Is your site dependent upon add-ons? Should it be?

[Tracy]

I guess I should mention, I have 48 add-ons installed on my site. And those are the bare minimum that I can get by with to offer what I want to for the end users on the site.
Luckily I've not had any major issues with them that I have not been able to resolve myself, other than some still not being 2.3 compatible.

 

[Heatman]

I guess I should mention, I have 48 add-ons installed on my site. And those are the bare minimum that I can get by with to offer what I want to for the end users on the site.
Luckily I've not had any major issues with them that I have not been able to resolve myself, other than some still not being 2.3 compatible.

Wow, 48 add-ons installed already on your site and you still think it's even small. You're obviously working on a big project with your site. It's your Astrology site that you have those add-ons installed right?

 

[Tracy]

Wow, 48 add-ons installed already on your site and you still think it's even small. You're obviously working on a big project with your site. It's your Astrology site that you have those add-ons installed right?

Yes, the astronomy/astrophotography one. Some of those add-ons bring functionality or enhancements to the core XenForo offerings, but many are actually core use items.
Stuff like the chunked upload add-on that allows bypassing the 100MB upload limit if your site is under the free CloudFlare plan, a log of all sent emails, bot recognition improvements, alert improvements, better integration of Redis and similar for core improvements. Then you have the larger stuff like the link directory, reviews, articles, resources, gallery, clubs and a few others.
They add up quick at times and on some sites. There is no getting around using them with any of the scripts honestly if you want to offer more than what the developers have decided they want to allow.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I try to use less addons, really.

Addons often add functionality. Functionality often takes something away from the forum, aside from some sort of backend things.

Addons create extra backdoors, and if not created to a standard, could pose security concerns.

Addons often create bloat and are one more thing to slow a forum down.

I made it a requirement to have no more than 10 addons on my WordPress blogs. If I need a new one, I have to get rid of another one.

I think I might take the same approach for forums.

I'm not an addon hater by any means, I just look at the wider picture of the pros and cons and try to weight them together.

 

[Nomad]

I am not using too many add ons on my forums or blogs. And I believe add ons will make your website slower, therefore, I try to restrict myself form using add ons. However, I also believe that you can add great features on your websites through add ons and this is very useful to those who do not have skills to write codes.

 

[joelr]

Basically what I'm saying is that we need to give XF developers some slack. They have sat around for a few years before getting an update out for whatever reason(s) they may have.

My personal guess is that they were building out the cloud architecture at that point.

 

[Tracy]

My personal guess is that they were building out the cloud architecture at that point.

And pretty much ignoring the primary base of their income during that time.
Anyone notice an improvement in the communications from them over on the XenForo site? I pretty much just check in the bug and 3rd party add-on announcement area.

 

[joelr]

And pretty much ignoring the primary base of their income during that time.
Anyone notice an improvement in the communications from them over on the XenForo site? I pretty much just check in the bug and 3rd party add-on announcement area.

They have definitely been much more communicative since 3.3, which is great

 

[Ravenfreak]

None of my sites are too dependent on plugins. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but you would hope the plugins you're using will get updated accordingly so it won't cause too many issues for you and your members.

 

[Heatman]

None of my sites are too dependent on plugins. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but you would hope the plugins you're using will get updated accordingly so it won't cause too many issues for you and your members.

Eliminating the possibility of having to worry about using too many plugins that might have issues that's going to affect your site because of update issues is a smart thing to do. Limit it to using only the ones that helps you get by and worry less.