XenForo to vBulletin4

[8thos]

My forums are pretty much dead. After switching over to xenforo all people cared about was 'Where's the casino?' 'You need a mobile app, not feeling the mobile style' and 'Bring back live topics'. Some people got upset and left. They never could adjust to the new software no matter how much I helped. I cannot afford to pay for the development of all the addons that they missed from vBulletin 4. So I would either have to switch back over to vBulletin or learn how to code stuff myself.

After re-accessing my situation I looked at the pros and cons of both softwares. What led me away from vBulletin 4 in the first place was the CMS. I turned to Wordpress for help. Adding Wordpress into the equation added more complex issues, so complex that I started looking at Joomla and Drupal. At the end of the search I found Jaxel's XenPorta addon for XenForo to be an excellent solution. Because my site started out as a copyright tutorial site, his XenCarta was also very attractive free resource because I really needed a Wiki. Those two addons and the fact that xenforo has facebook-like features that are included in the core product made me jump ship to XenForo.

I was really happy with XenForo and had even begun learning how to create my own addons for the software and had added so many resources such as styles and template modifications that I became the most active. Unfortunately, the honeymoon is over. One of the things I missed from vBulletin 4 was the CKEditor and the fact that I can't use as many styles on my site as I wan to. Another major thing is that whenever I install or uninstall a style or addon it breaks the entire website and the site goes blank. I've lost members cause of that. They don't want to sign on anymore because their scared the site will go down.

vB4's Blogs is way more powerful and SEO-friendly than both the free, paid and upcoming blogging systems for xenForo. Almost everything I need on my site right now is over here. I can't afford to pay for modification development for everything that needs to be made though. A coder quoted me $1500 to develop a casino addon for xenforo. It costs way more than that to get your own customized mobile app for xenforo. A simple mobile style is not enough. My members are practically on my ass about a mobile app. It's annoying as hell.

I am not switching my first formerly vBulletin 4 forum, now xenforo, back over to xenForo because that's a waste of time, energy and money. There is no xenforo to vBulletin 4 convertor but there is an IPB to Xenforo convertor that you can then use to convert your IPB forum over to vBulletin. Also, my SEO actually rose higher when I was with xenForo compared to all the crap I had to do with vB4 to get to that rank. Luckily though, my other xenforo forum is even way more dead than my first forum. I have used that xenforo license to help another xenforo developer out on his own site and applied my vBulletin 4 license to my formerly xenforo forum. Now I can start on vBulletin 4 brand new.

The number one lesson I learned from this experience mainly involves vBCMS.

vBCMS may have a crappy UI and confusing back-end but it's worth it compared to wasting time and money on Wordpress. Do everything within your power to get it to work for you. Make sure your vBCMS is fixed width because it looks absolutely frigging horrible as a fluid style. I have never seen a fluid width vBulletin 4 CMS or even a xenforo xenporta portal that looked good. It just doesn't look right. That's part of why people go to Wordpress. At least most Wordpress themes are fixed width by default. vBCMS should have some kind of switch that makes it fixed width by default instead of noob webmasters having to figure out how to make fixed width styles.

Now that I'm creating another vB4 forum I'm really curious as to what I've missed out on in the past 8 months. The first thing I'm going to do is look for the vB4 equivalent of the TMS (Template Modification System) on xenForo. One thing I absolutely hated beyond all things vB4-related is having to revert templates after an upgrade. The TMS system mostly prevents webmasters from having to do that. It's awesome. I wish vB.org resource manager didn't have anonymous ratings. That's the best thing about Xenforo.com cause if I get a negative rating there they at least tell me why and I know who it is. Any of the future resources I make for vBulletin.org will only be at Qapla.com because of that.

And that's all I gotta say really. I will officially be using both forum softwares now. I'm not biased toward either one. It is what it is. If it can do what I need it to do I don't care who makes it.

BTW ya'll please don't get too offended by this thread. It sorta makes no sense because I did claim my SEO rose compared to when I was on xenForo. Even so, my forum member activity sank due to all the site blanking out problems and missing features from the old forum. Man it's weird as hell when you gain one thing but lose another. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. smh

--------------- Added [DATE]1337405776[/DATE] at [TIME]1337405776[/TIME] ---------------

Oh wow. Looks like I picked a good time to come back.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by Octavius.

There is no xenforo to vBulletin 4 convertor but there is an IPB to Xenforo convertor that you can then use to convert your IPB forum over to vBulletin.

Welcome back from the dark side

You might want to look at ImpEx Module: Xenforo.

[ragtek]

Now that I'm creating another vB4 forum I'm really curious as to what I've missed out on in the past 8 months. The first thing I'm going to do is look for the vB4 equivalent of the TMS (Template Modification System) on xenForo. One thing I absolutely hated beyond all things vB4-related is having to revert templates after an upgrade. The TMS system mostly prevents webmasters from having to do that. It's awesome.

good luck!:P

And yeea, TMS is a must have

I was really happy with XenForo and had even begun learning how to create my own addons for the software and had added so many resources such as styles and template modifications that I became the most active. Unfortunately, the honeymoon is over. One of the things I missed from vBulletin 4 was the CKEditor and the fact that I can create and have as many styles on my site as I wanted to. Another major thing is that whenever I install or uninstall a style or addon it breaks the entire website and the site goes blank. I've lost members cause of that. They don't want to sign on anymore because their scared the site will go down.

The cache rebuild is a big problem, but it was IMO your fault:P
You shouldn't install/deinstall styles & plugins daily:P
That's why you should have at least 1 test board to test them and then after testing make a list of all the add-ons / styles you want to install, make a announcement that you'll close the forum for some maintenance work at midnight(or whenever your site have not many online users and you have time..)

[8thos]

Originally Posted by Andreas

Welcome back from the dark side

You might want to look at ImpEx Module: Xenforo.

*jaw drops*

Thank you so much!! Now I don't have to start that new forum from scratch. I was not looking forward to that at all.

I am seeing that it just now released yesterday. This is almost supernatural timing.

--------------- Added [DATE]1337421055[/DATE] at [TIME]1337421055[/TIME] ---------------

Originally Posted by ragtek

good luck!:P

And yeea, TMS is a must have


The cache rebuild is a big problem, but it was IMO your fault:P
You shouldn't install/deinstall styles & plugins daily:P
That's why you should have at least 1 test board to test them and then after testing make a list of all the add-ons / styles you want to install, make a announcement that you'll close the forum for some maintenance work at midnight(or whenever your site have not many online users and you have time..)

Yeah it's definitely my fault. I can accept responsibility for that but hey I was a noob still am sorta a noob. I didn't know wtf CSS, HTML and PHP was two years ago.

I used to work constantly on my live vB4 forum always creating styles. I could do this stuff because whenever you create a style in vB4 you can don't have to worry about the site blanking out. So it became like a habit. That's why I was never interested installing a local installation because anytime I wanted to experiment, I could play around in a style that member's couldn't access.

I have installed local installations though because my members got so upset that I had no choice. Since then I've learned server stuff I never knew about and my limited technical knowledge has increased. That's how I was able to release those styles on vB.org cause I was playing around with a local installation.

I thought there was a TMS type system for vBulletin? I read about that somewhere before. I'll investigate later and let you know. I think it's German.

[ragtek]

<a href="https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=152931" target="_blank">https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=152931</a>

[8thos]

Originally Posted by ragtek

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=152931

Thanks a lot ragtek!!!

Hey can you please take another look at the enhanced pages route prefix fix addon for me pleeeasee I'll donate!! I don't want to have to uninstall this awesome mod to get this working cause those page comments are very convenient. I mean if you can't, that's fine I'll just uninstall it and use Disqus.

[ragtek]

Originally Posted by Octavius.

Thanks a lot ragtek!!!

Hey can you please take another look at the enhanced pages route prefix fix addon for me pleeeasee I'll donate!! I don't want to have to uninstall this awesome mod to get this working cause those page comments are very convenient. I mean if you can't, that's fine I'll just uninstall it and use Disqus.

offtopic
see my conversation

[BirdOPrey5]

I think you're really going to like VB 4.2.

[Sage Knight]

Better late than never. I always wanted to give xF a shot but with a new community, I know for sure my members would complain from the smallest feature to the largest being missing or replaced. xF still has a long way to go and IMO it still needs more 3rd party plugin support. I do think it's something to consider when starting a new community from scratch.

Good luck and thank-you for sharing your experience with us in great detail rather than what people normally do; moan non-stop without any reason or understanding be it about vB or xF.

[soniceffect]

Having just recently moved my site back to vbulletin I gotta say Im quite impressed with the speed and stability of it to be honest. Especially in comparison to how it was when I left as version 4 was released.

xenforo is great, but not enough there. And on top of that the company itself has made me feel uncomfortable about staying on their software, which is a great shame.

There are still a few rough edges on VB4. Things not quite in the right places for my liking, CMS still not quite there. However it is clearly moving forward as apposed to standing still which is what I once saw it as doing. CMS Im sure will come with time, and the other areas are nothing a few tweaks here and there from yourself cannot sort with either modifications or manual playing around on the skins.

I actually got my forum back here the long way by converting to IPB and then over to VB from there. Was gutted when I saw the converter the other day LOL