Which Version of VBulletin to Use?

[jchen09]

Hey guys,

I'm just doing some more research about this forum software, and I'm curious, which version of VBulletin should I use? I see active forums for 3.6/3.7/3.8 and I'm not sure which one is better. Wouldn't the latest one be the most popular because it would have all of the bug fixes?

Thanks

[Bawtneez]

You should always download the latest stable release for new features, updates, error and bug fixes. In this case it would be 3.8.1

[jchen09]

But why do so many forums online keep their version to 3.6.x? Is there any advantage? It's just so curious to see many separate subforums for the different versions.

[Lynne]

Some admins have a lot of custom modifications and just haven't gotten around to upgrading. I only finally upgraded my 3.6 board to 3.8 in January - I skipped over 3.7. I was just lazy and I also had some custom mods that I hadn't gotten around to testing until December. Also, the big change in 3.7 was the social networking stuff and a bunch of sites didn't need it so they weren't in a rush. But, 3.6 is not end-of-life and so admins are thinking about upgrading (which is a large part of the reason I finally pushed myself to upgrade my site).

[jchen09]

Yeah, I was looking in the mods section, and I'm not sure if certain mods in 3.6 were updated to 3.7/3.8, but I suppose I'll have to do more research. I was considering trying to play with VBCredits, but it seems like it's only for 3.6/3.7, and not for 3.8 which is the latest so.

Can you explain what certain things were added in terms of social networking? I don't know where I can find a changelog, so I can't see what are the differences =)

Thanks for all your help. I'm just trying to do all the research first before I create something.

[Lynne]

You can find the announcements for the different versions here - vBulletin Announcements Check the announcements for 3.7 and 3.8 to see the major changes since 3.6 (the inbetween versions are usually bug fixes, or security patches, not really added features).

Many mods for 3.6 or 3.7 will work for 3.8. Usually, if you read the pages in the modification thread since the last version upgrade (January is when 3.8 came out), you will see someone ask "does this work for 3.8?" and usually someone will answer.

[RedeemedWarrior]

Originally Posted by jchen09

Yeah, I was looking in the mods section, and I'm not sure if certain mods in 3.6 were updated to 3.7/3.8, but I suppose I'll have to do more research. I was considering trying to play with VBCredits, but it seems like it's only for 3.6/3.7, and not for 3.8 which is the latest so.

Can you explain what certain things were added in terms of social networking? I don't know where I can find a changelog, so I can't see what are the differences =)

Thanks for all your help. I'm just trying to do all the research first before I create something.

vbcredits works on 3.8 fine

Originally Posted by jchen09

But why do so many forums online keep their version to 3.6.x? Is there any advantage? It's just so curious to see many separate subforums for the different versions.

just for the fun of it, my image:

you buy a NEW Honda Civic, what will you do, buy the car of the year ?!... sure, you want the best one.

but HEY, you see in the street that people continue to use their old Civic... what's up?

for sure, the Civic is one of a popular car that can be customized a lot, like vBulletin ... but do you think every Civic owner will set themselves a new Civic each year just to have the latest version? a good part of these owners have customized their car so much that they do not look like a Civic anymore, and most of them are in love with their car, they just don't want them to be switched to a newer model... they like the smell, the colors, the scratch on the dash,...

but hey, you can see by yourself, just buy it, customize it as you wish, and see if you still like it that way in 6 months...

[jchen09]

Originally Posted by nexialys

just for the fun of it, my image:

you buy a NEW Honda Civic, what will you do, buy the car of the year ?!... sure, you want the best one.

but HEY, you see in the street that people continue to use their old Civic... what's up?

for sure, the Civic is one of a popular car that can be customized a lot, like vBulletin ... but do you think every Civic owner will set themselves a new Civic each year just to have the latest version? a good part of these owners have customized their car so much that they do not look like a Civic anymore, and most of them are in love with their car, they just don't want them to be switched to a newer model... they like the smell, the colors, the scratch on the dash,...

but hey, you can see by yourself, just buy it, customize it as you wish, and see if you still like it that way in 6 months...

But then again, it's free to upgrade between the different versions, and you'd be down 15,000-20,000 upgrading your car every year so it's a bit different =P. But I understand where you're coming from. I think what it's just going to be is a lot of playing around and customizing.

I think what started it was that I was trying to find a nice style/layout on the forums, but I was afraid that if I find a nice one for 3.8, that it wouldn't work with a mod that was created for 3.7. I mean, in the beginning, I'm just going to use a free template, but I think as time goes on, and hopefully "when" my forum becomes big, I'll be able to pay someone to design/custom code a layout. I'm not really a designer, I'm more of a coder, so anything I draw is composed of stick figures.

Thank you for all the help guys, it looks like there is a nice community here, hopefully something I'll be part of in the future.

[BigJohnny]

styles for the most part will work across different versions, except in cases where the style itself has a lot of custom stuff that is dependent on a certain version.

3.5 to 3.6 for example, there was some stuff added in the postbit if i recall correctly, using a 3.5 style, wouldnt fully work on 3.6 because it didnt have the added stuff.

you can compare updated templates for your styles when you upgrade vbulletin, and if need be manually add the changed code to the existing styles. this is what i did for my 3.7 - 3.8 upgrade.

Modifications for the most part will work across versions as well, at least until the author updates them or you fix whatever might be wrong, which could be something minor, or something huge depending on the mod.