Why so little attention towards CMS integration?
 

When I look at open source content management systems, many offer integration with phpBB and SMF, but vBulletin and Invision Power Board integration is almost nonexistent. Message boards on CMS portal sites are often filled with requests for vBulletin integration, with responses usually falling into three categories - "me too". "if you want it so bad, go code it yourself" and "out of principle, I won't code it, even though I could, because it's not open source"".

A common theme in many posts here and at vbulletin.com is content management system integration. There seems to be a huge demand for vBulletin/CMS integration, but there are so few projects out there; the excellent Drupal integration effort, a bridge for Joomla (which doesn't offer true integration), and that's about it.

"Check out vBportal/vBindex/vBadvanced." While I respect the effort that went into vBindex and vBadvanced, they aren't true content management systems. They serve mainly as portals or entrance pages to a forum-dominated site.

"Buy Subdreamer/Storyteller/Miraserver/Virtuanews/vgPortal/PhpCow/NePHP." Again, they're probably all good programs, but they have a limited userbase compared to the open source content management systems. Some of those programs are one-man projects, development is slow or stalled, and their future is uncertain. Except for vBulletin integration, they usually don't have the feature set or extensibility of most open source content management systems.

[nasal_voice]"Well, go code it yourself!"[/nasal_voice] The typical response from the Slashdot/ponytail-and-neckbeard types. Unfortunately, most of us aren't expert PHP programmers. The majority of us probably can't program, period. If we were, we probably would have coded our own message boards instead of paying for vBulletin.

"vBCMS is coming Real Soon Now."
So are flying cars, universal health care in the United States, the Second Street subway, discovery of the Oak Island treasure, Godot, the revitalization and gentrification of Detroit, and Duke Nukem Forever.

With the outcry of vBulletin users begging for a CMS, why are there so few CMS integration hack/mod projects? Is there even a demand for integration with open source content management systems?

I don't really want integration. I've love a dedicated vBulletin CMS, I'd be willing to pay a hundred bucks a year for it if it was up to standard. Nice analysis though, but I expect the main issue is time! People just don't have enough time.

Very good post Cyburbia. I have also wondered the same thing many times.. I currently have vbadvanced stuck up front as a placeholder waiting for a better solution to come our way :)

After using vbulletin for such a long time, I find some of the open source CMS systems simply lacking. vbulletin's features like the phrasing and templating systems for example are far supiorer to what most of them offer.

Integrating these features into an open source cms would take a lot of work and it would be easier to start on something new from scratch.

If they don't have enough time for CMS integration - something a lot of people are begging for -- they certainly seem to have enough time for arcades, shoutboxes, various stat displays and the like. I'm not saying arcades are bad, but it strikes me as odd that such projects are getting so much attention, even though you don't see them on many boards, while CMS integration is practically ignored among vBulletin hackers.

The longest thread in the vB3.5 Extensions subforums is for the Drupal integration hack, with 1,662 posts. It may be amnong the longest on the board. If that's not a sign of a demand for CMS integration, I don't know what is.

I also wonder why there's so many CMS integration projects for SMF and phpBB, but not vBulletin.

Real Soon Now, just like high speed trains in Florida, the withdrawl of US troops from Iraq, and cold fusion. Let's take off our vB fanboy hats, and admit that a Jelsoft CMS is probably never going to be released.

I have considered creating a CMS several times and then backed off because Jelsoft has been hinting for years that they are making one. I have no desire to spend hundreds of hours coding, refining features and such and then have Jelsoft come out with one.

So, blame Jelsoft for a lack of free CMS projects. If they weren't really serious about doing one, they shouldn't have started hinting more than 2 years ago that they were. When the CMS talk first started, they made it seem like it was coming out directly on the heels of 3.0. The buzz and the hype killed off any inclination on my part to take on such a massive undertaking.

You really don't need to integrate a CMS with vbulletin...
all you need is an imagination, good coding skills (PHP/MYSQL), creating a usable interface, and money (note: time is money).

What exactly are you looking for?
Drupal is a good CMS ... why not try that integration?
(I haven't tried the integration but I do agree that it is a popular thread.)

just curious..

I have not found a CMS that will suit my needs after years of looking around the net. When I do I will attempt to integrate it but until then I'm not looking into it. I've looked into more CMS systems then I can remember, most of them open source. There was always something in each one of these scripts that didn't sit right with me.

Some were so complicated it took me hours to understand how they worked, if I even got that far. Others were poorly coded, or had bugs I couldn't live with. The rest were overkill for my needs.

vbcmps works great but it needs an article module to make it a real cms.
The reason i say that is because u don't really manage any content with it u just use it as a frontend to vbulletin

A truly great cms will allow us to create modules that are totally integrated into the forum. Search will work across all the modules (quizzes, articles, blogs,etc.) Comments on content would have the same UI as the forum - but wouldn't necessarily be in the forum.

Ideally, we could have content in many different categories - not just one. An article on Linux networking could be found under Linux and Networking.

If we could just get cross-posting and modular search into vbulletin, I'm not sure we would even need a CMS. It would just be a matter of careful modification design.