Version 3.7 Rant

Ok, I'm ranting a little, getting on my soap box, whatever you want to call it.

I've been running vB since the 2.2 something days and getting ready for a major overhaul of the site. I know it needs it and has for a while, that's not exactly what this post is about.

These days if you buy a new computer off the shelf you have to spend a few hours deleting out all the "Software 30 day Trials" "Trial Versions" "Internet Service Options" and other completely useless stuff that takes up space and time.

vB seems to have taken the same tactic as HP, Dell, and every other computer manufacturer. 3.7 has a lot of unneeded, unwanted, and half assed options on it that the majority of us I feel like are going to end up removing, deleting, and replacing.

Most big boards are running some sort of ad management scrip to keep track of the money making advertisements. I've been using Red Tyger's version for over a year now modified quite a bit to suit my needs. 3.7 has ad templates built into it all over the place but no central controlling menu to handle rotating banners, rotating scripts etc. Otherwords, it's not really what we need, just some junk that if you wanted to you could stick an ad here or there. They said they were doing it to make upgrades easier without having to disable plug ins. Yeah, right. Done like most people are operating their boards, they haven't solved anything.

A lot of larger boards are also using a 3rd party photo cataloger such as photopost or photoplog. I'd added photopost to one of my smaller sites in prep for bringing it over to the largest site. Then I see that 3.7 has a built in photo album, but wait, it's a half assed version like that Quicken that came on a new HP that won't balance a checking account unless you pay for a different version. A member can upload phots and create an album but that album doesn't combine with other albums to create a page others can see. People can't even add comments to the photos if they did manage to find them through the member listing. I'm sure someone will come up with an add on that fixes that, but why can't the geniuses designing the software fix this to where it function like 99.9% of the people that use a photo add on set theirs up to do. As is, it will only confuse users as to where they are supposed to upload their photos.

As for the photos, that I can find, they've yet to include a image handler routine using GD or image magic that will resize uploads to the forum automatically preventing someone from loading a 1200 px wide picture and blowing the forums out to the right.

For the ones running larger boards and having to take serious steps to reduce bandwidth, server time, storage, and other issues similarly related, this just seems to me like another issue of having to serve oodlins of HTML and scripts and such that aren't doing anything for us and are really just in the way.

I think I understand their logic. I suppose they want to create a website script that is all things to all users. It does a little bit of everything so everyone can have a piece of the pie. At the same time, it's creating issues for the larger web sites.

What would be nice for us, IMO, is if they would make a basic version of vB and set all this other stuff up as plugins that if you wanted it, you could download it and use, but if you didn't, then you wouldn't have to deal with it being there, having to serve it or spend hours or days removing it such that each upgrade becomes a royal pain in the tail.

Skip

[Yours]

Originally Posted by Alfa1

I see your point. It is amazing that certain features in vbulletin are just not even halfway finished. But at the same time, Jelsoft does lay out a lot of foundation for vb.org coders to expand on. It seems that Jelsoft is choosing to release a wide array of basic functionality, in the hope that vb.org coders will release a large number of addons.

We should also realize that it is still just the BETA version that is out, so they may still be working on the scripts but want testers to find bugs on the way. I would rather it be given to us in pieces that work rather than in one big chunk that doesn't work at all.

[Alfa1]

There will not be any real additions in functionality between the beta release and the full release. Only bug fixes and small improvements. IMO we have received a nice upgrade of functionality and will need to wait for vb 4 to receive more.

[Yours]

I have been messing around with the settings and to be honest it is MUCH improved. Some of the mods like the thread prefixis and the Human Authentication upon registration was very nice, I wanted them and didnt want to have to install the mod to do so.

[therogueforums]

I haven't installed it yet, still waiting for the stable version, but I will say I am saddened there are not more built-in SEO options.

[Yours]

Originally Posted by therogueforums

I haven't installed it yet, still waiting for the stable version, but I will say I am saddened there are not more built-in SEO options.

I agree with you on that one. But what they did add was a godsend. Had most of the mods I was going to install anyways. Saved me about 2 hours of template edits.

[Alfa1]

I agree that they did include a lot of functionality that I had set up with mods. I do like this functionality upgrade a lot.

Still some things are hard to understand. Like the weird image gallery without functionality.

[Rich]

As a coder, I have found all sorts of different uses for some of the features. If you don't like the added features, don't use them. If you want them to function differently, modify them or put in a request on the .org to see if a coder is up to the challenge.

Completely knocking the added functionality though is a bit harsh. As stated, it opens all sorts of doors for new modifications.

[TECK]

Edit: We are in the big boards forum, so I presume you have over 5 million posts and a ton of users online.
I removed the above comment. It is not fair to the developers.

Originally Posted by FRDS

Blah Blah

What do you mean by Blah Blah.. he is right.

[Kittencare]

Have you got any details on that TECK? 5%? 10%? 25%?

[TECK]

Just install ApacheBench or http_load try it.
I cannot post the percent because it actually depends a lot on what server you run your board.
I also removed the comment because it is not fair to post something like that.

Those guys worked hard and they deserve credit.