[Freesteyelz]

1. There are portals that are available with the login/PM and Users Online features you request. One of the more popular ones is vBadvanced. To give you an idea how it can be integrated you are welcome to visit my site bac-Community Forum. Click to "Home" and "Roster" to see it in action. I've customized it so that unlogged in users will only see the "Register" and "Search" links while logged in users will see standard links and my exclusive members will see custom links. Mine is only one example of many so ask around about different styles and setups (along with features which I did not use).

If not a portal system there are tutorials provided here which will give you step-by-step on creating custom pages that are fully integrated with vBulletin's protocol. Based on Usergroups or individual Users you can restrict or give access to certain sections of a page or the entire page itself. There are so many things that you can do with vB software.

2. There are several IRC chat mods here too. I believe vB.org is using one of them (though, it might be a custom IRC mod).

*One of the cool things about vB is that you rarely (if anything) need to touch the core PHP files. In fact, most users do not touch them at all. Mostly everything can be achieved in the Admin CP. While I didn't try it out before I purchased vB, you may be interested in the AdminDemo which will give you access to a testing board and Admin functions for 24 hours.

I hope the information helps. :classic: