VBulletin Programming 101?

[YannZeRookie]

Hello,

We've been using VB for the past 6 months, and although we are quite happy with the feature set, we find it very difficult to expand, because of the lack of documentation.

I mean, is there anything beyond the 3 following links?

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/blogs/joe-d/3932614-
http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/m...emplate_syntax
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/blogs...-luke/3929999-

Doing reverse engineering, reading thousands lines of PHP code, performing tedious trial-and-error and pattern-matching programming, we were able to do a few things, though. For example, we developed a TeamSpeak plug-in that allows our users to create a TeamSpeak account from their VBulletin account and connect to TeamSpeak by a single click on our VBulletin site. So we know how to make a "product", create a template and insert it in hooks, code some PHP to support the product, make some SQL queries, etc. So we know how to do a few things, but this is far from being enough.

For example, how do I know which variables I can use when coding (or modifying) a template? Where are these documented? Or which code can I read to find out?

I have the feeling to be on a beach in a dark night with only a flash light in my hand. Very frustrating.

Example: I'd like to add some buttons in the starter_threadview_text1 hook. The AdminCP hook dialog has a nice box in which I am told to enter the variables that I would like to pass to my template as parameters (like userinfo or page). Sounds cool, but which variables can I use for God's sake? How can my template get something as simple as the current page's url?

Maybe I just completely missed some page or documentation from the start, and I will feel stupid when someone points me to it? Honestly I hope so, because at this point, I am just wasting my mental health double-guessing how the whole thing works and what I am allowed to do with it.

Thanks in advance for any pointers,

Yann
Les Scorpions du D?sert