vBulletin 4 Series Development Update
 

The vBulletin 4 project is progressing quickly and we are in a position to share some further information about what to expect in our next new major version release.

In August, we announced a major overhaul of the code base. Rather than targeting all of these changes in a single, long-term release, we intend to accomplish all the planned improvements over a number of versions. In order to achieve this goal, the largest vBulletin development team ever assembled is now working within an Agile development process, allowing us to deliver new features into your hands faster.

Each incremental release in the vBulletin 4 series will include improvements in features, usability and architecture. Development efforts are prioritized towards those areas that can provide real, tangible benefits to our customers, at all times with an eye toward maintaining and enhancing the performance and reliability expected of a vBulletin product.

The goal of the vBulletin 4 series is to develop a modern, scalable application platform that will allow your communities to thrive.

Key features and improvements that will be included in the first vBulletin 4 release are:

• Cross-content search system providing a single interface to search across forum posts, blog entries and comments and other supported products
• Improved search performance
• A fresh design and layout making use of semantic markup and CSS styling
• An enhanced style and template system to enhance your ability to change the layout
• Controls to assist with the placement of advertising elements
• SEO features, including friendly URLs
• A centralized attachment system, allowing the sharing of attachments across products

Alongside significant strides forward within the vBulletin forum product, we are also producing a new content management system to facilitate the creation, editing and publishing of non-forum pages. Further details about CMS features, and how it will integrate with vBulletin will be posted in due course.

We are working hard and plan to have vBulletin 4.0 released in beta form in early Q2 of 2009.

I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your continuing support of vBulletin. We are really excited about version 4, and we're looking forward to bringing you further updates via general announcements and periodic development blog posts focusing on individual areas.


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That's exciting. I can't wait to see the new version.

Woot nice one. CMS, decent search, SEO, and that's just to begin with. Can hardly wait ^_^

Thanks you for new version

Wow, I am happy, yet some of the modifications like vBSEO that I paid for become in a way, useless, but thank god there is more "bang for the buck" and they took the suggestions of many of us!

Can't wait for it... it sounds awesome :D
Most of all, because of the new layout and stuff :)

Excellent news by Jelsoft, and I am really looking forward to vBulletin 4, now at least a lot more useful details and information have/has been given out. The new style sounds good for a start, and I'm quite wondering what's going to happen to vB SEO now their business plan has gone down the drain. Oh well, and there's a CMS (despite me not needing one at this moment, it sounds fantastic, and it shows that Jelsoft really do listen to the suggestions).

Thats great news. I know there were a lot of people wanting an update on the vBulletin 4 progress.

Glad to see its moving along, and can't wait to see the URL rewritting ability natively supported along with the other changes. It should be great

Just awesome , hope that vbSEO doesn't do something to screw up .. like making their product cheaper
:p

Everything listed there is something heavily wanted. Bring it! :)

Thats why /me http://i.scribd.com/profiles/images/...yh9qr-tiny.jpg's vBulletin. We've been waiting for this.

i just hope this doesn't compromise the updates and mods for vb 3.8.

don't worry it will... They will be changing how everything works on a technical level. All the mods will have to be overhauled to work with 4.0 I'm guessing. But from what i can see it will be a much better dev environment. MVC and all :)

I can't wait till vb4 is out...

I hope it is a revolution towards a better forum. Not to say 3.7 wasnt good but its time vbulletin racked in more customers with a CMS coming for this new version and SEO aswell you cn bet that vbSEo will be out of the market once everyone moves towards 4. Also with this new host of features 4 will be just what we`ve been waiting for hope they move away from the community bit and work on great software all around.

i dunno if it will destroy vbseo... A lot of SEO is "guess work", so all VBSEO has to do is make up a bunch of additional methods. lol. I know a few "SEO Consultants".

I see in any case it wont for those members who dont own there software but I plan to make the change to 4 when its up and ready to bad it will be a beta. I hope there CMS isnt crappy like vbportal or vba cmpsor the vbcms already out.

What exactly is SEO or VBSEO, i've been reading the discussions on vbulletin.com and there's so much talk about vbSEO

Interestingly enough, it helps forums to be more searchable/search engine friendly. Why not google the name and see what pops up? ;)

I'll be very interested in seeing the CMS features/model. Wonder if pricing on it will be similar to the blog and project tools.

Sign me up for a pre release Beta test!!! :D

I can't wait for this new version of vB. What does the Q2 stand for? its located in front of the 2009 lol.

Yes Im dumb

2nd Quarter, so April-June

Well, so much for "vB developing a CMS will mean the end of support/development/quality cause they don't have time to do all that extra stuff".

Thanks for explaining that to me swampfox.

I'd be surprised to see it before August...Jelsoft is notorious for underestimating timeframes.

I have read the whole announcement discussion at ground zero and it doesn't look pretty.

awesome stuff

We love your dedication and strive for excellence, and grew to trust build upon it.

Keep your great job and count me as an early-stage tester.

I can understand that people on vb.com can miss the most important factor regarding the announcement but it si really interesting to see that noone even at vb.org cares about this.

vBulletin 4.0 will not be a rewrite of the whole system. It has just some improvements but the core will not be updated. Most important factor for me is not complete. I am highly dissapointed with the annoucement.

If I think Lizard King is refering to this post... :confused: Link: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showp...&postcount=125

That isn't what the announcement says at all. The core of vBulletin 4.0 will be rewritten but it will be refactored in steps instead of in one interation. What will be released in the Spring will have several core pieces of the backend refactored. Much of the backend is already in an an object oriented approach.

The plus side of this is that Addon Authors can progress their products at the same time and more of the current addons will continue to work after the release. Though its doubtful any style modifications or styles will continue to work.

We will go for the new 4.0 to our new website launch in Q2 2009, hopefully there won?t be that much bugs by then as you guys think that it will be :)

We hold our finger crossed for a better application in order to what we have seen in the VBseo addon.

sounds like alot of good changes..... i really do hope multiple forums sharing a single userbase is finally supported natively. i still have yet to find something that works well enough for me to use.

very excited to see a cms coming though.... the front ends have always lacked imo.

Thanks you for new version

see, i knew it.. they wait until my license is at end before releasing it.. i will have to renew if i want to see 4.0beta

Visuals are arguably an equal or perhaps greater component to the popularity of vBulletin than mods. I hope us style producers get some consideration and advance help in this arena and not thrown under the bus, so to speak...we have long memories ;)

Arguably, with a semantic layout, you would have more control and an easier way of applying style to a vBulletin page than you do now.

So I can't use my current style anymore in 4.0? Was also wondering, if I am using vbadvanced, will those modules also be available within the new CMS?

I am glad they are only targeting you nexialys. ;)

*goes to pay for renewal fee* :)