Is it possible to mod vB5?

[fenderbob]

This is sad news...

I'm now starting to understand why so many people have been complaining about vB5.

I mean, there's a lot of things I like about it.

But there's a lot I want my forum to do that it can't right now. And I'm starting to think vB5 may have been a huge mistake.

I started my very first forum back in 2003. It didn't go anywhere and I eventually gave up on it, but back then, vBulletin was the gold standard for forums and I never forgot that.

Two years ago, with my newest forum, I ASSUMED vBulletin had only gotten better with time, and I dove in head first without doing any reading on it at all. It was only after I started getting locked out of basic tasks and all the bugs that I started doing reading on it and found all the horror stories.

I've sunk a TON of cash into this project already...well over $5,000.00, not to mention hundreds of hours-- plus my hosting bill is $60.00 per month and I don't want to give up on vBulletin, but I kind of want to get moving with the features I want.

There is absolutely nothing special about my site right now. Visitors know this and leave instantly. I haven't had a new sign up in months despite constant advertising on Google AdWords plus an aggressive social media campaign.

What's the future looking like? I get the distinct impression vbulletin.org is full of members that aren't willing to go beyond vB4 and I'm starting to totally understand why.

I don't think forums on the whole are dead.

Things may be "getting better" with vB5 but I don't want to spend the next 5 years waiting for something that might not even be happening...

[Replicant]

Forums aren't what they used to be. I have met a lot of people who wonder why nobody is signing up for their forums. I think most forums are enjoying a lack of new members. It's not so much the software as it is content. Less active members=less content. You said you did a massive campaign on social media. I did too. Here's what happened to me. I had a flood of guest users that came and checked out the site. Zero registrations despite having the one click Facebook register setup.

I've lost several members to Facebook and Pintrest, here's why:
1)Most people on social media sites have no desire to be in a conversation, they want to click a box type a sentence, maybe throw up a pic and hit send.
2)They have no interest in becoming part of a community.
3)They have really nothing to contribute, they just want to look and go on to the next trending story.
4)They just want to look at pictures.
5)There is so much info available on the internet now that asking a question is pretty much obsolete. Thanks Google for knowing everything.

My son uses forums all the time to solve issues with his cars, trucks, and audio problems. He is the member of exactly one forum. Mine. He posted once to introduce himself to the guys. They responded and welcomed him aboard. To this day, he still don't know that because he never logged in again to check the board. This is the age of millennials.

My opinion is, if a forum isn't highly specialized in one area and on a niche subject, it will eventually go stale and either fail or just be a source of reading for the guy who happen to get a hit on google.

Sorry for the rant.

[nhawk]

Originally Posted by fenderbob

This is sad news...

I'm now starting to understand why so many people have been complaining about vB5.

I mean, there's a lot of things I like about it.

But there's a lot I want my forum to do that it can't right now. And I'm starting to think vB5 may have been a huge mistake.

In general, vB5 was a terrific idea that was poorly executed.

Fortunately the simple solution is, kill the vB5 site and switch to vB4. There are a couple thousand add-ons available for vB4 that might meet your needs. And many people will do custom development for it.

Originally Posted by fenderbob

Things may be "getting better" with vB5 but I don't want to spend the next 5 years waiting for something that might not even be happening...

I wouldn't hold your breath, vB5 was released 4 years ago and it took this long to get where it is today. So, that should give you an idea of how quickly (or not) things happen.

[In Omnibus]

Originally Posted by nhawk

In general, vB5 was a terrific idea that was poorly executed.

Fortunately the simple solution is, kill the vB5 site and switch to vB4. There are a couple thousand add-ons available for vB4 that might meet your needs. And many people will do custom development for it.



I wouldn't hold your breath, vB5 was released 4 years ago and it took this long to get where it is today. So, that should give you an idea of how quickly (or not) things happen.

Agreed on vB5. If they'd waited on releasing the product until it was what it is now they'd have have much more positive reaction. Even so, it has far more possibilities for a complete website in a 21st century social media environment than does vB4. Every element of every page is customizeable. That's a perfect concept, even if the actual implementation left much to be desired.

Insofar as vB4 is concerned, there are countless mods however there are also countless mods which have been left to rot. All of the most prominent developers not employed by vBulletin left. Some of those modifications are six years old, unsupported, have outdated code written for what are now deprecated versions of PHP, MySQL, HTML4 transitional, CSS2.0, JS libraries which are no longer even in repository, etc.

Even so I have constructed dozens of sites with vB4.x in the last twelve months.

What it truly comes down to is what best meets the needs of a site. Are the forums the central hub of the site or a feature? Are the forums the "landing page" or are they on a link or tab? Is the site sales driven or content driven? Is it paid membership or free? Is it advertisement heavy or ad-free? So many questions.

Any version of the software can be made to do anything, depending upon how one wants to tackle it. There are still many sites using vB3.x versions which are so heavily customized that they will never change major software versions.

If you can get vB4.x to do what you want with existing modifications it's certainly the path of least resistance.

If you're having to pay someone to do the coding to obtain the features and functions you want I would personally recommend staying with vB5 because it's going to remain actively developed for the foreseeable future whereas vB4 is six years old and will likely be updated only for security patches.

In fact, I think if the vB5 release had gone as planned vB4 would have been declared EOL by now.

What I would do, and what I actually do for my clients, is to develop a prototype of the site in both versions and see which I find best meets their needs. That might seem time-consuming but you're trying to get it right, not trying to get it right now.

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by TheLastSuperman

...but now we must do as we've been told many times in the past, submit a request via Jira (I still love you Paul but no, someone should be paid to think ahead and add/re-add where common sense says they should be or were prior to a certain degree) when we're not being paid a penny to submit anything

Why are you directing that comment at me ?

1. I dont make the rules.
2. I dont work on vBulletin 5.

That said, the rule is there for a reason - all development is tracked in Jira, there has to be a central place, and thats it. So no Jira = it wont happen.

Developers are paid to develop, not sit and write Jira's for other people too lazy to do so.
You seem to be in the "I want something for nothing" brigade. You want a hook but are not going to put in the minute amount of effort to request it - because you're "not being paid a penny to submit anything". If thats how you want to be, that's fine, but dont moan about hooks not getting added.

[TheLastSuperman]

Originally Posted by Paul M

Why are you directing that comment at me ?

1. I dont make the rules.
2. I dont work on vBulletin 5.

That said, the rule is there for a reason - all development is tracked in Jira, there has to be a central place, and thats it. So no Jira = it wont happen.

I directed it at you based on your last reply:

Originally Posted by Paul M

Thats exactly what its used for.
Its quite new in vb5 (prior to that you had the extensions system, which still works).
As far as hooks go, you may find they dont currently exist where you need them, but you can add them your self and then request they be added to the core.

How are you supposed to request something be added? Jira

*Also you were paid to remove the hooks or actually tasked with it correct? Whom should I address my comment to another staff member who was not involved in the removal in the least or someone who knows full and well what happened? I choose you Pikachu!

Originally Posted by Paul M

Developers are paid to develop, not sit and write Jira's for other people too lazy to do so.
You seem to be in the "I want something for nothing" brigade. You want a hook but are not going to put in the minute amount of effort to request it - because you're "not being paid a penny to submit anything". If thats how you want to be, that's fine, but dont moan about hooks not getting added.

Exactly! I develop for others, I expect the company to develop for their actual customers instead of making them jump through Jira hoops it's that simple! The Jira system is helpful yes but some things are common sense like re-introducing a system again i.e. it should be the same if not better than before. The fact that this particular issue brings up such controversy in a sense it just silly too! So we debate over a system now lacking when it once wasn't, it was removed/limited but now brought back half-rear ended at best! When you're going to re-introduce a system at least do it proper (directed at upper management).

I'll always be in the "I want something for nothing" brigade so long as vBulletin continues to be in the "Give them nothing for something" brigade (imo) and it's just that simple. I expect more from the company, always have and always will.

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by TheLastSuperman

How are you supposed to request something be added? Jira

Yes, you request it using Jira.
If you cannot be bothered, it wont happen, I thought that was pretty clear.

Originally Posted by TheLastSuperman

*Also you were paid to remove the hooks or actually tasked with it correct? Whom should I address my comment to another staff member who was not involved in the removal in the least or someone who knows full and well what happened? I choose you Pikachu!

How is the fact that I removed them (as instructed) four years ago relevant ?
You dont need to address comments at anyone specifically. There was completely no need at all to single out myself in that post.

Jump through hoops ! Are you real ? in the time it took to type your reply you could have logged several hook requests, creating a jira takes a minute or two at most.
Like so many you have spent more time complaining about why you wont do something than the time it would have took to actually do it.

Originally Posted by TheLastSuperman

I'll always be in the "I want something for nothing" brigade so long as vBulletin continues to be in the "Give them nothing for something" brigade (imo) and it's just that simple. I expect more from the company, always have and always will.

IB dont give nothing for something, you are just making silly statements now.

[Replicant]

From what I have seen in the source files, there are quite a few legacy hooks commented out. It would not be too hard for someone who is developing a particular mod to use that to their advantage. In most cases, the hook would be in the correct place or close to it. After the product is complete and tested, putting a hook placement request in a Jira is not, IMO, too much to ask. I don't know how many hooks were in previous versions but I'm guessing it was a lot. With the current code structure, it seems that not nearly as many hooks would be needed in vb5. Let's face it, a lot of the hooks in the older versions were workarounds to put functionality into the product that is now built into the core product.

[In Omnibus]

From what I've seen you could drop more hookers into vB5 than there are in Bangkok and it still wouldn't cause anyone to develop products. You need people willing to develop third party modifications for vB5 and, as of right this moment, there is one developer with multiple vB5 mods of any notoriety.

You need an incentive to get developers to work on vB5 products.

[TheLastSuperman]

Originally Posted by Paul M

Yes, you request it using Jira.
If you cannot be bothered, it wont happen, I thought that was pretty clear.

Paul when I replied by answering your question as to why I used your name initially - I meant to convey the reason I used your name initially, is the fact that you said what I bold and italicized in my last reply i.e. you said to request it be added which means use Jira, I asked to point out that despite you not saying submit to Jira directly - that's what it meant.

Myself being bothered has nothing to do with Jira submissions when I'm on family time - i.e. once you clock out you're off company time, on your own time and personal life should be kept separate or at least for most it is, you clock out you go home to your wife and kids etc.

So if I were to say: I reckon next time you go on vacation I can just comment and say that you since you can't be bothered (apparently and obviously it would be due to you being on vacation) that something "else" won't happen due to that.

^ Would that be fair to do to you? I don't feel it would be but that's not you, when I was saying (imo) it's meant to be taken with a grain of salt to a certain extent.

When it's Mozilla and it's an open source community then by all means have somewhere where people who love the software can help and submit requests and tickets etc and tell them that if they don't help it won't happen and eventually all will be lost, which would be true i.e. no income or free support so no Mozilla. I do not agree with having clients who pay for this software being asked to do so much on their own and in their own time however I see it as a useful tool but I don't like to see it used as a crutch so heavily. vBulletin is paid software and it's about time it started ACTING like it instead of just limping along on that crutch I mentioned.

Originally Posted by Paul M

How is the fact that I removed them (as instructed) four years ago relevant ?
You dont need to address comments at anyone specifically. There was completely no need at all to single out myself in that post.

Again I must go back to what I mentioned above, when you said what I bold and italicized it prompted me to reply, I was replying to this thread based on everyone else comments and primarily yours. If you say "just request it be added" or similar I'm going to assume every time you mean to submit a ticket through Jira and if you agree that is what your statement meant then I don't see why singling you out was a big deal? I meant to single you out but not in a negative way - instead to speak to the person who directly had dealings with it at the time and again, whose comment made prompted my post and were directly related to what I was saying - I did that yes, what did I do wrong? I just think you thought I was "targeting" you which was not the case at all, I don't mind clarifying ever so no worries .

Originally Posted by Paul M

Jump through hoops ! Are you real ? in the time it took to type your reply you could have logged several hook requests, creating a jira takes a minute or two at most.
Like so many you have spent more time complaining about why you wont do something than the time it would have took to actually do it.

Yes, hoops.

Login here, type up something that makes sense if it's not already obvious, pics or no pics, submit this here, mark it as this, flag it, vote it, watch it, keep an eye on it, raise cain when someone marks it as trivial, raise cain when months if not years later it still isn't marked as resolved... jump jump jumpity jump jump! I've already worked today, did my "time" and depsite time differences it's the same for you daily I'd guess.

I could say geesh in the time it took you to quote me, use /quote while you broke my reply into multiple quotes and replied to each aspect of it - you could have restored the entire hook system back to it's former glory, knowing full well it's not your place to do so, therefor it doesn't get done - Tomayto / Tomahto.

IB dont give nothing for something, you are just making silly statements now.

It's not silly when I took the time to specifically type (imo) meaning in my opinion - it was just my "humorous/ironic" opinion in reply to you quoting me, sorry for the confusion.

___________________________

Aye but hey my replies are quite long, not trying to invade fenderbob's thread. FB if you need any more info let us all know, we sorta started debating in here lol! Remember that the mods are going to slowly come back, we're already seeing new ones out since the re-introduction of the system. If you want to really customize and think and "Go" outside the box, vB4 seems like your best option until we see more free mods here on the org. If you've already went with 5 (directed @ anyone) and you're too far into it, then roll with it... it makes a great standard forum as you've read here today and the hooks system is back and will be improving as time goes on so if you've been missing a certain mod, it might return soon enough!