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)

[afterglow]

Originally Posted by VBDev

You made a mistake by modifying the navbar template

Paste your template here please

I can't find the templates inside style manager. The default templates have gone missing. So where do i look for the template now? Please i need help.

And oh, btw. i want to use the template i bought from vbulletin styles, how do i go about changing templates?

Another question though, how do i go about increasing the width of the portal to about 900 and still maintain the width of the forum?


Again many thanks for this nice hack.

Afterglow

[VBDev]

@BryanB85:
I think you have put absolute url in the images path for your style.
I mean for the buttons, misc etc... I am right ?

Originally Posted by afterglow

can't find the templates inside style manager. The default templates have gone missing. So where do i look for the template now? Please i need help.

They are in the subgroup vbdhome templates, near from the bottom of the template list

Originally Posted by afterglow

And oh, btw. i want to use the template i bought from vbulletin styles, how do i go about changing templates?

You'll have to change the vbdhome,vdhome_header,vbdhome_footer and maybe the vbdhome_framecontenubit (if your style use more than one image to make a category head, I mean where the names of your forum cats are).
But be careful to add $vbdhome_config[forum_chemin]/ before $vboptions[imagesfolder] in the modification you'll make

Originally Posted by afterglow

Another question though, how do i go about increasing the width of the portal to about 900 and still maintain the width of the forum?

You'll have to edit the VBDHOME template and replace the width of the first table

[apokphp]

Looks like this won't work for vbGold. Tried to install it, and it tells me to "go back" because it was created for RC, and I have a different version installed (Gold).

Any eta on this update?

[VBDev]

You have to change the value of the version in the xml language and templates.

However, now that gold is out, we will open our support forum in few days and then continue the development of vbdhome and a new version fully compatible with the gold will be released

[dieKetzer]

first off, i gotta say this is a great hack!
second, for those of you that cant get the full news text to show up on the front page... run your maintenance scripts! once you do all your vb2 news will show up on the front page.
third, i have never asked an american to translate his vars into german. stop acting like twats.
fourth, i like the fact that this portal hack isn't bloated. i don't want nuke, i want a nimble portal!

[dieKetzer]

oh yeah, dont put an absolute path for the images (the gradients and whatnot). absolute paths wont cache, and images will download on every page refresh. use a relative path from the root instead (/forums/images/blah.gif). it achieves the same goal but it allows the images to cache, and on a busy board that makes a big impact!

[tpr]

From what you wrote down this seems very impressive,
however your site seem to be down and i'd like to see the product before installing it
can anyone post a site that uses this portal ? thanks

[VBDev]

Wait guys in one or two days our site will be up

[stan68]

i use it im still running vb3 rc4 until i can find the time to upgrade but u can see what it looks like.

http://www.gamepsycosis.com

[VBDev]

Our team has opened its support forum.

Now we will make support for vbdhome on our forum

So if you want better support on our hacks go on our forum: http://www.vbulletindev.net/

There are not a lot of hacks for the moment but it will come.

Cya soon on our forum