[XR] Community Experience 1.0.0 – Hero, Smart Header & Advanced Footer for XenForo 2.3 1.0.0

[XR] Community Experience 1.0.0 is here. Community Experience is a XenForo-native presentation layer that gives your forum a proper first impression: a configurable welcome hero on the forum home page, a demo-inspired two-tier header with a smart sticky mode, and a modular advanced footer. It changes how your community looks and feels without touching how XenForo works underneath: no core files are modified, no database tables are created, and all navigation, menus and sticky behaviour remain 100% XenForo core.
Contents

• What is Community Experience?
• Welcome hero with a lightweight canvas
• A demo-inspired header on top of core navigation
• Smart sticky header and mobile layout
• Modular advanced footer
• Built the XenForo way
• Requirements and installation
• Questions, feedback and discussion

What is Community Experience?​

Most forums look identical the moment a visitor lands on them. Community Experience fixes the three areas visitors judge first: the top of the forum home page, the header they use all day, and the footer that closes every page. Each area is independent: enable one, two or all three, and fine-tune them through 24 options and 46 style properties, all with light/dark variation support so your colour scheme stays consistent in both modes.

Welcome hero with a lightweight canvas​

The hero appears on the forum home page and can be shown to guests, registered members, or both.

• Your content: custom heading, supporting text and a primary call-to-action, with an optional secondary action.
• Your background: upload a background image through the standard XenForo style asset system, with an optional parallax effect (desktop and mobile controlled separately).
• Canvas effects: three lightweight modes (connected network, floating particles and bubbles) with an adjustable particle count. The canvas is off on mobile by default and respects the visitor's reduced-motion preference.

A demo-inspired header on top of core navigation​

The header preset restyles the existing XenForo navigation into a clean two-tier layout: a slim utility row above the main navigation row, with configurable heights, colours and logo sizing.

• Navigation icons: built-in fallback icons for Home, Forums, What's new, Members and Resources. If XenForo or another add-on already renders a real icon, that icon always wins; Community Experience icons only fill gaps and never duplicate.
• Selected state fallback: third-party navigation entries whose add-ons do not mark themselves as selected still receive the correct highlighted state, matched from the current route. Works with friendly URLs and index.php?route/ URLs alike.
• Compatibility switches: if your style needs them, you can restore the XenForo core header row and the core secondary navigation row at any time. The add-on's look is a preset, not a lock-in.

Smart sticky header and mobile layout​

The smart header works with XenForo's native sticky navigation instead of replacing it. Scroll down and the header condenses to the essentials; scroll up and it returns. The scroll threshold is configurable, and the smart behaviour can be enabled on mobile separately (off by default). On small screens, the header switches to a dedicated two-row mobile layout built from the core compact logo, account/search controls and off-canvas menu, so nothing your members rely on ever disappears.

Modular advanced footer​

The advanced footer is assembled from independent modules; turn each one on or off:

• About: introduce your community with your own text.
• Forum Statistics: threads, messages, members and the latest member, using XenForo's own statistics.
• Online Statistics: who is online right now, served from a 90-second cache so busy boards do not pay for it on every page load.
• Contact: quick links to reach you, with an optional phone number.
• Quick tools toolbar: style chooser, light/dark variation switch and language chooser, mirroring the core footer tools.

When the advanced footer is active, the core footer row is hidden so you never see duplicate footers or duplicate style/language controls. Disable the footer (or all of its modules) and the core footer returns automatically, untouched.

Built the XenForo way​

• No database schema, no routes, no controllers and no core file edits. The add-on integrates through four template modifications on PAGE_CONTAINER, one code event listener and standard options/style properties.
• Statistics are only prepared for real public page views (never for emails or background rendering), and online counts are cached for 90 seconds.
• Uninstalling is clean: a setup step removes the add-on's cache set, and since nothing was ever written to your database schema, nothing is left behind.
• Version 1.0.0 is the first stable release, promoted from the Beta 1 line after demo acceptance testing on desktop and mobile, for guests and members, including a direct upgrade test from earlier builds.

Requirements and installation​

• Requires: XenForo 2.3.10 or later.
• Upload the contents of the upload folder to your forum root, then install [XR] Community Experience from the Admin CP add-on list as usual.
• Configure everything under the Community Experience option group, and adjust colours, sizes and spacing in the style properties of your style.
• Upgrading from Alpha 5 or Beta 1 builds is a normal add-on upgrade; your existing settings carry over.

Questions, feedback and discussion​

This release thread is the place for support and discussion, and your feedback genuinely shapes what comes next. A few things I would love to hear from you:

• Which canvas effect fits your community best: connected, particles, bubbles, or canvas off entirely?
• How does the header preset sit with your style, especially if you run a third-party style? Screenshots of your setup are very welcome.
• Which footer module do you use most, and is there a module you wish existed?
• Found a bug? Please include your XenForo version, the style you are using, your browser and a screenshot if possible, so it can be reproduced quickly.

Questions, suggestions and constructive criticism are all welcome. Thank you for trying Community Experience, and I hope it gives your community the first impression it deserves.