vBdHome 2 RC 2

vBdHome 2 Release Candidate 2

[HIGH]Here is a demo of our portal : http://www.gamercrossfire.net/vbdindex.php?styleid=13
http://www.vbulletindev.net/
Note that all modules/blocs aren't activated[/HIGH]


A group of buddies, a common passion at your service. vBulletinDev is proud to introduce its new baby: the portal vBdHome.

With a number from 7 to 23 queries according to differents blocs and modules activated, vBdHome is a rather complete portal and its youth lets hope very good things for the future.

The installation is really easy and mostly automatic (templates, queries and language are added via an install script).

Small historic

• August 2003:
  
  All began during the summer's vacation. Since the release of VB3, only one thing lacked to the french forum we belonged (vBressources) : a portal.
  
  Like this, the project called vBrHome began. Bases were created by freestyler who made a first version (non released).
  This first version was only constituted of some features : announcements, menu for navigation, welcome bloc, Top poster ...
  
  Then, MtoR decides to continue the project.

• September 2003:
  After a big job for add new blocs (Last attachments, Ads, Texto Admin, etc...), first modules were created and a lot of Beta version of vBrHome went out.
  
  At the end of the month of september, the first public version was released. The major evolution was that all functions (blocs creation, blocs manager ...) used for our portal were grouped in a unique file.
  
  It's at this same period that Grog joined the vBrHome's team by creating a guestbook.

• October - January 2004: This period is the most important for our portal because all the architecture of our portal was changed to be improve.
  
  As the first version of vBrHome was really basic and with little possibilities of customization, MtoR worked hard to create a complete system to manage each bloc (position, name ...).
  
  During this period, Grog created a new admin file to use at best vBulletin's function and made a clean code, as in the rest of vBulletin's file.
  
  Freestyler made some visual modifications to improve the design of the portal.
  
  It's also during this period that our portal changed of name to become vBdHome, because vBressource's team decided to quit vBressources and create its own development site: http://www.vbulletindev.net.

• Januar 8,2004:
  The new version of vBdHome is released : Beta 1 with a lot of improvments, especially concerning the architecture which was totally modified. A new module to add HTML pages was created too.

• January - February:
  Well decided to continue the adventure and to create a really useful and complete version, Grog and MtoR made a lot of work to create a Beta2 totally new.
  
  MtoR worked on the creation of a newsletter and Grog on a glossary module, the links database was modified too to integrate new functionalities and a lot of blocs were created. Existing blocs were modified too to be improve. MtoR created a new installation file to use vBulletin's functions and templates and languages were put in XML files.
  
  As this Beta 2 was stable, we decided to improve it a little and to make the first Release Candidate Version to release it, especially for vbulletin.org.
  
  A new developper has joined us in January: Akex. He has focused is work on the news module's enhancing and the bug fixing.
  
  He has also worked with Nerilka (the administrator of vBulletinDev's team) on vBdHome's langage file translation.

This is only a small historic of our portal so that you could understand how and why it was created.

Differents blocs

• Texto [0 query]: With this bloc the administrator can add a message on the index of the portal (you can use bbcodes and smilies).

• Announcements [1 query]: last announcements of the forum are displayed in this bloc. The number of announcement to show is set in the admincp. Of course, forum's permissions are respected.

• Top 5 last attachments [2 queries]: Last forum's attachments are displayed in this bloc, you can open them by clicking on the name of the file. Permissions are respected too.

• Google [0 query]: Small bloc which you can search what you want on the famous search engine GOOGLE. Results are displayed in a new window.

• Calendar [0 query]: Basic calendar

• Statistics [1 query]: In this bloc, some informations are displayed such as the total amount of threads, posts, members, online users ... Note that an option is useable in the admincp to choose the number of online users to display. If you set it to 0, no usernames will be display.

• Top 10 last threads(links) [1 query]: Bloc which is displayed the Top X of lasts posts of the forum. Permissions are respected. You can choose the number of last posts to display.

• Top 10 poster [1 query]: Top X of best poster. You can configure the number of members to display.

• Birthday [0 query]: Usernames with their age are displayed in this bloc the day of their birthday.

• Navigation Bloc [1 query]: This bloc displayed a scrolling menu to go quickly to the choosen forum. You only have to change it to be redirected.

• Forums links [0 query]: In this bloc, forums links are displayed if you added some to your board.

• Ads [1 query]: This bloc displays ads you add in the admincp. Pictures opens website in a new window. You can set the number of ads to display in the admincp. If the numbers of in the database is superior to the number of ads to display, adds will be chosen randomly.

• Poll [1 query]: A poll is displayed randomly in this bloc. If the user already voted to this poll, he will see results, else he'll be able to vote. Permissions are respected too and unregistered users can't vote.

• Links (Module) [1 query]: Display in a bloc the last X links of the links database.

• Newsletter (Module) [0 query]: Bloc where users can register to receive newsletter you'll send via the admincp. Users can choose TXT or HTML format fot the newsletter.

• HTML Pages (Module) [1 query]: Display in a bloc a link to HTML pages you added to the portal.

• News (Module) [2-3 queries]: Bloc in which are displayed the last news of the portal/forum (you choose it).

• Main menu [0 query]: Links to differents modules are displayed in this bloc.

Modules

We decided to integrate some useful modules to our portal so that it was a useful portal. Here is a description of differents modules:

• Links database:
  • Categories and sub-categories
  • You can set a picture for each category
  • You can vote for links
  • Meter of visited links
  • Return of broken links
  • Send link to a friend
  • You can set in the admincp to moderate links or not
• Guestbook:
  
  • Each user/unregistered can post in the guestbook.
  • If the user is logged in, his avatar will be displayed, else there will be a default avatar.
  • informations to complete: City, note, website.
• Glossary:
  
  • Virtual dictionnary for your site.
  • You choose if you want users be able to add definitions and if you want to moderate them.
• HTML Pages:
  
  • You can add personal pages to the portal.
  • Powerfull WYSIWYG Interface.
  • Pages links are displayed in a special bloc in the portal.
• Newsletter:
  
  • Bloc where users can register to receive newsletter you'll send via the admincp. Users can choose TXT or HTML format fot the newsletter.
  • The administrator sends newsletter via the admincp.
  • Newsletter database viewable in the portal.
  • You can remove members from the newsletter list.
• News:
  
  • Choice between 2 systems:
    • Via the portal: With it, you add news in the portal (WYSIWYG interface), they are recorded in a table of vBdHome.
      You can set userid of users who can add news in the portal.
    • Via the forum: You set the forumid of forums where you want news to come from.
  • Last 5 news are displayed in the portal. You can choose the number of characters to display for news.
  • Powerful news database system where you can see all news, select which one you want to see, the number of news per page ...

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New version vBdHome 2 RC 2

Changes:

• Bugs correction
• Big changes in the links modules, now you can add as much subcat of subcat as you want
• New option in the admincp to set the forumsid of the polls' forum
• New option to set the forumsid that should be taken for the lastthread links block
• New version of the websearch block

Instructions for upgrade in the zip

To do (soon):

• Poseidon chatbox (coming soon) will be integrated in vBdHome
• Galery Module
• Download Module
• And more ...

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We think this is a good summary of our portal's functionalities.

Screenshots

Here are some vBdHome's screenshot.

The different blocks of the homepage:

http://www.vbulletindev.net/vbdhome/en/bloc1.gif

http://www.vbulletindev.net/vbdhome/en/blocs2.gif

http://www.vbulletindev.net/vbdhome/en/news_portal.gif

A preview of vBdHome's admin page:

http://www.vbulletindev.net/vbdhome/en/admin.jpg

We have limited the number of screenshots due to a problem of filesize. Sorry if you can't see all the functionnalities of vBdHome on those screenshots.
As soon as we will have enough money to buy a new licence we will open an online forum support for vBdHome where you'll be able to see it working

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No documentation is available for this version of vBdHome, we are waiting for release the Gold version because we prefer in a first time spend time to correct bugs.

No support site is available for now, it's in project but we need money to buy a licence.

We know everybody can't pay a licence for a portal, that's why vBdHome is totally free.

You can support us by donating with paypal:

http://www.vbulletindev.net/donate/index.html

so that we can continue the adventure and that we could buy a licence for a support forum.

You may not redistribute this hack !!!
If you want to translate it and then release the translation or if you want to provide modifications of this hack you must contact us first!
This hack is under vBulletindev.net Copyrigth 2004

The vBdHome developpement's team

NB: Many thanks to Pitchoune for his help during the final test stage and the spellchecking of the release's message.

The hack is provided in english and in french, the install of the differents languages and templates pack is fully automatic

vBdHome RC 1 : (249.2 KB, 304 views)

[Zelda-King]

Yes it seems so actually. I just tested it on a default vB style with no problems.

UPDATE: Everything seems perfect now.

[hypokondriak]

Is there no place to specify which forums not to show in the latest posts ? For example, when I used my-VBportal lite you could place forum id's in for any forums that shouldn't be displayed.

Also, can you not point it directly to a polls forum instead of the random? I found the option to point it to the news forum but not polls forum.

I love the portal - just seems like it is missing these two essential items?

Other things...

Is there anyway to include a "started by" column in the latest posts section in addition to the "Last Poster: column?

When linking to the "news" forum, it only shows avatar and link... but not the first few lines of the news. However, when I use the portal based news it shows the text (I set the variable to show first 100 char).

Any help with these questions will be appreciated.

[VBDev]

Originally Posted by hypokondriak

Is there no place to specify which forums not to show in the latest posts ? For example, when I used my-VBportal lite you could place forum id's in for any forums that shouldn't be displayed.

Actually there are no mean to avoid some forums to be hidden in the latest posts while this is only links
But It works with forum's permission so It only shows to members the link to the thread that they are allowed to see
However that's a good idea so I might add a field in the admincp, in the next version, where you could set the forums' id that shouldn't be used in the latest posts

Originally Posted by hypokondriak

Also, can you not point it directly to a polls forum instead of the random? I found the option to point it to the news forum but not polls forum.

You mean that we should add an option like in vbportal where you set the ids of the forums where you want the poll to be taken.

Originally Posted by hypokondriak

I love the portal - just seems like it is missing these two essential items?

There are not missing, we have just made the things in an other way but you're quite right so I'll change things a little bit for the RC2.

Originally Posted by hypokondriak

Other things...

Is there anyway to include a "started by" column in the latest posts section in addition to the "Last Poster: column?

No we can't do that while there would be too much columns and it may mess up with the design.
However we could add it as an option in the admin cp where you should choose whether the last poster or the started by column is shown.

Originally Posted by hypokondriak

When linking to the "news" forum, it only shows avatar and link... but not the first few lines of the news. However, when I use the portal based news it shows the text (I set the variable to show first 100 char).

I can't answer to that question while it's akex that has done the news' module.
As soon as I'll be back from Uni I'll tell him to come here to answer to your question

[Akex]

When linking to the "news" forum, it only shows avatar and link... but not the first few lines of the news. However, when I use the portal based news it shows the text (I set the variable to show first 100 char).

Can you post a screenshot ?

I think you should set the variable to show first 200-300 chars as the function used to cut counts also bbcode tags. I think I will change the method in the next version of vbdhome.

[maverick1236]

When linking to the "news" forum, it only shows avatar and link... but not the first few lines of the news. However, when I use the portal based news it shows the text (I set the variable to show first 100 char).

I think this is a bug..

when news is set to "forums" and any number besides 0 is used for max characters, text isnt shown at all.

[VBDev]

@Zelda-King : do you agree we post a link to your portal in our first post to show others users what it really looks like ? It could be cool

[hypokondriak]

Originally Posted by akex054

Can you post a screenshot ?

I think you should set the variable to show first 200-300 chars as the function used to cut counts also bbcode tags. I think I will change the method in the next version of vbdhome.

http://dev.digiapogee.com/central.jpg

As you can see, it doesn't show the first bit of preview text for any of the three news topics.

[hypokondriak]

Originally Posted by VBDev

Actually there are no mean to avoid some forums to be hidden in the latest posts while this is only links
But It works with forum's permission so It only shows to members the link to the thread that they are allowed to see
However that's a good idea so I might add a field in the admincp, in the next version, where you could set the forums' id that shouldn't be used in the latest posts

This is definitely a key feature that the forum I work on uses - if there is any way you can possibly add it we would greatly appreciate it.

You mean that we should add an option like in vbportal where you set the ids of the forums where you want the poll to be taken.

Yes - exactly! A lot of users make stupid polls so the admins would like the controll the front page poll via a specific poll forum where they can only post.

There are not missing, we have just made the things in an other way but you're quite right so I'll change things a little bit for the RC2.

Excellent -- thank you for the great work to this point. Definitely the best portal I have tried for VB3 and really want to stick with it.

No we can't do that while there would be too much columns and it may mess up with the design.
However we could add it as an option in the admin cp where you should choose whether the last poster or the started by column is shown.

Do you know the variable by chance? I am savy enough that I could probably just tweak this myself and save you the time for more important changes.


Thank You

[VBDev]

@hypokondriak :

How many char did you specified in the admincp ?

[hypokondriak]

Originally Posted by VBDev

@hypokondriak :

How many char did you specified in the admincp ?

In the VBD Admin CP section I have specified 1000 characters for the news. If you go to the following link you can see that it does display text correctly when using the portal news component:

http://www.centralillinoisimports.org/