A couple questions before i buy.

[chaoshand]

I know alot about vB being an adimn at a site that used vB and all. I do have a couple nagging questions left behind though.

Do i need a special XML editor or something other than context (similar to notepad) or dreamweaver?
Reason : When i created styles / themes for the site using xml... it always became corrupt in the uploading and left out alot of stuff (i tried with context and dreamweaver), that error didnt occur because of bad coding on my side because i took a style already installed and just used dreamweaver and context to replace the directory in which to look for smilies (replace /images/smilies/ with /forums/images/smilies) so i had to use a replacment variable which is an inconvience since the style is for that forum only.

Is there a hack / tutorial / program or anything else that will convert vB 2.x styles into the new vB 3.x system (*.style -> *.xml), if so could you show a brief screenshot so i know how intensive or unintinsive it is.

i forgot the other thing i wanted to know, i will be back as soon as i remember though.

[Zachery]

I know alot about vB being an adimn at a site that used vB and all. I do have a couple nagging questions left behind though.

Do i need a special XML editor or something other than context (similar to notepad) or dreamweaver?
Reason : When i created styles / themes for the site using xml... it always became corrupt in the uploading and left out alot of stuff (i tried with context and dreamweaver), that error didnt occur because of bad coding on my side because i took a style already installed and just used dreamweaver and context to replace the directory in which to look for smilies (replace /images/smilies/ with /forums/images/smilies) so i had to use a replacment variable which is an inconvience since the style is for that forum only.

Is there a hack / tutorial / program or anything else that will convert vB 2.x styles into the new vB 3.x system (*.style -> *.xml), if so could you show a brief screenshot so i know how intensive or unintinsive it is.

i forgot the other thing i wanted to know, i will be back as soon as i remember though.
Nope, infact you will rarely ever need to edit any xml files with vBulletin.

No... it can only be done manually and its not overly hard id you are expirenced in html

[chaoshand]

Nope, infact you will rarely ever need to edit any xml files with vBulletin.

No... it can only be done manually and its not overly hard id you are expirenced in html
-I would need to edit XML files as i make them... for some reason when i upload the ones i finish there will be errors.
I know you can use the admincp to do the commmon templates part but i am more of a programming type person and i prefer the entire XML file before my eyes.

-There arent even tutorials on how to do it? cause a style XML file for vB is much more than 13k charachters >.<

[Zachery]

-I would need to edit XML files as i make them... for some reason when i upload the ones i finish there will be errors.
I know you can use the admincp to do the commmon templates part but i am more of a programming type person and i prefer the entire XML file before my eyes.

-There arent even tutorials on how to do it? cause a style XML file for vB is much more than 13k charachters >.<
While you prefer using an XML file, vBulletin imports this data into the database... and it would become very tedious IMO to constantly reimport the style over and over again just to make a single change to a template.


No, because there are changes in everything from style varibles to the type of code that is used.

vBulletin 2 was bad html 4 with replacement varibles
vBulletin 3 is XHTML 1.0 trans with CSS

When I was doing porting. I loaded the style in a vB2 board, then used my knowleged to refrence the same changes or, make new changes to the code to make it look like the old one. it basicly requires a total rewrite.

[chaoshand]

Hmm... i thought as much about the importing of styles. Tis a shame.

About uploading XML files... when i change things, i prefer uploading many times even for just one small change. I usually make temp styles to do this but its no goos when most of your temp style goes away because of a mis-import. The reason i would rather use the XML file is because i will never be able to remember where everything in the vB's layout of the style in the ACP (in xml file if you want to add a button such as 'register program' then you do a simple search on where the reply button is (mini one) and you plop the code in there while in the ACP you must filter through all of those... i dont know what they call it >.<
That is why correct XML upload capabilities are needed, im usually rather busy and dont have the time to go through the ACPs stlye layout.

[Zachery]

Hmm... i thought as much about the importing of styles. Tis a shame.

About uploading XML files... when i change things, i prefer uploading many times even for just one small change. I usually make temp styles to do this but its no goos when most of your temp style goes away because of a mis-import. The reason i would rather use the XML file is because i will never be able to remember where everything in the vB's layout of the style in the ACP (in xml file if you want to add a button such as 'register program' then you do a simple search on where the reply button is (mini one) and you plop the code in there while in the ACP you must filter through all of those... i dont know what they call it >.<
That is why correct XML upload capabilities are needed, im usually rather busy and dont have the time to go through the ACPs stlye layout.
Thats in the navbar btw ;)

Actually most of the templates that you will need to edit are faily easy to find.

header, footer, navbar, headinclude, postbit, showthread, forumhome.

Editing more templates than that would be atad of overkill, within the header footer navbar and headinclude you should be able to control the greator majority of the style of the forums.

the template sytem is fairly logical.

If you want to edit the showthread.php page's templates, they are grouped in the showthread template group


and ^^ I do know most of the template system like the back of my hand, its my speciality.

[chaoshand]

Thats in the navbar btw

Actually most of the templates that you will need to edit are faily easy to find.

header, footer, navbar, headinclude, postbit, showthread, forumhome.

Editing more templates than that would be atad of overkill, within the header footer navbar and headinclude you should be able to control the greator majority of the style of the forums.

the template sytem is fairly logical.

If you want to edit the showthread.php page's templates, they are grouped in the showthread template group


and ^^ I do know most of the template system like the back of my hand, its my speciality.
Sorry about the late reply, been busy with school.
For importing styles... I know of Upload / Download styles - i was refrenceing towards vb2 into vb3 ;-).
For XML files, i know the layout fairly well myself... im just a coder by nature (VB6 vs. C++ making a layout, I go with C++ cause VB6 = Visual, C++ = 100% code).
I have great respect to the vB team in making such a powefull language, including features such as Phrasing and more. The forum I am currently admin at runs vB 3.03, has the XML issue been fixed in .06 or .07 (i think one of those is the latest ;-) ).
Note : Dont get me wrong, I do use the Template System for some stuff such as adding a new template for program registration (one of my custom mods xD) or derivitives of the Refer a Friend (Just with more.... potent uses xD).