Integrating a script with vBulletin?
 

Are there any "basics" to integrating a script with vBulletin?

A basic bridge is already available for the script to use vBulletin's users, but I wish to attempt to take this further and fully integrate options, usergroup settings and eventually templates. I know it will require the script being rewritten to quite an extent, but I like a challenge.. ;)

really depends on the script, when i did the phgstats integration which was easy as it only required modifying it's output to using the VB template system, i just attacked it an output block at a time, create new html tables, assign variables for use in those templates and so forth.

How big is the script your looking to integrate?

http://www.vgprojects.com/

Fairly big.. ;)

yeh you could say that ;)

Well they are running vB themself, so i would asume that they already got it integrated.

Like I said, currently it's just a basic bridge. It's not intended to be integrated with vB to the extent that I'm wanting it to be, as it has switches for vB, phpBB and IPB user integration..

Well it seems to be a commercial script. Do you have permission to modify and redistribute it?

Id say you'll be getting your hands dirty ;)

I wouldn't be redistributing it.. ;)

As for permission to modify it, the support forums already have a forum whereby subscribers can share their modifications with others. Though I will ask the developers about this now that you've mentioned it to be on the safe side..

theres a free version of this available as well it just dont have as many features but you might be able to make it a hack available dont know the licensing on it but it was there first version i saw it on hotscripts.com

Read what they write about that free version. They write themself that it is a buggy limited version of an old version of the software.

And i doubt it will be free to re-release.

yeah i wasnt sure if ya could or not. just throwing it out there. so maybe someone could look at it and how it works and either use it as a stepping stone to work there own magic or it would be able to be rereleased. for a good coder i dont think it would be real hard to do a script like that. dont seam like theres to much involved. if ya know what your doing you could use basic vbulletin features to gain everything you need vb allows attachents so there goes your images for games. vbulletin allows comments and topics.so if you could make it so all ya really would have to do is just write up a template the way you wanted the page laid out and then just learn to ad the hooks for the things you would need for it like comments and ratings and stuff.

but i dont know. if i knew what i was doing i rather try something like that from scratch then trying to use existing script.

The issue with complete scripts like that is they are designed from the ground up to be standalone. With no forward planning to intergrate into a forum application.

I have looked at similar intergrations beyond user access, but it becomes extremely complex as you start looking at using vbulletin options, vbulletin's template engine, even vbulletins database class.

My personal opinion would be to start from stratch if you're looking for similar functionality, vBulletin can already handle alot of the stuff it seems to be doing, and with a few (probably lots) plugins into certain areas you could achieve it.

I agree with Merk, sometimes integrating a complete script is more work then just starting from scratch. If you have the skills and time to code your own script, then I would do that. It's a great learning experience and you'll understand your code much better then a pre-existing script.