Three nice looking vb5 sites

Still doing my research into vb5 and the way its going

Found these three sites, which all look good. Skinned and seem to load at a decent speed

http://www.hdherd.com/Main

http://thesaucyvegan.com/

http://www.bangshift.com/forum/

Some might see this as a chance to jump on Mark B, since he is the person that did the styling and bug finding on all three sites. But, imo he has done a good job with those three sites

On the Vegan site, they list a couple of the known bugs and the fixes
http://thesaucyvegan.com/forum/the-...rs-with-the-upgrade-and-vbulletin-s-responses

Plus all three are still running on 5.0.5, not the very latest version which sends lots of emails

It still to me, looks like vb5 is finally going in the right direction

 

Thanks.

There's another one too now:
http://hydroracer.net/forums/

That one is on 5.1.0 as it was already on that when I started working on it.
The others are still on 5.0.5, in some cases it's because I haven't had consent from the owner to upgrade them, in the case of Herd it's because they are a busy site and upgrading a busy, customised site is not something to take lightly. I don't want to keep hopping them between versions so will probably wait for 5.1.2 or 5.1.3 before taking the plunge.

All the sites work pretty well, Herd in particular is seeing increased activity as time goes on.
On Herd, I also customised their AdminCP to include their branding and colours, first time I ever did that on a vB5 site.

Another important point, is that guest caching is turned OFF on all these sites. So the speed you see not logged in is (pretty much) the same as when logged in.

 

At least 5.0.5 is stable enough with the known bugs, not to force any mad dash for the latest releases
Which, is a good thing in one way of looking at it

 

That's pretty much it...I fixed or "worked round" quite a bit of stuff as well.
There's some fixes Herd would like that are in 5.1.1 (notably topic previews in search results) but there's also stuff coming in 5.1.2 like the editor work that's being done. Being a busy site that dislikes disruption I have to play it like I play my own vB4 site, and that is sometimes we skip releases (I skipped 4.2.1 for instance).

 

Has indexing returned with the major search engines?
Some will no doubt gloat if any sites that change to vb5 take an initial hit, which is something you would expect.
But over time, if the on page seo is any good, the indexing and ranking should return

 

Why aren't any of them running the latest version with the article system?

I tried sigining up for one, and was given a "Invalid birthday" (Jan 1, 1995) error, and then after choosing a new birthday (Jan 3, 1948) it worked, but then when confirming the email address, it gave another error that just said "profile"

Might want to let them know, at bangshift.

 

They aren't running the latest version because I haven't upgraded them yet, as explained above.

I've sorted out the settings issues causing those registration errors, thanks for pointing that out.

 

I like the designs @Mark.B

The way the internet makes it seem, VB5 is literally an abomination that can't be ran. I am glad to see that while there may be issues(and big ones at that), that people are able to run their sites around the issues and are working towards complete stability.

Goes to show you, you can't always trust 100 percent what a bunch of raving people say on the web.

I'd love to see some Dark themes using VB5. I like the look of the software but I dislike the bright/light theme most sites I see using Vb5 have. I've yet to see a dark theme.

 

Mark, out of curiosity, how many of your fixes would be fixed, when the sites are upgraded to 5.1.1?

Scott

 

Along those lines, how many of your fixes will be broke again at the 5.1.1 update and need patched again?

Also, are any of your fixes not available to the public?

 

No answer Mark?

Scott

 

I don't visit this site every day and I certainly can't be providing answers in short 12 hour timescales or suchlike.

I am not a coder or programmer. I have no idea what will break and what won't, most of it is template stuff so probably nothing that can't be sorted.

 

So it takes you about 12hrs of editing an updated forum to get it running smooth?
And that's with your experience on vb5
God help us mortals

 

Eh? I said I can't commit to answering questions on third party admin sites within short timescales. Scott asked a question when I wasn't around and then chased it, as if I have sort of SLA I need to hit.

My "experience with vB5" can be clearly seen in the four example sites. People can judge for themselves. But like I said, I am not a programmer and do not claim to be.

As with any customised site, (for those four are customised), particularly high traffic sites, upgrades should not be rushed into.

 

Sorry mark, I though you said the edits as in the fixes to make the sites work took about 12hrs
Bet you never thought you would ever have anyone apologise for a misunderstanding

 

It's no problem and it is easily done.

 

One member has already asked this

Where do you get your fixes for vb5
Are they all shared on the forums or are there any you have found through experience?

 

Combination of places. Tracker and forums mainly for actual bug fixes.

It has to be said though, most of what I did is template and style related. Some of the basic "quick wins" have already been fixed in later releases (sub navbar being one big one). Also some quick stuff I wote myself actually got added to the product, for example watch out for a "My Recent Posts" link in the username drop down which will appear in (I think) 5.1.12.