vBulletin 4 - Preparing your forum for it.

Google is your friend in this case.

Also, please review my post from a few days ago (the first part of it): http://www.adminaddict.com/forum/fo...n-4-preparing-your-forum-394/index3/#post2631

 

As much as I look forward to vB4, I am also dreading it. A number of my forums run a fair number of mods and I really don't want to deal with all the compatibility problems. I think I will wait before doing any serious upgrading to vB4 once the software is released, at least until I can test it out with existing mods. Don't want to have any excessive downtime because I couldn't wait to use vB4.

 

I agree with you on that.

I feel especially bad for the very large sites that are highly modified and almost don't even look like vBulletin anymore, such as DaniWeb IT Discussion Community - Software Programming / Web Development and Technical Support.

 

Interesting read.

I don't necesarily oppose the new pricing - however I think stripping us of our ticket support is a little bit...rude? It's normally quicker that way and I feel strongly about the fact that if we're now paying almost $200, we deserve the best support there is.

More importantly though...what if it includes confidential information? We see ALL the time that forums are only good for general "FAQ" issues if you will. Anything that is unique is always sent to a ticket. No way I would pay for a one time question just beacause they dont want confidential things on the forums or something like that.


And I'm glad that Steve is cautious about vB3->vB4 upgrade costs....I don't really feel like paying more than 40-60 for a product I already paid like $160 for. Besides, at the time I, and everyone else, was told that ALL upgrades would be free OR cost $40/$60 depending on when it was released. Version numbers were never discussed, and I'm also glad that Steve touched on that.


Seems like a bit of a mess.

 

I'm not looking forward to having to upgrade over 50 styles.

 

Ugh, I can imagine that you aren't!

 

How many templates do you modify on average in a style? Most styles that I see modify maybe 5 different templates (header, footer, navbar, forumhome and showthread). Some go to the extreme but most make relatively few template modifications.

Instead they modify the images and CSS for the most part. I would say after you update your styles to 4.0, you will have more freedom. Most of your work will be done in the CSS and not in the templates. So want to distribute a style for a new version, give a new CSS file. Many things will be easier.

Adding a side column? Add a layer by editing say "spacer_open" or its equivalent and using CSS to float it either left or right. No need to modify tables.

Adding a break between forum categories on Forum Home? Add a bottom margin to your top level forums via CSS.

Change the color of buttoms in the postbit? Edit the CSS.

New background images for the buttons? Edit the CSS.

But later is when the real tricks come into play. Okay, 4.1 is released and now you have 75 styles to go through right? Not necessarily.

When you upgrade to 4.1, it will do this:
Compare your customized 4.0 templates with the new ones available in 4.1. Using the default 4.0 templates as a reference, it will make changes to your customized templates so they are up to date to the 4.1 ones without you really having to do anything. The only time you'll have a problem is if you delete large portions of code. Deletions tend to confuse diff/merge algorithms.

However by the time that 4.1, most styles should be predominately driven by CSS. Don't want to show an element, give it a display:hidden. Want to move it elsewhere, you can do that with CSS. Want the navbar to be dropdown menus instead of two-layer tabs? Apply suckerfish through CSS and a bit of javascript or skip the javascript if you don't care about supporting IE6. Its really doubtful that you would have to modify any templates directly in the long run.

 

My earlier styles don't have any template edits. But when I started learning new things, I started getting brave

Most of my later templates have anywhere from 8 - 11 templates that are edited, with each one having more than one edit.

 

Well Im An Administrator On A vBulletin Site, Im Used To It Already, I've Been Hosting
Alot Of Free Forums, Finally Getting vBulletin. Im So Excited! Plus, Is vBulletin 4 Worth
Getting?

 

Congrats on moving to vBulletin. It is a great forum software and I'm sure it will be a good investment for your community. As far as vB4 goes, the community really hasn't seen much of vB4. Just have to wait for an official release to see what it can do

 

As Imperial has mentioned, it's a bit early to determine if vB 4 will be "worth" it. I personally will be going for it immediately, but that's me - it's a question that is highly dependent on one's personal preference.