Version 3.7 Rant
 

Ok, I'm ranting a little, getting on my soap box, whatever you want to call it.

I've been running vB since the 2.2 something days and getting ready for a major overhaul of the site. I know it needs it and has for a while, that's not exactly what this post is about.

These days if you buy a new computer off the shelf you have to spend a few hours deleting out all the "Software 30 day Trials" "Trial Versions" "Internet Service Options" and other completely useless stuff that takes up space and time.

vB seems to have taken the same tactic as HP, Dell, and every other computer manufacturer. 3.7 has a lot of unneeded, unwanted, and half assed options on it that the majority of us I feel like are going to end up removing, deleting, and replacing.

Most big boards are running some sort of ad management scrip to keep track of the money making advertisements. I've been using Red Tyger's version for over a year now modified quite a bit to suit my needs. 3.7 has ad templates built into it all over the place but no central controlling menu to handle rotating banners, rotating scripts etc. Otherwords, it's not really what we need, just some junk that if you wanted to you could stick an ad here or there. They said they were doing it to make upgrades easier without having to disable plug ins. Yeah, right. Done like most people are operating their boards, they haven't solved anything.

A lot of larger boards are also using a 3rd party photo cataloger such as photopost or photoplog. I'd added photopost to one of my smaller sites in prep for bringing it over to the largest site. Then I see that 3.7 has a built in photo album, but wait, it's a half assed version like that Quicken that came on a new HP that won't balance a checking account unless you pay for a different version. A member can upload phots and create an album but that album doesn't combine with other albums to create a page others can see. People can't even add comments to the photos if they did manage to find them through the member listing. I'm sure someone will come up with an add on that fixes that, but why can't the geniuses designing the software fix this to where it function like 99.9% of the people that use a photo add on set theirs up to do. As is, it will only confuse users as to where they are supposed to upload their photos.

As for the photos, that I can find, they've yet to include a image handler routine using GD or image magic that will resize uploads to the forum automatically preventing someone from loading a 1200 px wide picture and blowing the forums out to the right.

For the ones running larger boards and having to take serious steps to reduce bandwidth, server time, storage, and other issues similarly related, this just seems to me like another issue of having to serve oodlins of HTML and scripts and such that aren't doing anything for us and are really just in the way.

I think I understand their logic. I suppose they want to create a website script that is all things to all users. It does a little bit of everything so everyone can have a piece of the pie. At the same time, it's creating issues for the larger web sites.

What would be nice for us, IMO, is if they would make a basic version of vB and set all this other stuff up as plugins that if you wanted it, you could download it and use, but if you didn't, then you wouldn't have to deal with it being there, having to serve it or spend hours or days removing it such that each upgrade becomes a royal pain in the tail.

Skip

i see your point, but you're a 2.x fan, so you will have to keep in mind that a change of major version means also a change of technologies...

the 2.x is like a nintendo.. it do what he do best, play games... a 3.x is more like a PC... have more options, lot of gadgets... and as developped by Microsoft, your OS is filled with strange things...

buy a Mac ?!... deactivate a lot of things in 3.7 is easier.. lol

If you UPLOAD (ATTACH, not LINK) a picture, it will be thumbnailed according to what you want the maxium size of a picture to be, Infact this has been there since 3.5.

I am afraid you posted your rant at the wrong forum. If you want to reach the developers and make your voice heard among other customers as input for changes made inot vBulletin, then you should post at vBulletin.com, not here.

Blah Blah
Everything comes developed in steps and over time. I'm sure eventually (maybe 4.0) They'll improve the advertisement sections

Because its a forum software? Again, as i'm sure time goes on these new features will be developed more. And I don't see where you're having a problem finding the user albums, There is a block on the profile page that lets you view them straight from there? And there is a link to view all of that users albums. I'm sure within days of the release someone will have a view every album page ready :)

As already stated, this has been in place since 3.5 days.

Yet, you admit to having your current vBulletin loaded with basically the same modifications, that just aren't as polished yet.
Just about everything can be enabled or disabled from the settings menus.

Hopefully vBulletin does polish some of these features up over time, and increase the usability or it all, but as it currently stands I can see where they are going over time with everything, and I do beleive it's in the correct direction. Everything just takes a little time :)

Well you don't have to upgrade. I would not call vB bloat ware...just remember you pay for what you get. I am not to fond of how the new profile page is designed but that is easy to fix.

There's alot of things I would like to see vb changed, and there's things I would complain about like why doublepost prevention is not a standard feature and yet is a major concern on many if not most boards. But if you an earlier version over another, you was never forced to upgrade. In fact you can still download vb 2.3.5 from the vb.com.

TBH, I won't be upgrading to 3.7 any time soon. 3.6.8 does me just fine for now and it's more trouble than its worth to upgrade.

Upgrading or not has always been a pain to me. lol.

I see your point. It is amazing that certain features in vbulletin are just not even halfway finished. But at the same time, Jelsoft does lay out a lot of foundation for vb.org coders to expand on. It seems that Jelsoft is choosing to release a wide array of basic functionality, in the hope that vb.org coders will release a large number of addons.