Announcing: Launch of the New xTuple Forums

Whether you're new to xTuple or a long-time community participant, you'll undoubtedly agree that xTuple Forums are the best place to meet other users online. It's where ideas are exchanged and your most important questions are asked — and answered (or debated!). The forums are a great resource to tap into the xTuple open source ERP global community and our shared user knowledge base.

Drum roll, please ... Out with the old, in with the new! We've been listening to your feedback and have relaunched our functional (albeit musty) forums in shiny new fashion. While they are truly magnificent to behold, we shouldn’t forget it's not all about looks; it's what's on the inside that counts. This is where the platform we've developed the forums with, Discourse, really comes through.

Features you’ll find in our new forums include:

An awesome text editor.

Reply at your leisure as you browse through a thread with the editor stickied to the bottom of your window. Open, close, minimize or adjust its size to fit your preference. View a side-by-side live preview of your reply. Your work will never get lost with persistent auto-saving (just like Google Docs). Quote others just by highlighting their text. Drag and drop images straight from your computer into the editor. Want to link something interesting? Links automatically expand or embed, whether they’re YouTube videos or Wikipedia articles.. and, of course, you’ll see it all in the live preview. All of your posts' edits are saved in revision history for you to view, compare, and revert if desired. Worried about formatting? Don’t be. Markdown, BBcode and HTML are all supported.

“Conversations, not pages."

That's what the folks at Discourse like to say. No more navigating through pages and pages of a thread, trying to remember who said what and where, trying to reply to different posts separated by seemingly arbitrary page breaks. Our new forums feature single-page threads that load as you scroll. You’ll never lose your place, though, with a small meter that always indicates your position in the thread, and let's you jump around as desired.

Next level communication.

Get real-time notifications on the forums when someone quotes you, replies to your post, mentions your @name, likes your post, and more. When you’re not online on the forums, you’ll be notified via email instead. All of this is, of course, customizable to your own preferences. You can also like, bookmark, direct link, flag for moderation, pin, and even invite other users to join in on a thread or post. "Watch" or "Track" as many or as few categories and threads as you desire and receive different notifications when new content is posted.

Simplified categories, more knowledge!

We've organized the categories so their navigation is much easier and well-ordered. Plus, Search is vastly improved (including Advanced Search). The categories you'll now find on the forums:

• Read Me First — Rules of the road for xTuple Communities, including PostBooks and OpenRPT. Plus a Welcome to all, the Acceptable Use Policy, and Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.
• Announcements — A forum for announcing new releases, events or other topics of interest to the xTuple community.
• Current functionality — Got a beef (or gripe) with how something works — or doesn't work as expected — currently? Sound off here, and please propose constructive alternatives!
• How do I ...? — User-to-user forum for questions about xTuple ERP — PostBooks®, Distribution, Manufacturing and Enterprise Editions.
• Initial Setup — First time issues or questions setting up xTuple ERP? Try this forum first.
• MarketPlace — Have an idea for a product to put on the xTuple MarketPlace? Post here for feedback. Also discuss current products available.
• New Development — Discussion of active development of new features, bug fixes, etc. Use this forum as a starting point for more detailed specifications, too.
• Partners (Private Forum) — Discussion space for xTuple Value Added Resellers (VARs).
• Technology — Discussion and user-to-user support for the various distributions and technology stack used by xTuple: Linux, macOS, PostgreSQL, Qt, Unbuntu.
• Translation — Discuss translation of xTuple Applications into other languages; other localization issues (accounting standards, reports, etc.).
• Website questions — Technical questions about xTuple websites, including questions about Free Demo database.

Community Building.

xTuple has always been about our community, and this new forum iteration is focused on nourishing and growing it to its full potential. Alongside the impressive suite of communication tools already mentioned comes a slew of community-oriented features to make our conversations more meaningful and give everyone a stake in our collaborative space. Users can gain Trust levels as they interact within the forums, allowing access to enhanced communication features. Badges can be earned and shown off to signify a certain expertise, experience level, or just for fun! Self-regulating user groups can be formed, enabling focused collaborative messaging and organization. Inviting friends (and frenemies) to groups and conversations is built into the system, too, and can be done via email or dynamically while logged in to the forums. And finally, anyone in our community can flag, create polls, create new threads, private message friends and/or administrators alike, and in general join in on the fun.

What can you still find at xTuple.org?

1. Issue Tracker for bug reports and feature requests
2. Customer Support portal and Commercial Downloads
3. xTuple MarketPlace (xChange) to purchase apps, add-ons, extensions, support, and more

We’ve come a long way from the old forums to here, and we’re continuing to refine and enhance the newest version we’ve created. We hope you’ll join us by logging in to the xTuple Forums (you can use your existing “old forum” credentials), and that you enjoy the switch to this new and improved platform as much as we do!