90% of these (if not all), will end up on the scrap heap in the long term.
Their "revolutionary" features will become standard secondary features to be used at the discretion of the Webmaster (think tabbed browsing: which Opera invented - and now everyone has).
A cool new "killer" feature is great - until everyone else clones it, and your left holding an empty bag.

Just my opinion,

-DB
 
Just going to pop in with my opinion on this:

The facebook integration on XF isn't much more than the same integration in new builds of vBulletin, it's just a little more obvious on XenForo.

XF has the advantage of being designed and coded by 2 of the most influential guys behind vBulletin 3.x. Innovation with new vB versions seems to have slowed down quite a bit since the Internet Brands takeover.

I think XF has all the tools to eventually compete with vBulletin, but it's far too early to start suggesting thats the case already.
 
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