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Future of AA (Please Read)


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It's been over a year and a half since "upgrading" to Vbulletin 5 and to say its been a disappointment is a understatement partly due to it feeling like a downgrade in some area's and missing a lot of features other forum software has standard and partly due to some people struggling with the software especially attachments, I also feel a lot of features have been left unfinished like the Calendar.

I went with VB5 over other forum software at the time because I expected the migration to be smooth....how wrong was I. I spent the first week from 6am to 10pm trying to address issues and even longer getting it to where it is now. I could have spent that time migrating to another forum platform.

 

I'm looking to moving AA to Invision Community or Xenforo however leaning heavily towards Invision due to its standard features. The end goal is to have a simplified user friendly experience.

Some key features that caught my eye are

 

Calendar

Create community event pages across multiple calendars, with RSVP support, iCal syncing, venues and more.

Downloads

Share documents, resources and more with our powerful file manager. Also integrates with our Commerce tools to enable purchasable downloads.

Gallery Updated

Add photo and video sharing to your community, allowing users to create and share their own albums.

Reactions

Express sentiment with customizable reactions throughout the community, with positive and negative reactions tying into our reputation system.

Reputation

Identify your most valuable users - and troublemakers - with our reputation system. Users earn reputation points which are prominently shown beside their content.

Leaderboards

Users can earn trophies by being the highest-scoring each day, and a leaderboard keeps track of the highest-ranked.

Drag'n'Drop Uploads

Upload images and other files to content simply by dragging them onto the editor. It's never been easier to share rich content with a community.

 

Full list here https://invisioncommunity.com/features

 

Now there will be things that will not migrate to the new site like Paid Subscriptions, we'll deal with that when the time comes.

 

Roadmap.

Once the decision is made on which direction to go I will purchase the software and make a test forum using the migration tools to import a current version of the database and see how smoothly it all goes. I'd then invite you all to come over and try everything out to give valuable feedback, once we are satisfied the changes will be made to the main forum.

I don't have the time I did in the past to spoon feed people who just can't be bothered, sounds harsh but I wasted a lot of time last time answering the same questions several times over.

 

As above I don't have the time anymore to put into AA as I did in the past, having said that AA is my baby, I've met all my core friends via this site and many fond memories so I will do what I can to address the issues and make AA a user friendly and fun experience.

 

If you wish to help me out and donate you can do it via paypal@aussiearcade.com every cent counts towards the site.

Thanks to all the AAers who've stuck with the site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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To add to the above feel free to argue a case for Xenforo. My two concerns are stock importer is lacking, (seems a lot of people pay others to migrate) and I don't want to have to install 50 plugins to achieve what we want that will break upon every new update.

 

Looking for the following in the software.

1. Ease of use

2. Nice clean interface. I really hate all the unused white space in VB5

3. Push notifications

4. Android and Apple App support

?

?

?

 

 

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Dear King, I have absolutely no expertise to offer but a ton of appreciation for the work you do and happy to go with your choice plus make a donation.

 

I appreciate that mate but any feedback would be helpful like is there an area of AA you struggle with the most?

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This isnt a "case for xenforo" so much as an "ask before you buy it, if you decide on it for yourself"

 

I have a long out of support xenforo licence with the media gallery and resource manager as well that AA can have for free if you want it. ( customer ended up going with wordpress at the time)

 

You would just have to pay the $85(usd?) support / updates renewal

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This isnt a "case for xenforo" so much as an "ask before you buy it, if you decide on it for yourself"

 

I have a long out of support xenforo licence with the media gallery and resource manager as well that AA can have for free if you want it. ( customer ended up going with wordpress at the time)

 

You would just have to pay the $85(usd?) support / updates renewal

 

Appreciate that Doug.

In your mind though is there anything that's sets Xenforo apart from Invision? Both are very clean and professional looking, I know Xenforo has a great community backing it but I can't help but be impressed with Invision, I've been looking at sites like VPuniverse of late, love the look of it.

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i havent tried invision at all.. i didnt find xenforo suitable for what i wanted.

you can make a generic free online demo for both now.. maybe do it on both and post a poll?

 

I already applied for the demo of Invision, hopefully anybody can try it out. I'll do the same for Xenforo.

Please let me know what you guys think, remember this is just a basic demo.

 

https://f313747.invisionservice.com/

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I, like many, have appreciated the endless hours you've dedicated to this site over the many years. I've been on here almost 15 years now and I've watched it evolve and progress through even the roughest of turbulence.

 

I don't see any problem with moving onto another platform that would be even more user friendly with more features to help share info in these quirky little hobbies of ours.

 

I also have had the pleasure of meeting many fine people in person over the years and enjoyed a beer, a game or a yarn with them thanks to this site.

 

Thanks as always Trav and the Railways boys have sent some "help" :)

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Thanks for the kind words guys very humbling and the generous donations.

 

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Still if you guys could take the time to sign up to those demos do a few posts, upload some attachments, have a look at the user settings and profile and let me know which you prefer that would be most helpful.

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Not sure about the reputation thing. If one of the people in the Purple Circle dislike something the rest will follow.

 

I just want more options mate, a dislike button is never a good thing however I do want the ability to rate a thread like the old days :)

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Travis, Is the PINSIDE site the look and feel your going for? Not sure what they use but it has lots of the things your talking about.

 

Not really, I believe Pinside is heavily customised and written from the ground up. I'm not a fan of the Reddit style.

 

https://f313747.invisionservice.com/

https://29664b3420406f40.demo-xenforo.com/226/index.php

 

Try the Invision and Xenforo demos and let me know what you think, they'll only be up for a few days. Do all the usual stuff you would do on AA, check out the interface etc.

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Travis, let me know if you need a hand with anything on the infra side. I work with Linux, docker, kubernetes, terraform, python, puppet and the like.

Really appreciate you and this site. Donation sent.

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I just want more options mate, a dislike button is never a good thing however I do want the ability to rate a thread like the old days :)

 

I do like the "down vote" option. As long as it isn't anonymous. The Pinside upvote/downvote system seems to work pretty well as the vote transparency is there.

 

 

Xenforo password din't work

 

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I do like the "down vote" option. As long as it isn't anonymous. The Pinside upvote/downvote system seems to work pretty well as the vote transparency is there.

 

 

Xenforo password din't work

 

Just try and register normally, Ignore the admin thing.

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I just manually enabled your account there.

 

I got on but could not upload anything as an attachment. just times out.

 

 

Sorry, an unknown server error occurred when uploading this file.(Error code: -200)

 

This was the file.

 

37_014837.jpg.2e762a388e9ad84f1ef0976f88a9e977.jpg

 

 

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I got on but could not upload anything as an attachment. just times out.

 

 

Sorry, an unknown server error occurred when uploading this file.(Error code: -200)

 

 

 

Considering you had trouble signing up must be on your end mate.

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