Really don't know what to do about vB 4

Well I already stated in PM, but given the popularity with IP.Board lately, you can get yourself a license for super cheap and get it active. As for the money you need. If you can code website templates or something, checkout some freelance forums and convert someone's design into a functional template. Depending on how fast and good you are, you can make a quick 60-100 bucks in a day.

 

I appreciate the kind words although I don't think I would classify myself as a "master" I do want to clarify this, however, and that is that my "fears" were of a huge learning curve more so than along the lines of some great deficiency in the product. I've no doubts we'll be seeing some great skins for 4.0 and some folks who were afraid to change the look on their own in the past more inclined to do so in 4.0 as the learning curve is mastered.

 

I would have thought you would be knee deep in developing for the new system john. Anyway, whenever that commences goodluck with it all. Hopefully some good will come from the new system. I'll wait till it's gone gold before I take another look at it.

 

It is anything but a cinch. I've never in my entire life faced anything quite so confusing as trying to figure out how to design for vB4.

 

Try designing and working on a project with me, You may need to bring your baseball bat to clonk me over the head after 5 minutes.

 

Like Chani said, if you want to get vBulletin 4.0 for AA, you may want to start a donation drive. I plan to get a paid subscription by Wednesday, so there's to five dollars.

 

Thats not good news

 

But that's just me and my opinion. Others may find it mucho easier than I do.

 

Stick with VB 3.8 IMO!

VB4 also 'looks' better than IPB too IMO!

 

I do not find it to be that hard modifying the style in vb4. However, I do think you need to understand a little bit of how css works and have the tools (ie. firebug or similar for firefox) in order to make it easier. If I had to view the page source all the time to find the class for whatever I wanted to modify, I'd go crazy. Of course, i'm still learning what is what right now. Give me a vb3 style and I already know where alt1 and alt2 are and tcat and thead, etc. I've been using those style variables for five years now and just *know* them. I'm still learning the vb4 style. Of course, it doesn't help that it has changed so much since alpha 1 and now all the new stylevar names are all jumbled and mixed up in my head. But, I have no doubt that given a couple months after the final style is set that I will start to know these new stylevars also.

 

I would say go with vB4. vB4 is shaping up very nicely now. Internet Brands got off to a rather shaky start on the customer service front, but I think they seem to be over that now, and the developers have tonight posted in a suggestions thread saying they are going to try and implement some of the suggestions in that thread.

The style, which did look quite awful in the early alphas, has got better with each update and I actually quite like large elements of it now.

It's going to be a nightmare to learn the styling and code but I'll just have to cope with that. It's no worse than the leap from vb2 to vb3, really, I'm just grumpier these days.

 

Lynne, I need you to quit living the high life in Hawaii and come hold my hand while we code skins together

 

Ummm, I'd say:

Lynne, you stay there in Hawaii and I'll be right over to watch you make some good skins while I whip up some Pina Coladas.

 

I predict vB4 style/design related tutorials and guides will be a in-demeand item across the web

 

I'll let you know what I'm doing...I'm sitting back until everything is resolved with the hacks and skins. My members really rely on the hacks I have installed on my forum, and I don't really think it would be worth hurting my activity over this.

 

Words of wisdom there. I was gung-ho until I became a Server Administrator. When you pull a box down to recompile at 11PM at night and you're still up at 4AM trying to fix the problem...well...you learn to not be quite the bleeding edge kinda guy. I rolled out IPB with the RCs and it was a struggle, I didn't wait long enough and so we had some issues.

This time around I'll play, but I'm waiting a good bit before I work on skins, modification choices, customizations, and upgrades.

 

That's the same thing I'm doing more or less too. I don't see what the rush is to upgrade to be honest. As you rightly pointed out, many of the hacks and resources simply aren't available for version 4.0 yet.

And in the mean time, I'm putzing around with a Invision Suite package that I recently bought and I will switch one of my smaller sites over to it and see how it goes.

If it goes really well, then I might just move some more of my boards over to Invision and a few of my customers as well.

 

I honestly suggest you try out MyBB. I know that it is a free software, but so what? I am sick of people refusing to use free software because they think that the price determines the professionalism.

MyBB has almost all features that vB has (pre-bloat), and many users of MyBB seem to compare it to vBulletin. It has a great plugins system, and while there are few good themes, it is very easy to create your own (I would even be willing to convert this theme into a MyBB-version for you!).

Plugin wise - the hook system makes installation/uninstallation extremely simple. And I don't see any features on these forums that aren't default or already available as a plugin.

So I would really consider it. Just try it out. I actually went from IPB 1.3 --> MyBB 1.2 (took some time to get used to) --> IPB 2.5 and then back to MyBB 1.4. It is different, of course, but so is everything else.

 

I have no issues with MyBB. It was the first (and only) free forum script I've used, and I still use it for projects. In fact, my Linnie Forum was launched on MyBB and when I realized that it was bound for success, I made the investment in vBulletin.

If I were to create a new project that I don't know will be successful or not, I always launch it on MyBB and upgrade to vBulletin depending on its success.


I am already on vBulletin 3.8, so I don't see the need to take the step backwards (maybe not backwards, but sideways ) to MyBB.

 

I see, at least you give it the effort. Personally, I don't see why you even bothered to upgrade it to vBulletin when it was fine on MyBB. I find it more of a downgrade (I would consider it a sideways if I didn't have to pay $180+ for it).