[News] XenForo Beta Releases

[Floris]

NOTICE: Please note that this thread contains all our news articles about the XenForo BETA releases, RC candidates and stable releases are in different release-threads. They're all worth a read. Feel free to leave feedback

Download XenForo in October [updated]

Earlier we’ve learned the great news that XenForo Limited is announcing the availability of their first product. XenForo version 1.0 beta 1, ready for download, ready for purchase.

Source: http://xenfo.ro/3876/

In the first week of October early adopters will be able to get their hands on the first ever beta release. And as a reward for being there from the start $40 discount is offered (and an extension for support).

Early Adopters have a window of 24 hours to purchase a license for USD $100 (no VAT at the moment for EU). After 24 hours the normal price of USD $140 applies.

Please keep an eye on the xenfans.com blog as well as the xenforo.com announcement forum for details. So don’t miss the 24h window or you’re out of luck. Everybody can buy a license, and everybody can buy as many licenses as they want. Payments go over PayPal, so you can also pay with credit card.

The initial feedback on the competitive price of $140 is received well, XenFans team members agree as well. It’s quite affordable and a small investment for starting a new site, or converting away from competitor software.

I think it’s fair to point out that customers should realize this is a first beta, will have massive code changes, and their feedback is highly valued. And that it’s not recommended to install it on a production (live) site. I also think it’s worth a mention that it does have a built-in vBulletin version 3 importer.

For full details about the purchase date in October, the branding-free option, the early adopter sale, VAT for EU customers, or support details, I invite you to check out our site in the near future, or read the announcement forum on xenforo.com.

We wish Mike, Kier, and Ashley and the team a lot of success with their new company and their first release of their first product.

XenFans.com will run an instance live from purchase date and we are looking forward converting the wetalk network away from vBulletin (20+ licenses).

Feel free to leave a comment


The XenFans Team


[update] We’ve just learned that on October 5th 2010, the product will go on sale. That’s also when then 24 hour window starts for the $100 Early Adopters sale. Details here.

 

[Floris]

The above post was originally posted on our blog, and received the following comments:

Nikki says:
OOooo extremely exciting stuff Thanks for the info

Mikey says:
Great news!

Bob says:
Amazing and very exciting news… Go XenForo

"SNN" Billy Ewing says:
As Bob said, amazing news!
I'm looking forward to being one of the first few that buy a copy to experiment and possibly go live with, after some extensive testing that is.

matie says:
friggin’ awesome! I’ll try it as soon as it’s available. I’ve been looking to learn how to create and manage a forum that could be associated with my own blog, and so far I’ve been underwhelmed by the last version of vBulletin, let’s see how you guys fare!

iron says:
Sounds great, only a few days to go. I’m looking forward to getting on my copy and getting it up and live as soon as possible – great job team. I have to agree the price tag fits well with the product!

Brian says:
Counting down ….

NASER says:
wow ! im interested and thinking to buy it

 

[Floris]

Just a quick update

We've learned that XenForo version 1.0.x beta 2 has now been released to all customers.
The announcement comes with explanation about improvements and has installation and upgrade instructions.

Step 1 however is: Always back up.

A XenFans pro tip is to back up your data, upload the .zip as a whole to your web server, unpack it in a separate directory and copy with recursive/force overwrite over the beta 1 installation.

Details about the announcement can be found here: XenForo 1.0.0 Beta 2 Released at XenForo.com

 

[Floris]

The third beta of the XenForo forum software has been released by XenForo Limited.

Despite the legal issues they're facing, the team is doing their best to stay on track with their roadmap to complete functionality and resolve bugs ongoing. With bug fixes and enough new features they felt the beta 3 was ready for packaging up and release to the customers.

They make it very clear that it's beta software, and that means you are well aware of no real support, no ticket support, and that there might be bugs, and it's simply not recommended to run it on a live web site. So test it! And of course: Back up before you do anything!

"While there are too many changes to list individually and the majority of those are bug fixes, there are some major changes and useful improvements we would like to highlight."​

New features include:

• IP Addresses are now easier to find,
• Improvements to the WYSIWYG editor,
• Help for add-on developers,
• Style Properties improvements,
• And improvements to the importer.

And there's a new upgrade package you can download, which basically means there's a trimmed down package that doesn't include certain directories and files making upgrading less painful. Worth looking into to see if it's something for you.

The XenFans.com and wetalknation.net community will upgrade their boards in a the coming 72 hours.

XenForo costs $140 and can be purchased here.

If you're on IPB 3.1.2 or vBulletin 4.0 or 3.8, and you desire to convert your board to XenForo you can contact the XenFans team to help you, prices starting at $29.

The full announcement can be found here: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xenforo-1-0-0-beta-3-released.7891/

But we're excited to hear from you. Let us know how you're experiencing XenForo so far, and how your upgrade or first time installation of beta 3 went.

 

[Floris]

It is amazing how the pace continues as XenForo's forum software version 1 reaches beta 4.

We can understand how busy they are as a start up business, and how much stress they are under with a couple of lawsuits, massive amount of customer feedback and building the front-, and back-end of their products, services, company site, etc. An achievement to recognize for pulling it off with the short time they had so far. I am convinced it gives XenForo Limited the heads up eventually in the market.

Beta 4 not only gives us a more stable build for those who run are confident enough to run it as a live production version (such as http://xenfans.com here does), and not only does it have more optimization and bug fixes, more complete features and options based on their internal roadmap/milesstones and the feedback from customers, but it includes a few forward looking improvements as well.​

Template Hooks, Multiple Navigation Tabs, Additional Style properties, and supporting library updates will all help designers, developers, coders, hackers, tweakers, and admins using the software to build more flexible designs as well as more dynamic applications, modules, plugins.

For the admins and end-users improvements have been made as well, such as the removal of the Home/tab links, avatar tweaks, insert all attached images, helper spans, mobile browser changes, etc. All helping improve flexibility for customization to the styles, end-user experience-, and usability improvements.

For a full list of improvements, and the announcement details I invite you to head over to http://xenforo.com/community/threads/8732/​

You might notice during December that the xenfans.com and xenforo.com sites have been showing off a little with a snow theme. We've updated our background images and header to a more holiday theme, and xenforo.com has been adding snow to the header, welcoming the winter months.

The full announcement also comes with installation and upgrade instructions, but please note that http://xenfans.com/pages/services we offer professional first time installation and xenforo upgrade services for a low price.

 

[Floris]

From XenForo.com: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xenforo-1-0-0-beta-5-released.9099/

"Thankfully, we are starting to settle back in to the kind of development schedule we had anticipated before unforeseen circumstances did their best to derail it, so today, earlier than many of you may have expected, we present our fifth public beta release of XenForo 1.0.0."​

This is a worthy upgrade with significant changes, all written out in detail on the announcement thread. I invite everybody to go read it. Buy a license, or upgrade the existing (test) board to beta 5.

XenFans.com will upgrade in the weekend to beta 5. We're very excited about this beta release.

 

[Vincent_imported]

I have installed it already, the upgrade went smoothly, no problems occured, and the 'outdated templates' is working fine again

The upgrade was really simple!

Keep it up XenForo!

 

[kuyenmotdivad]

Upgraded last night and it still works great.

 

[Floris]

From XenForo.com: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xenforo-1-0-0-beta-6-released.10377/

"After a somewhat longer than usual period since the last beta release, we are now ready to present XenForo 1.0.0 Beta 6. This release contains the usual assortment of bug fixes, but also introduces some new functionality that will provide greater flexibility of features and an improved user experience."​

I invite everybody to go read the full announcement thread. Buy a license, or upgrade the existing (test) board to beta 6.

XenFans.com has upgraded already to beta 6. We're very excited about the improvements and improvements in stability and performance.

Beta 6 has the following improvements:
- Lightbox
- Feeder (btw, http://xenfans.com/threads/get-old-rss-feeds-from-vb-db-tables.420/)
- Questions & Answers CAPTCHA
- Inline Message Editor
- and other improvements such as: the login bar, user permissions, wysiwyg user option & smilies menu, forum options, and language locale

 

[phonegnome]

Nice upgrade, hopefully this is bringing XenForo a little bit closer to a stable release. Anyone have any idea when that will be?

 

[Floris]

I hope they will surprise us with rc1 in a few weeks and then gold in March.

 

[Floris]

NOTICE: Please note that this thread contains all our news articles about the XenForo BETA releases, RC candidates and stable releases are in different release-threads. They're all worth a read. Feel free to leave feedback

Beta 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.