Emperor's New Clothes?
 

I'm not sure what to make of my own post here, but here goes.

I'm currently running 3.0.10. It's quite heavily modified, though not as heavily as some, and although I've got quite good at implementing and changing modifications, I'm still rubbish by overall standards - it's a struggle for me to do anything and involves lots of trial and error.

Now, I'm faced with upgrading to 3.5, and I cannot see how this is going to benefit me.

Many of the hacks I use have not been converted, or cannot be converted, and I am often told "that's just how vBulletin is now".

Hacks that HAVE been ported are almost impossible to customise further due to the new XML system.

A stock 3.5 offers just short of fat zero in benefits to members compared to a stock 3.0. It looks identical, and the only discernible difference is the AJAX on quick reply - my members would not even notice that.

There's some other 'features', like cookies not persisting by default, bold highlighting of unread threads working in a confusing way, today's posts not showing stuff you've already read.....

Then on top of that, a large proportion of hacks from 3.0 are "not practical" on 3.5!

I therefore ask....not in a nasty way....whatever is the point of 3.5, other than to give admins a few snazzy toys to play with?

As an admin of 3.0, I am faced with telling my members that we are upgrading the board but will end up with fewer features.

Although I *am* working on the upgrade on a test board, I am starting to come to the conclusion that I'd be better off waiting for 4.0, in whatever year that comes, which would at least have significant feature and layout changes to make it worthwhile.

At the moment, I could remove the version number from the copyright notice and a lay person would not have any idea whether I was on 3.0 or 3.5. There just seems to be absolute zero point in it, yet everyone raves about how wonderful it is for the end user.

Hence the title of my thread, 'the emperor's new clothes'. Can nobody else see that,m for a modified board, an upgrade is masses and masses of work for pretty much zero benefit?

Even this site has not upgraded, and that can't be a coincidence. Many busy boards I know that have upgraded spend half their time apologising for the fact that stuff they had before no longer works. vBarticles being a case in point, though personally I don't use that myself.

(Please don't think I'm knocking Jelsoft here - vBulletin is fantastic and always will be!)

am going down that exact same path, am stuck at the moment on 3.0.3 simply because i was waiting for 3.5,

like you have a fairly heavily modded board and any upgrade is hard work

also like you would lose a lot under 3.5

have to make a decision, i think it will be to continue with 3,

I too was once stuck at 3.0.3 and couldn't even get the upgrades within that series done, though I have now got it sussed using Beyond Compare.

The only thing is though, given that Beyond Compare spots all the file changes and reverts them back, unless I manually tell it to ignore changes that are the result of the upgrade, I effectively upgrade in name only...I get a new version number but the files are laregly unchanged.

It's all a bit of a pain. I am currently on 3.0.10 but I would be amazed if I didn't have chunks of code from earlier versions floating around. So many of my templates are customised as well...nightmare.

The best thing I find when upgrading is to look at the manual patch and make sure that that change is kept.

If I could go back in time, I'd not hack the board at all, but you live and learn.

As for 3.5 - well I'm still undecided, but I cannot see the point myself.

but out of the box - with respect to a good system - the front end is - well crap, had a look at your board and whilst not my taste i can see all the work there and it looks good

my problem was that i was learning as i built and some hacks just happened with no thought about how i did it,

next time i will be a lot wiser and keep notes and docs, but we live and learn, have tried 'beyond compare' and as you say it is not perfect

but need to do something as 3.0.3 is too old for comfort security wise,

this is my place

http://www.diplocks.co.uk/witterings/index.php?

That's how I was with hacks...learning as I went. I have a test board on 3.5, and am making progress, but now even that is out of date as it's 3.5.1, it's turning into a never ending spiral of upgrades and site building that I don't really have the time or the skill to do.

As for your site, I'd get yourself up to 3.0.11 as soon as you can...although it's a pain, it's not anywhere as bad as going to 3.5.....judicial use of Beyond Compare will preserve the vast majority of your hacks, do it on a test board first and you should find *most* stuff will still work.....the bits that don't you can usually mess about with the code, mnually comparing the old and new files, and just about get it working.

Templates are a little trickier, though you can use Beyond Compare on those too, in theory, bit of copying and pasting needed though.

My vb3.03 had about 70-90 hacks.

100's of file template edits.
1 style / skin

- I do not have paying members to deal with so it was easy.
- add gas and light it on fire.

It would take me 2 weeks to a month per update. Most of the time I thought "whats the point" on many hacks and they did not transfer.

My last update w/ 30 - 40 hacks vb3.5x
- 10 min w/o loss.
- 7 template edits
- 4 file edits

Template compare tool (drool) is a "god send"
plugin / hooks (low file / template edits) is a "god send"
XML installer files are easy as pie to DEV on and change stuff before install.
Hack updates ? - run the new XML file 95% of the time.

I do not know your issues Mark, but it's like the diff of night and day to me.

I'd love to run the XML file on hack updates, but most of mine haven't been updated - quickquote and 'proper' smilies in QR box (as opposed to a dropdown box) being prime examples.

My main issue is this - what benefits have your members seen from your upgrade.....because I cannot see any benefits, all I can see is people trying to justify loss of features after upgrading, that's no good to me. If I upgrade something it's to make it better, not worse. vB3 was a significant improvement, feature wise, over vB2. vB3.5 offers fat zero in end user improvements over 3.0.

Those features will hopefully be recreated soon. So far I've restored all my hacks except for two, vBstore and Dorms, and both of them are being made (at least, I think).

Upgrading really does save a lot of energy when it comes to modding. 3.5 also has some sweet mods like the userpage one that I don't think are out for 3.0.

I suppose I will *eventually* upgrade, but it won't be for a long time yet. We've got both current releases of the arcade being quite full of bugs, no disrespect to the authors who are doing a great job but as things stand they are way off being ready for use on a production board. But that's by-the-by really, the main issue is all the effort needed to upgrade for absolutely zero purpose - IE, end users get no discernible benefits whatsoever.

From my perspective, the sooner 3.5 gets forgotten about and attention turns (hopefully) to developing a 4.0, the better. At least then there will be some point to upgrading, as there was when 2.3 became 3.0.

Another significant change I have noticed is in hack support....previously, if someone suggested adding something to a hack, either the author or someone else would generally try to do it, or at least explain why it isn't possible. These days, if you do that with 3.5 hacks, you tend to get a curt "I don't need that feature so forget it". Which is fair enough I suppose, but it does represent a sea-change in attitudes, which is a mite disturbing.

If I thought I could get away with it, I'd upgrade, add ONLY the arcades, and then everything else would be tough. But I'd wreck my board overnight doing that.