Goodbye vBulletin

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by Tim Skellett

I read through all the cited articles and their own linked articles. I wasn't impressed at all by the arguments used against the vBulletin software.

A great, intellengent review of the article. Thanks for taking the time

[KTBleeding]

Originally Posted by 1Unreal

divs. Tables are not made for layouts. Where as divs are.

While "divs" have their place, they are definitely NOT a replacement for tables. You can't just throw a hundred divs in your page and call it good, that's just as messy as having nested table after nested table.

My answer to this question:

Originally Posted by smartkidbk5

what would they use other then tables?

HTML. But, SEMANTIC HTML. Don't replace every table with a div, that's terrible practice. Just use semantics. If it's a list, put it in a list.. Unordered, ordered, or definition. Also, tables definitely have their place on a forum. Displaying topics in a table is perfectly semantic, though I do tend to use a list since it IS listing out threads, after all.

As for finding a better forum solution than vBulletin.. That depends on what you feel is better. Personally, I feel that the features are ridiculous, and the template is just a joke. I've said it a million times before, but Jelsoft should have developed a semantic layout for version 3.0.. If they had, I may still be using vBulletin to this day. Instead, I attempted to make one over and over but got frustrated with the terrible template editor that comes with vBulletin. Something better? To me? I like Vanilla. It's simple, to the point, and has better markup out of the box. Then when I want to change the markup, it's just about as simple as theming wordpress. Oh, and it's FREE.. Can't beat free.

vBulletin isn't practical anymore. It's extremely dated and there are several options out there that aren't. Even programming wise. It would be really nice to have vB in an MVC structure. I hated having to update stupid templates because it was no longer compatible after an upgrade. Pffft.

[Wayne Luke]

Originally Posted by 1Unreal

vB is the best forum software by far. However why are they using tables as layout objects? Thats really old stuff. Also, <font> for example is a depreciated tag. Why is this being used?

Because when you support half a billion unique users on over 100,000 websites around the world and support browsers from the Netscape 4 and Internet Explorer 5 era, you can't just change these things. Yes, those are the design requirements for the vBulletin 3.X series. Stability and support are more important than creating a new design every year. However, you won't see these things as much in vBulletin 4.0 which will have a new design.

Drupal on the other hand prides itself on the fact that they do not provide backwards compatibility or stability between versions. This means that the code you developed in Drupal 5 will not work in Drupal 6 and will not work in Drupal 7. Their version scheme is a little different from ours. Generation wise, vBulletin 3.5 was the fourth generation of the software and could have easily been called vBulletin 4. 3.6 was the fifth generation of the software. vBulletin 3.7 and 3.8 comprise the sixth generation of the software. The vBulletin 4 series will be the 7th generation.

[vijayninel]

The reason we use vBulletin is the sheer number of features available to us. My forum wants those features because we use all those features. If we dd not want them then we would have considered something else.

This is not to say that vBulletin is suited for all. Different communities will have different needs. vBulletin suits us just fine only we want even more features not less.

[edytwinky]

Regardless of what has been said, I thoroughly enjoy vBulletin. The great thing for us is we have the power to choose. If we don't like what vBulletin has done we can easily switch over or just stick with 3.6-3.8.

Although I won't install 4.0 for a while even if it comes out soon, I still see myself checking vb.org everyday to see if there's any new updates on 4.0

[mikey1991]

Drupal = Not using.
vBulletin = Actively using.

Someone tell me which I'm gonna go root for, please.

[TheLastSuperman]

Originally Posted by mikey1991

Drupal = Not using.
vBulletin = Actively using.

Someone tell me which I'm gonna go root for, please.

vBulletin.. That's my Final Answer

Really now, let's be serious, if someone wants to do a complete comparison on the latest version of Drupal and vBulletin then I might read it but it's like that previous post I just read... except more like a Gremlin to a Ferarri and besides, all I EVER see is people who don't take the time to learn where stuff is, complain about the lot of it then think they know what is wrong with something based on their inexperience, that's just sad imo. It's like you saying MySpace sucks because you can't figure out how to pimp your profile or get some codes in there others have... Next I bet you top dollar someone will complain about Twitter being too simple so it has it's phases just like everything else with certain people at certain times is all.

My 2 cents and Mikey.. did I win the million??????

S-MAN

[KTBleeding]

I think you guys are missing the point. Is Drupal comparable to vBulletin? Not to me.. Drupal is a community CMS solution, vBulletin is a community forum. I think Drupal is FAR more powerful than vBulletin as far as creating community driven websites, but the forum definitely lacks compared to vB.

The point of the article is that vB is expensive, and very dated.. even FREE options can be more effective for some people. Let's face it, most vB users are drawn to the social networking features, right? Well, same with Drupal.. This is probably the reason why the two are compared in this article.

As for people complaining without taking the time.. Drupal is far more frustrating and time consuming if you really want to customize it. You could spend days on a module set up and then find something different that works better, you could spend days trying to find a module, and you can spend days in your template.php file if you're as picky as I am with source code.. I usually finally just give up being picky and settling with what I have when it comes to Drupal.

[cheat-master30]

Originally Posted by 1Unreal

vB is the best forum software by far. However why are they using tables as layout objects? Thats really old stuff. Also, <font> for example is a depreciated tag. Why is this being used?

Originally Posted by 1Unreal

divs. Tables are not made for layouts. Where as divs are.

Problem. vBulletin 3... published in early 2000s, maybe about 2001. vBulletin hasn't had a style update since then, when tables were basically the in thing. Comparing it to a piece of software that has had a style update since then seems a bit petty, seeing as most forum software has only switched to CSS recently, since full redesigns only happen for major versions.

A good forum (or CMS for that matter) is like software Lego, written in a modular way so that code is re-used and only required functionality is included in the site, meaning the code is quicker at generating pages. While vBulletin has added the ability to create add-on modules, the software is still based upon a monolithic code base instead of a sensible set of core functionality, an API to extend it, and set of optional modules.
Too many features generally leads to bloated code, a confusing interface, a large number of poorly implemented features instead of a few complete ones, and more bugs or security flaws. The Admin Control Panel is indicative of the too many features problem: it's messy, over-complicated, with far too many options lumped under vBulletin Options. Compare vBulletin admin interface to Drupal's administration interface:

Problem: vBulletin is dedicated forum software. Drupal is CMS software. CMS software has a wider array of features, but less for any one aspect, hence the forum with Drupal is pretty much horrible compared to vBulletin. vBulletin on the other hand has features for running a forum, which isn't the same thing. Confusing interface? Opinion. Bugs and security flaws? Sounds like the writer doesn't even know what they're talking about, vBulletin has always quickly fixed any security issues and as far as I know, the latest version doesn't have any major security flaws.

• Signatures
• User Profiles
• Avatars (and profile pictures)
• Private Messages
• Subscriptions
• Buddy/ignore Lists
• Post attachments
• Calendar
• Event Reminders
• Announcement
• Polls
• Send Email to users
• Infractions
• User Ranks
• User Reputations
• User Titles
• Paid Subscriptions
• Smilies
• BBCode
• Statistics
• Podcasts

Remove these from any forum, and I'm sorry, you've done a pretty pathetic job. Signatures, user profiles, avatars, private messages, polls, ranks, titles, smilies and BB code are essential for a forum nowadays. Heck, even old stuff like EZ Board has this stuff, Drupal forum, if it doesn't have it sounds frankly rather pathetic. Heck, the forum given on the site the article is on looks pretty much dead to me, and I honestly can't wonder why.

The code of any vBulletin page is weighed down by a circa 1990s layout; tables nestle inside other tables, whilst in-line JavaScript peeks from behind drop-down menus. The HTML that comes from vBulletin is bloated, difficult to comprehend and overdue a complete overhaul. This can be demonstrated by comparing the same forum thread in both Drupal and vBulletin, three are compared to ensure the result is not a fluke:

It's getting an overhaul. It's called vBulletin 4.

• Licensing
  
  This is a personal reason for wanting to move The Webmaster Forums to different software, Free software allows us to:

  Not worry about licensing;

  Have the freedom to change code in the software package, then give it back to the community;

  Have the freedom to change code in the software package and distribute as we wish;

  Not worry that the software is owned by a single company who could go bust, be bought-out by another company with no interest in developing the product, or a competitor who buys the company in order to kill it;

This is a personal preference, many forum owners are perturbed by such things.

So the writer is complaining vBulletin isn't free and open source, like oh so many people desperate to get it for nothing. Frankly, if you're concerned about the licensing, don't be. You don't need to be able to redistribute the software you're using for it to be good software, and the last point is rather pathetic, since quite honestly, vBulletin has been going for years, and looks like it'll keep going for many more years. There's no sign of a company not having interest in the developing the product. Besides, the future is the future.

vBulletin lacks optimization for search engines. As this is a heavily debated topic, that seems to have no clear answers, this article will only briefly note that vBulletin appears to have SEO problems. Certainly The Webmaster Forums does not seem to do as well from search results as it should do, it also appears that to be successful with search engines a site must use a third party plug-in named vBSEO. The success of this product indicates that there is an issue.
The Webmaster Forums will be tested on Drupal, if it is successful then there are changes to vBulletin that could make it easier for search engines to index sites using it.

SEO is not fancy rewritten URLs. vBSEO is probably great software, but seriously, this sounds mainly like 'my forum isn't ranking in Google so I'll blame the software I'm using'. Plus, vBulletin 4 will come with more built in SEO additions, or at least some stuff people have been begging for.

Suddenly, their switch to Drupal isn't seeming too good, at least with vBulletin 4 alleviating at least three of their major concerns. I guess their problem now they've switched to a piece of software that's meant for a different job than vBulletin and it's hurt their community.

[Paul M]

The last bit of the article says it all really ;

Liam McDermott is the technical bod at The Webmaster Forums. He also writes articles and loves dallying with Drupal. His business site is InterMedia.

He was a Drupal fan, simple as that.