vBportal v vBindex?
 

I was wondering if someone could tell me of the differences between these two hacks as I can't decide which to use.

Any comments on installation problems, compatability issues, bugs, feature comparison etc would be cool.

Hopefully I can get one installed tonight! :rambo:

vbPortal: A full portal system for publishing articles, news and events, take a look at http://www.phpportals.com for an example. Can be very slow and unless you use all the features not really worth it.

vBindex: A main page for your website which you can integrate any vBulletin feature into to, for a hacked up example see my site, and can be use to show polls, news and the latest threads on the home page.

I use vbHome Lite instead of vbIndex...but for some reason I had to get rid of the get latest threads code because it was making 119 queries :eek:

i love vbindex .. it was so easy to install and is so easy to customize... vbportal got me lost at the installation phaze... and i haven't tried vbhome...

but id reccomend vbindex ... easy to install and does everything u need a portal to do :D

You know, I think it's all about what your comfortable with. If you follow the instructions with vbPortal you will have no problems. I've probably installed it for people about 50 times and no problems.

I can see where it would be a little tricky, but the way it's layed out and they way it lets you add things so easily. I can't see where it could be beat.

Of course, I haven't used the others at al, so what do I know? :D

Josh

I think vBindex gets my vote then. Also I heard that if you install vBportal that you have to re apply all old hacks.

I installed it (with the links mod) and here it is: http://www.thrill-seekers.net/forums/home.php

Now how do I use it in http://www.thrill-seekers.net/index.php , leaving the forums index at http://www.thrill-seekers.net/forums/index.php

e.g. rename home.php to index.php and have in in my root directory, not the vb directory?

Also, I believe that this is v 1.2, how do I upgrade to 1.3?

For some reason many people here really dislike vBPortal, however, I love it.

Working example: http://www.federationstudios.net

vBPortal works for me too. :)

I've tried vB Portal (it was the reason I bought a vB) but I wasn't too satisfied with it. I like vB Home a lot though, and I think it is a lot like vBIndex, so my vote goes to vBIndex. :)

What really got me down on vBP is the instalation. They made it way harder than it should be. :/

just to clear some things. vbIndex was created with code from vbHome and phpPortals. every single vbIndex page i saw had at least 45queries, wich is extremly high for a busy site. the vbIndex author stated that his server with 108queries did pretty well. is up to you what to do. but one thing is sure. do not have more then 25-max30 queries on a webpage if you want to make your host happy and dont force him to cancel your account.

Ok, I have installed vbportal but it doesn't work!

http://www.thrill-seekers.net/index.php

Why does this happen?

My host runs the executable php module (apparently for security reasons) so U have to add the path to the top of all my php files which will be displayed. I have done this for the vbportal index.php and admin.php, but don't know which of the other files I need to modify. I wanted to get this problem sorted before I change all of them.

i dislike vBp because every site for the most part that uses it looks nearly the same, i perfer to build my site by hand then intergrate it into vB myself

I don't really think you'll find answers here on this.. Might try PHPPortals.com ..

Of course you could always switch to a host that doesn't run like this and you'll have no problems.

Josh

with vb index, can i have it at a level befor emy forum?

like now my forum is at /bbs/index.php

but i want my site to be at /index.php

Im afraid you have to pay for support on the phpportals site, and my host is cheap (for what you get) which is why im with them. Not like my site will be making me money to pay for this.

Hey Marsh =)
Looked over the config.php again, still no luck.

I think I'm going to try either vB Home or vB index if I can't get it to work sometime today

You are incorrent that you have to pay for support. You have to pay for priority support. The funny thing is, you know what the price is for support? $20 or $30 (can't remember), I think if you paid the money and received a lot less grief, then it's worth it.

Just my 2 cents.

Josh

Well, Josh, if all support posts are as useful as yours "Search the forums for your error"...then it isn't really support. I already had spent 4 hours searching phpportals.com and other places looking for help.

I'm done ranting. I agree. You have to pay for quality support.

I'd suggest giving vbportal a miss. It doesn't properly follow your vb themes (many font colours are hard coded, Times new roman shows up a bit too often, some table bg colours are reversed, etc).

JoshFink: What a coincidence. I too was using powweb as a host. I tried installing vbportal, but I got the weird code and duplicate page thing that you are getting. The ordeal was very frustrating. I switched to venturesonline.com as a host (if I were you I'd look into insiderhosting.com, that guy's a reseller and he's cheaper). I thought I'd heard of someone setting up vbportal successfully on powweb, so you might look into if you want. If I were you, I'd just switch hosts.

[edit to be fair to PowWeb:
I was just now informed that my problem coulda been solved by turning off output buffering in a php.ini file! Wish I woulda known that earlier--maybe I woulda stayed with PowWeb!]

Well, I fixed it. WHat I was doing was changing the variables when it just needed to include the original config.

You know, phpportals.com is no different than any other board, even this one. If you come in with an error message, the first thing you do is do a search on that error message and see what it pulls up. I've never onced said "Search the board" without actually doing the search to make sure it pulled up all the answers you need to complete the task. The problem is that most people want everything handed to them without doing the work.

You will find that there is a ton of information on the site but no one likes to keep repeating the same answers over and over.

Also, in my opinion if you feel that you have to pay for support, then the $30 is really not that much in the grand scheme of things. On a really good day you can even find people to install it and troubleshoot it for you. Somedays are busier than others but most of the time there is help.

Josh

I am currently using vbIndex and I am happy with it. But I was really waiting for vbHome Full to be released. Now, the vbHome threads are closed and no one talks about it anymore. I was just curious if anyone knew what happened to it.

Nakkid, the creator of vBhome has discontinued the support for it. As far as I know the code could get caught in a loop and create 100+ queries per page for some people.