Woooo - I've done it - VB4.0 Publishing Suite

I've gone and done it. I'm installing VB4.0 publishing suite (so the full monty) on a new domain (not daring to upgrade any until it's stable and supported - and it's been tested by users to show it doesn't damage rankings).

I'll let you know how I get on. PM me if you want the URL to check it out.

Cheers

 

Congrats, good luck. Hope you like it.

 

Okay.

Had problems at the install stage, it said my MySQL syntax had an error in it, it hasn't. I clicked back and then attempted to run stage 13 of 15 and it said to contact VB support. Which apparently has a huge waiting time currently (it says on their website they apologise for it).

So rather than running install.php I thought I'd try run upgrade.php. It worked, I think.

the index.php now for the forum is stuck in a redirection loop. So I'm trying to find out what that is. I think as I went for the publishing suite stage 13, 14 and 15 of the install must be something to do with the frontend cms, and it's that that has broken. So I can see everything else and play with blogs, tags, admincp etc, just not hit the forum homepage! grrrrr.

If anybody has experience witht his already, please gimme a shout.

On the up side, some things I've noticed that should be good is the advertising bit. It's like the setup the notices have, so you pick where you want the ad to go and then give it permissions like the notices. So you can have big ads for guests, and small ones for members, or none for premium members. I always did this with if/else php or using usergroups, I think this will be easier.

I thought the admincp was going to be totally different, it isn't, it's exactly the same, with a couple of new menus including the advertising thing.

Still investigating it though so I'll hit you back soon.

 

Just spotted the SE Friendly URL's options. It comes rigged as standard but I've selected advanced which just appears to shorten the url's a bit but still uses the full forum/topic name on the end with no trailing slash though. I can also see a button for mod rewrite URLs so I don't know if we'll be able to get the URL's EXACTLY like vbseo's to save those valuable search rankings, somebody with skill in that might be able to perhaps?

I'll report back when I find more.

 

coool.. igot the vb 4.0 suite too.. im leaving my 3.7.4 right where it is...but i might get a new domain and run 4.0...

*following this thread*

 

make sure you PHP version is atleast 5.2.1 (should actually be a minimum of like 5.2.6) and your MySQL is up to date as well.

AdminCP is the same.

 

Okay.

I think I should have just got the forum and not the suite. Though I do want the suite.

I'm pretty sure the stage that screwed up during the installation was the stage it was meant to setup the CMS side of things. index.php is stuck in a loop still and doesn't load. I just tried to re-install it but got the same issue.

The blog categories bit is very buggy. In the admin panel I'm adding category names and in the actual blog its calling the first three names of their own, it's calling them "My Cat" "Just Another Category" and "My Category" - I guess this was something they were testing with and it's stuck that way as the 4th one did get named what I named it. I go in the setting in the admincp and the first three are showing the vb names though when I click edit it is showing me that they're named what I chose, which they're not. So that needs sorting out.

So it looks like I'm stuck untill another update is out, or until vbulletin offer support.

I think its very wrong of them to charge you for this if you can't use it. Clearly they're over ambitious on this one and they're milking customers for cash to hire developers to fix it. It's all the wrong way to go about it IMO.

They should seek investment, then hire, then develop, then sell the damn thing in working order, or at least a proper BETA that at least loads well and perhaps has some bugs.

Trying to contact support anyway (Steve McCol or whatever his name is, I have his email addy - along with the usual support route) though they're not responding, though when I was buying it and paused in the credit card page and it expired, they called me! hahahaha

Eeeeeeerm. Don't know what else to say. I can't play with it anymore and don't feel confident enough to start adding forum categories and editing the settings as I have a funny feeling it'll need a fresh install with a working version.

I'll keep trying for a bit though. I'm trying to change index.php to content.php manually (I think that's what it's called on vbulletin.com where the CMS bit is and there is a content.php file in the file system) though I'm not getting anywhere.

I'm also checking install files for other CMS's and am seeing if they give any clues as to how you go about changing it but it isn't happening so far.

I'll report back with some findings when I find some.

 

It is mate,
A quick copy and paste from the admincp
MySQL 4.1.20
PHP 5.2.6

I pay well to get good server management mate so they make sure they keep it well up to date for me.

I think it's definately a bug in the system. I'm trying to find a vb 4 beta 3 version somewhere that is the suite and not just forum to see if they've got it running but can't so far.

 

Adding the URL to a thread in AAA for yous all.

 

You know, the menu system got knocked a bit when it was first released but I actually definately prefer it to the old. The "What's New" bit is brilliant. My forum members age averages around 45, so having this easy button to click no matter where you are on the forums will be a feature that gets used a lot. And although younger more tech savvy guys would be able to find their way around pretty quickly, I think they'll find they like and use it also.

I wish I could get the damn thing working.

On another note. I don't think THAT much has changed other than design so far. I know they're releasing more bits and bobs as time goes on (so glad they didn't now, if they can get the raw forum running right they'd be buggered with lots of add-ons already in the box). I was really expecting a much more user-friendly admincp. Though other than the advertising area which uses Ajax and presents you with a screenshot of your forumhome with clickable banner area's, it's exactly the same. I hope more ajax-related bits and bobs get added later as that's pretty cool.

 

lol - I can see Nick viewing it. Resolving his IP gives him away. :p

 

hmmm ill probably be installing this on a test forum sometime over the weekend will share my findings

 

Test the normal forum and not the suite, you might get it working right. Orrrr, hang on a day or so as I have started a thread in the VB4 help area on vb.com to see if anybody else can help.

Cheers.

 

Righteo. Got the index.php working, I had to uncomment something in the index.php. Though the CMS doesn't appear to be running now as a result. At least I can start adding categories now though hey.

 

Erm, wut? Viewing what?

You posted this thread at 8:15 AM and I haven't been online until just now.

 

This was one thing I was actually looking forward to about vBulletin upgrading to 4.0, but I was hoping it would be free of charge since were already paying heavy loads to own a license.

 

Righteo,

Forum is online and live now. We've already gained a few members by cross-promoting the forums a bit. Hopefully I'll not lose the content when I upgrade to a stable version.

99% of things are working, but the publishing suite/cms side of things isn't and I can't seem to get that to work so I'll just wait for the next BETA and then upgrade and see if that works.

Feel free to have a wonder around the forum, I'm sure those that have had an interest have already got used to the vbulletin.com website which is clearly the same.

All in all I think I'll get used to this you know. And I wouldn't worry about upgrading 3.x to 4.x as it appears to be all using the same system all in all. The styles work differently, and as a result I can't get Google Analytics to run on it from the footer, so I'm checking where to add that and if you can at all. I'll get back to you about that.

I added some ads in the advertising systm, and it worked for a bit, but now has stopped for some reason. Tried erasing them and re-adding them (that seemed to work with group categories that screwed up and what-not) but that didn't work. So I went to the old way, the ad_location's, but they don't work either.

Got 3 styles loaded, all using the same images and logo, it just changes the CSS from blue to red, and then a nicer looking blue if that takes your fancy.

I'd give it 8/10 so far, and I'm sure if I could get the CMS to work I'd give it 10/10. Brilliant stuff. Can't wait for later versions and I hope that in years to come when they do move from 4 to 5 that they do it much better.

If any of you want ot know anything about the system please let me know and I can do screen shots or let you login or whatever. If you want me to export anything style-wise, or screen shot an area in the adminCP etc, just give me a shout.

The URL is in the AA-A if you want to take a look at the forum yourself though.

 

Woooooooooooooooooo

68 members in 6 hours on a brand new forum! Get in!

 

Righteo.

An update for you all.

I'll paste the URL now so you can check it out too: www.ContractorForum.co.uk

In short: we love it!

Detailed: Had a few issues with the beta versions. Got the PL1 though as soon as it was out and it really is all fixed. I have a small issue with the Calendar, it keeps telling me I've selected the wrong date when I haven't, so I can't add anything to it.

Other than that, brilliant stuff. Some cool 3.8 mods are now available for it. And there are quite a few new mods to suit the design, such as adding tabs to the menu and what-not.

The members love it and keep coming back. It's really easy to use for them. On 3.8 I get quite a lot of emails asking how and where to post a message. Perhaps partly due to me adding to them ongoing over the years and they've really got a bit messy now if I'm honest, but I couldn't see how you could make VB4 messy at all.

All the obvious buttons you need are in the place where you seem to look first which is brilliant but a bit freaky. (Imagine walking in a dark room you've not walked into and you just reach for a pull cord anywhere to turn on the light, and you get it first time - it's a bit like that sort of sensation).

The moderation-side of things is brilliant. Loads of improvements, as expected and promised. And so far I've not been spammed once using just a simlple set of questions and answers.

Been spending some time on Black Hat SEO forums (not to learn how to practise it, but how to prevent it) and you can get cracked scripts for stuff like xruner (a spam program) that can get around captchas on your forum and even hotmail and gmail, so I'd recommend sticking to questions that are unique to your forum (so not, what's 3 + 1? type things).

Sorry going off-topic a bit there.

I don't really know what else to say about it.

Do any of you guys that are unsure about it or upgrading to it have any questions that perhaps I may be able to answer?

It appears some of those upgrading from 3.8 to 4.0 have had issues, but mainly numpties not deactivating mods via the config file. Reading through vb.com forums, nearly all of the issues appear to be coming from newbies. And nearly all replies are from experienced users with comments such as 'I got mine working fine' (which clearly isn't helpful and quite typical of vb.com IMO) but that just goes to show upgrading works.

Obviosuly those with big concerns and / or big boards need to seriously think about backing up loads of times and saving bunches of copies of your database in all formats (so gzip, bzip, raw etc - sorry not too offay with the terms, not really a hard coder myself as such) and ensure you're backing up your site files, including your .htaccess which appears to make a few stumble as often FTP programs don't show you the htaccess on the remote server so you can't click it to download - so when you upload the new you overwrite it and then don't have a copy should you need to restore from a backup.

Thankfully our servers backup 4 times daily automatically and it's only 20 minutes work to do a restore form any point. So I'll let you know how I get on when I upgrade the others (which I think I will do for sure now). I'm just waiting on a few common mods that I use to be converted to VB4 style.

I hope you all had a good xmas and that 2010 is prosperous for you.

 

What about the New Posts search, and "Find all posts by user" search? They're very inefficient and the latter is essentially 100% unusable. Doesn't that alone bother you? It does me...