Is there even 1 decent vBulletin 4 tutorial?

[ltwinnerr]

I have spent hours over the last few days looking for a decent vbulletin tutorial that explains the templating system to a newcomer. And I have not found one.

It seem there is no tutorial that leads a newcomer right the way from creating a product, through to using plugins/hooks/templates, and then exporting that product.

So can someone point me in the direction of a tutorial that doesn't assume prior knowledge of vbulletins inner workings?

[socialteenz]

Style References for vBulletin 4.x (https://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php/370280-Style-References-for-vBulletin-4.x) By super Man :D

[Lynne]

There are a couple of articles about writing products/plugins - https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=82625 and
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=82923 - but I've always found the best way to learn is to download a simple one, see how it works and try to write your own similar one and grow from there.

[ltwinnerr]

That looks like a good reference but it has very little to do with what Im talking about - A comprehensive guide for making products/plugins that explains how the templating system works to a newcomer.

[Lynne]

I cannot think of ever reading anything about the templating system.

[EquinoxWorld]

There are a couple of articles about writing products/plugins - https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=82625 and
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=82923 - but I've always found the best way to learn is to download a simple one, see how it works and try to write your own similar one and grow from there.

I agree with Lynne, I also had the same question as you do, I gave up looking for tutorials and just got my hands dirty and start to play with mods. I created a development site and just went bananas. Start building your own vb pages with simple templates (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=228112) and go from there. What helped me out alot was this tutorial about php http://devzone.zend.com/article/627 . Start form 1 and go from there. Your gonna have to know php if you want to build a product of any kind. Start small and by no means , DON'T GIVE UP! Just when you start to understand it the stage gets bigger and bigger and what you can accomplish seems like everything but at first it will be hard so just hang in there (if you really want to code your own product that is).

P.S.:I am already building my own first product with just the articles that are here and with the php tutorial mentioned above with no previous programming experience (with the exception of the occasional template edit to install a mod). So I am sure if I can do it so can you....but again....if you really want to.

[Jeff Ledger]

My advice,

Read, read, read. keep reading
Try it, fail, try it again.

I myself love reading tutorials, but to be honest, the stylevars guide was one of the most boring thing ever happen on earth but...I read them all when vbulletin4 released.

Why? Because if you are looking for a guide how to make a vbulletin template? You should know already about
- Photoshop for making images
- HTML for basic template coding
- CSS for working with vbulletin 4

If you already have enough knowledgse about it, I believe when you finish reading a guide, you know how and where to start.

Get started by download a small modification, looks at the source codes and see how it works.

The articles here at vb.org is not as rich of contents but I think there are enough of informations for you to get a start.

Good luck!

Jeff

[Zachery]

There is no guide, because the vBulletin template system is: HTML, CSS, and some basic sudo php conditionals. That is it.

Specific questions are better, but I doubt we'd ever see a guide that explains exactly what you want. Unless we see a specific step by step of how to code your own skin from scratch. Which considering it can take 10-20+ hours to do, a tutorial would take an additional 10~ to document and screenshot everything.

That being said, if someone is willing to pay for 30 hours of my time ;)