A Portal, a Portal, my kingdom for a Portal...

[kyzen]

Hey guys, I'm not just posting because I'm lazy like most of the people that post in this section! With the " I'm oh so pathetic, I can't figure it out, can you spoon feed me" You know who you are!!!

Anyways, portals! Free or Not, don't care at this point in time

What do you guys use, and what do you recommend. I not looking to start the vbindex vs vbadvanced spam war, because they're both crap Only joking Brian

I really like vbadvanced, and have had it installed for quite some time on a test site, and pretty much know it back to front. I'm really looking for a REAL CMS though, where I can post multipage new posts/product revies, comes with a nice photo gallery, and all the other little things that I thing should be included. I'm not trying to put the authors down, I'm just wondering what other people think, and what they have found and used. I'm not against using a few mods for a portal, as long as the fit nicely, just want it more like... shall I say it... php nuke. Easier to edit blocks/news/everything, but without all the... crap

Cheers Guys

[afterglow]

how about checking Mkportal and see if it has the features you want. this one is also FREE.

one live example of a site using this script is CPFools

i also like this portal and i'm currently testing it at My Test Site.

i won't say this is the best. it would depend on what kind of features you want. this one's i found to have a complete feature. gallery, shoutbox, blog system, toplist, chat and many more. it won't hurt checking this out.

regards,
afterglow

[kyzen]

Ahh, one of those multi forum portal/cms's! Looks VERY promising, quick quesion though, do you need 2 account? One for the main page and one for the forum? That's the main thing I notice about these multiforum cms's, they never seem to get the intergration 100%

[Zachery]

Originally Posted by kyzen

Ahh, one of those multi forum portal/cms's! Looks VERY promising, quick quesion though, do you need 2 account? One for the main page and one for the forum? That's the main thing I notice about these multiforum cms's, they never seem to get the intergration 100%

Depending on what you are looking for there are quite a few portals avaible for vB.

Specificly you can find quite a few in the Portal Software Category for vBulletin 3.

But the bigger ones that are released here boil down to

vBadvanced CMPS
vBindex
vBadvanced Homepage (ligther version in some ways of CMPS)

[kyzen]

Originally Posted by kyzen

I not looking to start the vbindex vs vbadvanced spam war

Yeah man I did look there first, I'm already running vBa on one of my sites. I've found a mod that allows you to add pages easier, as vBa is a pain when you want to add pages, having to make templates and the like, there is no intuative management system for content creation. Probably cause it is just a portal, not a realy cms. I've found a mod that allows you to add pages easier HERE, I suppose all I really need now is a simple gallery mod for images.

Cheers for ya help

[afterglow]

Originally Posted by kyzen

Ahh, one of those multi forum portal/cms's! Looks VERY promising, quick quesion though, do you need 2 account? One for the main page and one for the forum? That's the main thing I notice about these multiforum cms's, they never seem to get the intergration 100%

nope, it's using the vb user db and you don't have to modify any core vbulletin files. when you login to your mkportal, u r automatically logged on to your forum. and creating a block and modules with mkportal is easy. everything is manageable right from the portal admin panel. u don't have to go to vb style manager and create template everytime u want to create a block or module. that's one reason why i chose mkportal over vbadvanced. besides there's already a built-in gallery integrated to it plus a shoutbox, chat and blog system. it's worth checking and instaling and see if this is the one that best suits your needs.

i'll recommend this highly than all the portals mentioned by zachery. i tried them all including vbportal, vbadvanced and vbindex but they all have a very limited features or modules in their basic install. i'll favor vbindex though over vbadvanced for integrating shoutbox to its portal. vbadvanced on the other hand has only a few modules and it has issues with its templating system. it also screwed my templates and sometimes stretched my right block making my front page looked horrible. it took awhile for vbstyles support people to fix my template for use of vbadvanced. i used the same vbstyles templates for mkportal and they all displayed fine so i assumed there's something wrong with vbadvanced's approach to skinning.

so in short, what i can say is mkportal already has the most complete set of well-sought after modules and you don't have to mess with the codes adding all the extra features that many people wants like the gallery, shoutbox, chat or blog...everything is already there....just add your content and you'll have a nice portal. and i'm speaking this from a non-programmer's point of view and based from my experience with installing various portals.

regards,
afterglow

[kyzen]

Your 2 cents are very well received! Thanks you for your thoughts, I I'll install them on a test server, I agree, it's a very complete system. The only reason I was looking for a pure vb based one is that it's much easier to skin if they are all the blocks/sections are referring to the same css section in the style manager, mkportal may do this, but from the looks of it doesn't. You only have to do it once though, so I suppose it's not THAT bad!

Cheers Again!

[eva01_]

i would if i were you go with a custom portal if you don't want all the bells and whistles that go with the ones out there now. it is what i am doing currently and i couldn't be happier with it.

[Zachery]

Originally Posted by afterglow

nope, it's using the vb user db and you don't have to modify any core vbulletin files. when you login to your mkportal, u r automatically logged on to your forum. and creating a block and modules with mkportal is easy. everything is manageable right from the portal admin panel. u don't have to go to vb style manager and create template everytime u want to create a block or module. that's one reason why i chose mkportal over vbadvanced. besides there's already a built-in gallery integrated to it plus a shoutbox, chat and blog system. it's worth checking and instaling and see if this is the one that best suits your needs.

i'll recommend this highly than all the portals mentioned by zachery. i tried them all including vbportal, vbadvanced and vbindex but they all have a very limited features or modules in their basic install. i'll favor vbindex though over vbadvanced for integrating shoutbox to its portal. vbadvanced on the other hand has only a few modules and it has issues with its templating system. it also screwed my templates and sometimes stretched my right block making my front page looked horrible. it took awhile for vbstyles support people to fix my template for use of vbadvanced. i used the same vbstyles templates for mkportal and they all displayed fine so i assumed there's something wrong with vbadvanced's approach to skinning.

so in short, what i can say is mkportal already has the most complete set of well-sought after modules and you don't have to mess with the codes adding all the extra features that many people wants like the gallery, shoutbox, chat or blog...everything is already there....just add your content and you'll have a nice portal. and i'm speaking this from a non-programmer's point of view and based from my experience with installing various portals.

regards,
afterglow

Screwed your templates?

I find that very hard to believe and considering the number of people who have installed the software you must be alone.

You could just take the higher road and not put down any of the other portals you know

[KW802]

Originally Posted by Zachery

Screwed your templates?

I find that very hard to believe and considering the number of people who have installed the software you must be alone.

I think it was just a case of needing to have the image paths qualified. It would seem that infamiliarity with HTML & vBulletin leads to people to believe that it must be a software problem instead of a user problem.

kyzen, going back to the original topic.... if you need an integrated solution that out-of-the-box has several different modules then perhaps vbPortal or mkPortal are your better choices. Portals such as vBadvanced CMPS and vBIndex leave it more open-ended in regards to what modules the user adds post-installation as opposed to taking the 'trying-to-put-everything-but-the-kitchen-sink-in-there' approach. Yes, a portal like mkPortal might have a "gallery" in it but functionality wise it's about on par with some of the hacks released here and is no where close to the functionality of either PhotoPost or vBa Gallery. The same with a links directory; vbPortal includes a links directory out-of-the-box but, again, the functionality is not the same as what you'd get with a dedicated links product like vBa Links.

It really comes down to conveniences versus functionality. For some people a portal that tries to be many things may be a better solution since from an admin perspective it's one package to manage but for other people the functionality & flexibility of going with dedicated packages (eg: Photopost, vBa Gallery, vBa Links, etcetra) and using a lighter portal (eg: vBa CMPS, vBIndex) with modules that talk to the dedicated products is the preferred solution.