Are vB hacks transferable to a XenForo architecture? Or ... how much would the ambiance and operability of DP change (overall estimate) with a switch from vB to XF?
Thanks in advance for any insight you can shed on this.
That's a complicated question but I'll do my best to be brief.
I'm guessing that by "vB hacks" you're referring to add-ons, such as the likes system. XF has an importer that imports the base vB database tables (posts, users, forums, permissions, etc...). Add-ons such as our likes system is not imported with the XF importer, however there is an importer that is available that will import those likes.
We are in the process of researching to ensure that we can import our add-ons without losing any data, such as our likes. The biggest obstacle we've found so far are the Blogs. The vB 4.x blogs system is far different from the vB 3.x blogs system. This may be a difficult 2-step process, but I'm of the opinion that it can be done.
Having said all of this, I will be putting together a "how to" thread, complete with pictures, on the differences between vB and XF functions. For example, i use the UserCP page (there's a link in the upper right hand corner) every single day. It provides me with a lot of information in terms of forums I'm following, threads I'm participating in, likes and quotes, incoming PM's and more - all in one place. There isn't a UserCP page per se in XF, but all of that information is still in XF and can easily be accessed.
There are some very cool features in XF that I think everyone will really like, such as the mentions system and the ability to post videos and links from a lot of media sources, including tweets. I won't go into all of these in detail at this time, but these will be noted in the "how to" thread.
It will take some time to work out all the finer details, such as forum themes, awards (5k posts, 5 years, FFL champs, military service, etc...) and others but we will work to have as many of these up and running when we go live with the XF software. This is a pretty big undertaking but it's one that I'm convinced will be a very good move when all is said and done.
I'll post more on this when we get closer to the changeover. Vauge and I are pretty excited about this but we have to make sure all our "must have" boxes are checked before we move forward. DP isn't about me or vauge, it's about the community. We've heard the frustration with posting videos other than YouTube, being unable to link tweets and the lack of a mentions system. As a member of this forum, I've felt the same frustrations. Vauge and I have discussed upgrading from vB 4.x several times over the years, but I'm glad that we held out because XF 2.x seems to have everything we've been looking for. It is our hope that the move to XF will be a very good thing for the DP community, but we have to perform our due diligence before we can move forward.
So much for being brief, lol.
