Basic info
 

Hi all,

I wanted to use vbulletin on a new site. I have some knowledge of html, but not very much. I want to make sure I would be able to do this myself. I gather from answers to other questions that vbulletin can be used for the whole site, including the start/home page. What I can’t seem to grasp is how this all works. I’ve tried the demo and noticed in the template section sub headings and each of those had their own html.
Ok, questions.

1) Am I right in assuming if you want to work on the header, you chose header and change the html in that header section, if navbar, you change the html in the navbar section?

2) If the above is correct, how do you change the overall appearance? The layout? What area would you go to add a sidebar/column or move sections such as the navbar or header around? Will I be able to make these changes myself and is it also html based?

3) If I purchase this, I want to be able to play with it and test out everything before putting up the site/purchasing server space. In another answer, someone mentioned that you can load vbulletin and run it on your own system with Wampserver or similiar. Will this show an accurate preview (what you see, is what you get) or only when it’s uploaded?

Sorry it’s a lot, but I’m sure I’ll have more questions for everybody.

Thanks

1. Yes.

2. In the demo, you will see/have seen all the other templates as well, for example, "FORUMDISPLAY", that is the template for the layout of showing the threads of a forum. All vBulletin templates are HTML-based.

3. You are allowed to run a test installation on your server under the directory "testvb", which should be password protected to prevent unauthorised access.

Thanks Dismounted.

I might need to hit you up for a clarification of #3 when I actually try it.

if your testing it on your local install, that doesnt accept incoming connections then there isn't much to worry about, And yes when you test it out on your local box, everything you see is what you'll get when uploaded to the actual server.