View Full Version : I love VB4 and CMS
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08-27-2010, 06:26 PM
Since upgrading our VB from 3.8 a week or so ago to the full site, I must say that I am super happy with everything so far. I have learned a **LOT** from reading the forums both here and at vbulletin.org as well as some other sites.
I am not a programmer (although I like to mess around) or designer (see 'programmer') and yet I have found out how to add many cool features to our website, TabletPCBuzz.com.
What have I done so far?
Changed my logo and link
Added a wiki
Manually updated and submitted my sitemap to Google, Yahoo, etc.
Installed widgets
Started a blog
Added more choices to the navigation bar
Added a wiki (vaultwiki Lite)
changed some design elements of the basic template and much more
I even wrote a BB code on my own!! (Float image right)
Oh, and I locked out every stupid spammer using all the tools available!
When I purchased our forum in 2007 it was on Snitz (shudder) and I evaluated a lot of forum software before choosing vBulletin. I have had very good success and our traffic is already showing improvement.
Just wanted to express my appreciation since I have been spending a lot of time reading the forums and have seen a lot of complaints. Not to say people shouldn't complain, but I think those of us that are happy don't post a lot because......we are happy.
I am looking forward to a long relationship with vBulletin and want to express that I have gotten tremendous value from my investment in the software.
John Hill
Owner/Editor TabletPCBuzz.com
President, Allegiance Tablet PC Experts
Jaxel
08-27-2010, 06:34 PM
Detractors are often a vocal minority...
sross
08-27-2010, 07:05 PM
Detractors are often a vocal minority...
You must not check vbull.com very often. The "detractors" there are far from a minority. Right now vb4 is still a beta quality product (maybe alpha by some standards). Hopefully they'll sort it out soon.
You must not check vbull.com very often. The "detractors" there are far from a minority. Right now vb4 is still a beta quality product (maybe alpha by some standards). Hopefully they'll sort it out soon.
Adrian mentioned the number of licenses in the hundreds of thousands.
Do you still claim that the whiners at vb.com are not a minority?
PJSkiboy
08-27-2010, 08:29 PM
I'm about to upgrade my forum from 3.8.4 to Vb 4 Publishing Suite. I don't anticipate any problems and while I can code my own webpages in HTML and PHP, I honestly don't have the time anymore to do so. So I'm looking forward to the CMS handling that for me.
I think a lot of the problems people encounter comes from a lot of customization that people attempt. Not trying to say that's an excuse for some of the problems that occur, but overall, I think if you use the software at its basic level, I'm willing to be the majority of people don't experience that great a number of problems.
Just a guess on my part and I'm sure I'll find out first hand as soon as I upgrade.
sross
08-27-2010, 09:10 PM
Adrian mentioned the number of licenses in the hundreds of thousands.
Do you still claim that the whiners at vb.com are not a minority?
iirc they claim to have 100,000 licenses. I have 4, so not sure how many actual customers there are. And I have no idea if those licenses are current (maybe that number is inflated since vb2.x ?). Check this poll:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?360700-Do-you-plan-to-move-to-Xenforo&highlight=xenforo
over 200 voters and over 50% willing to ditch the product for an unreleased software. That speaks volumes and it's not unrealistic to think such a poll has a margin of error under 10% especially if we are talking licensed vb4 owners. Surely there are not 100,000 vb4 owners because every vb forum I go to seems to still be running 3.8. Fact is we'll probably never know who the majority are or what they think, any clever corporate will do that by design..
your24hourstore
08-27-2010, 09:11 PM
Adrian mentioned the number of licenses in the hundreds of thousands.
Do you still claim that the whiners at vb.com are not a minority?
myself if i knew then what I know now, I would still be running open source
Jaxel
08-27-2010, 10:06 PM
You must not check vbull.com very often. The "detractors" there are far from a minority. Right now vb4 is still a beta quality product (maybe alpha by some standards). Hopefully they'll sort it out soon.
Well I am one of the detractors, and will be switching to XF as soon as I can.
your24hourstore
08-29-2010, 12:32 AM
Well I am one of the detractors, and will be switching to XF as soon as I can.
I am interested in watching the first version, are you running the beta version jaxel?
TheLastSuperman
08-29-2010, 12:42 AM
I am interested in watching the first version, are you running the beta version jaxel?
NO, it's not even released yet however 50% of users who participated in the poll are ready to jump off a bridge based on appearance. Bugs will exist for the love of whatever you believe in... is every thread required to summon your posts people? Not one mention in the first post about xf yet here we go with another hijacked thread again.
I'm actually using my brain and waiting to have product in hand before deciding if it's something to get involved in and as for the coders moving and only doing xf work or mods... if your not doing both then your either not talented enough or simply don't know what's best for you or your client base including your current vB clients, your simply going to leave them if they decide to stick with vB? Not everyone is jumping ship, I like to wait until the last minute when the iceberg hits before I freeze my arse off in the water and end up "dead in the water". This whole ordeal reminds me of the Titanic... it was quite impressive to read about the ship and it's beginning... unsinkable eh? We shall see ;).
Use your brains people not your eyes that are being simply satisfied with eye candy now. If it's that good when released then I'll gladly track down all my old post, edit them and admit sticking my foot --> in mouth but at this point that's just silly and all the comments are becoming a Dead Horse... heck I'm starting to beat a dead horse over all of you beating the xf dead horse. It's down to the vB fanboys versus xF fanboys except we have vB files to review and tinker with, mods to make and boards up now... where are yours?
Back on topic! John I love it too ;).
Jaxel
08-29-2010, 02:47 AM
TheLastSuperman... for me its about pedigree. When Kier Darby and Mike Sullivan were running the show, I was a lot happier than I am now. Since IB took over, for me it has been nothing more than complaint after complaint; with me even outright calling the IB team retards at vbulletin.com. While yes, I haven't seen ANY code for XF, the programmers over there have built a level of respect and trust that I just haven't seen with VB4.
Yes, it may be eye-candy, but honestly I think thats the way to go. If you look at VB4, and then look at XF, you can see a fundamental difference in design. VB4 was mostly about making things easier for the administrator (which it has completely failed at), while XF seems a lot more about making things easier for the USER. Users are the lifeblood of any forum community; and VB4 hasn't really helped in that regard.
If you want to relate this to the Titanic at all... then VB is the Titanic, not XF. You may view us as RATS deserting a sinking ship; but you can't ignore the fact that the ship in SINKING. And switching to XF as soon as I can, does not mean on launch; I will wait it out until they have a good CMS coming along... something that VB4 STILL doesn't have. The XF team have already stated that they want to make sure the forums work first, before they start expanding.
TheLastSuperman
08-29-2010, 03:49 AM
TheLastSuperman... for me its about pedigree. When Kier Darby and Mike Sullivan were running the show, I was a lot happier than I am now. Since IB took over, for me it has been nothing more than complaint after complaint; with me even outright calling the IB team retards at vbulletin.com. While yes, I haven't seen ANY code for XF, the programmers over there have built a level of respect and trust that I just haven't seen with VB4.
Yes, it may be eye-candy, but honestly I think thats the way to go. If you look at VB4, and then look at XF, you can see a fundamental difference in design. VB4 was mostly about making things easier for the administrator (which it has completely failed at), while XF seems a lot more about making things easier for the USER. Users are the lifeblood of any forum community; and VB4 hasn't really helped in that regard.
If you want to relate this to the Titanic at all... then VB is the Titanic, not XF. You may view us as RATS deserting a sinking ship; but you can't ignore the fact that the ship in SINKING. And switching to XF as soon as I can, does not mean on launch; I will wait it out until they have a good CMS coming along... something that VB4 STILL doesn't have. The XF team have already stated that they want to make sure the forums work first, before they start expanding.
Hmm...
You have some good statements there I can't argue with tbo and I'm not afraid to admit that :o. I might come across harsh when seeing xf xf xf but it's only because I don't feel that people can make a well informed decision at this point without seeing it run on a larger scale, live sites and hearing their feedback and seeing the initial bugs. I also believe that no one is admitting to the fact that much of the hatred and I specifically mean aside from the bugs comes solely from the change in the new license agreement - I truly believe that is making this crock pot simmer a bit too much and it's clouding everyone's judgment. Just please make a well informed decision, I only get riled up because we're hyping up something nothing more. I have respect for the developers of each but not when it comes to thread hijacking in mass proportions. I believe everyone has a right to feel in their own way.
It's just too early to be making such statements and half of the time it's accompanied by a unique complaint or s simple "bugs" or if they fix this I will be staying etc we all just need to wait and be patient, make a well informed decision even by positng this we all could have been posting suggestions, me for vB you for xF but instead we all squabble?
I was actually just told off by my wife for wasting time typing this, she means in general not a waste towards you so I'm getting off for a few minutes, I admit to being whipped too but people just be patient and if xf is that good, it will be better than Christmas otherwise you'll end up with coal so be happy with what "you've got" now as our parents always said.
Jaxel
08-29-2010, 04:12 AM
Actually, most of my complaints about VB4 (and VB3.8) do not come from bugs, but from core design... hell, I don't even know what the license agreement changes were; I don't care. VB4 should have made things easier and given us more features; and it didn't do any of that. Most of my complaints stem from the poor implementation of the stylevar system; which took a working "universal" system in VB3, and made it less universal, while at the same time claiming that the new stylevar system would make things EASIER for the administrator... when it didn't.
And its not just VB4, even VB3.8 introduced some "odd" design. Looking at the Album Art system; which doesn't make any sense at all; there is no built in album art library where users can browse all uploaded art. The system only lists recently updated albums; and your own... and even then, it doesn't sort the dates by images, but by update codes for albums. Then look at the Social Group system that didn't make any sense either. The whole idea of a "social group category cloud" violates the entire notion of "discovery" by promoting the large groups while playing the newer groups on the wayside.
The more I use VB4 the more I wonder if "Internet Brands" has any idea how people use the internet. Double click to get to the advanced post reply? Thats not how the internet works, and that will never be how the internet works. Why do the forum sidebar and the CMS sidebar use diffirent widgets? For that matter, why is there no widget XML exporter and importer? A lot that comes from IB just doesn't make any logical sense... like why is XFBML disabled?!
sticky
08-29-2010, 09:50 AM
How did you do that image right thing?
I want to have my object previews (videos) centered, any idea how to do that?
your24hourstore
08-29-2010, 12:40 PM
I see your point now, of course VB is the only thing out there!
its all good, but staying informed :>
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04-08-2011, 10:01 PM
Just thought I would update that everything is still going very nicely at www.TabletPCBuzz.com. I am having the nice folks at urljet.com who have been doing a very good job with hosting and updating us take the site to 4.1.3 this weekend. Hopefully it will go as smoothly as all the other upgrades.
I am looking forward to the mobile and other updates that are coming soon.
John
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