Advice wanted please

[DNTrade]

Hello, this is my first post. I'm glad I found this community. :)

Earlier this year, I purchased a forum for Aussie domain name owners. It is called DNTrade (http://www.dntrade.com.au).

It runs on vB 3.8.3

However I would like to modify and upgrade it to include:

1. A main website landing page with articles; tools & resources; recent forum & blog posts - plus advertising.

2. A community forum (existing) and blog (new).

The look that I want is similar to these examples:

flyingsolo.com - No 1

smallbusinessforum.com.au - No 2


This is what I need advice on please. How do I best achieve this? Do I:

1. Utilize existing vB version and have a Wordpress "bridge" for the homepage and blog.

2. Purchase new vB 4 standard version and have a Wordpress "bridge" for the homepage and blog.

3. Purchase vB 4 Publishing Suite and utilise their CMS for the homepage and blog.


I just posted a job on oDesk for this task, but that was before I knew about this forum. Once I know what is my best option to achieve the look I want, I am happy to post the job in "paid services" thread.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers, Ned

[Max Taxable]

Personally I would bridge it with either Joomla or Wordpress. But that's just me. I have seen no argument yet that gives vB 4 a compelling reason to go to it. That plus, lots of problems with it as seen both here and at vB.com.

Take that with a grain of salt because, I just drink and distribute the vb4 haterade. But for good reason too.

[BirdOPrey5]

I've seen people bridge VB4 to Wordpress but there is no free mod available to do this, so I imagine those people used custom coding to get it to work.

I would just go with the VB4 suite so you have everything in one, no mods or hacking needed. The VB4 CMS isn't nearly as feature rich as Wordpress but it should be adequate for most, at least worth checking out.

[ThevBNinja]

Hello there,

regarding to your requirements

1. A main website landing page with articles; tools & resources; recent forum & blog posts - plus advertising.

2. A community forum (existing) and blog (new).


I myself highly recommended you to the last option which is

3. Purchase vB 4 Publishing Suite and utilise their CMS for the homepage and blog.

Since vbulletin is the most popular board software in the world, you have the benefit of free mods, and styles directly from vbulletin.org included support from members and the authors here. As Im working with forum software for years, none of these current others have such a large of free mods and styles as vbulletin. Also developer is going to port/release their mod for vbulletin 4 then upgrade is a smart choice atm.

As your requirement is looking for a simple CMS (as described) and blog. The default core-features of vbulletin CMS and Blogs should fulfilled your request without any problem.

The CMS is nothing fancy compare to joomla or wordpress but at least it works the way it was made for.

However buying a suite with CMS, Forum and Blog, will save you money and time, even when hiring someone to work with as it was the same system with linked features.

Like sharing members between CMS/Blog/Forums, linked profiles, comment, a bridge would take you age and ton of money to do that, not counting it's stable or not.

You can also made custom theme and custom mod to fit your site's goal and at this point, I think vbulletin suite is the most value option for your company.

Regards,
ThevBNinja

[DNTrade]

Thanks all for your comments and advice.

I do want ease of use and minimal future headaches, so I guess I'll run with the vB Suite (even though design may not be everything I want).

[TheLastSuperman]

i am getting confused by seeing that someone is negleting ausutralian domain, the main fact is that i don't know he Australian domains.

What? You lost me there...