Major Additions - vBonjour - Portal System

vBonjour

Easy Customizable Portal System

Brought to you by www.peterska2.co.uk

Welcome to the launch of vBonjour. This is the base package which is required for all installations of this system.

What is vBonjour?
vBonjour is an alternative to vBAdvanced. It is an easy to install, modular portal system designed as a gateway to your site.

Why vBonjour?
This is pretty simple really. As the front page is the first thing that your visitors see, it is a welcome page. The first few names that were thought of were either very boring, or far too long winded and not at all catchy.

This is a base package. What is included?
The base package includes a news feature from up to two forums. The news from the first forum will be displayed first, followed by the news from the second forum. It also includes the left and right columns which can be activated or deactivated via some simple settings in the ACP. These columns can be customised without using any of the Add On Modules, or Add On Modules can be installed to expand on the functionality.

Why is it so modular?
vBonjour is extremely modular to allow for maximum customization of the page. The idea is to make it as easy as possible to install the items that you want to have included, and not have anything which you would be simply turning off. By using a modular method it means that every site can easily achieve their own custom portal without having to know any coding.

I want to add something that isn't already included. How do I go about this?
vBonjour makes use of the plugin system and includes it's own hooks. This allows easy devlopment of additional Add Ons and maximum flexability.

What about the ACP? Is it really complicated?
Unlike other systems, almost all the settings for vBonjour are collected in one setting group in the vBOptions. Because you only install what you want to use, you don't need to have lots of settings. Anything which does not use settings in the Portal settings group is highlighted in the documentation for that Add On.

Ok, so where are the screen shots?
Why have screen shots when you can have a live demo?
The demo is available at www.peterska2.co.uk

What versions of vBulletin does vBonjour work with?
vBonjour will work with vBulletin 3.6.0 and above. Support for sites running versions earlier than 3.6.0 will not be given.



Contributers to the base system: [name]christianb[/name]


I hope that you like this system. Please remember to mark it as installed to recieve notification of updates and support. Support will only be provided to those who have clicked install.

[Allan]

Kerry-Anne, it's no possible to create one product with all addon ? (not more simple ?)

[peterska2]

It would lose the main feature of flexability if it was done that way Allan. The original alpha version was all in one file and making any changes to it was a complete nightmare. Using Add Ons makes it a lot easier to manage and for each site to setup easily to their requirements.

[CoreIssue]

I am intrigued. But, as not a coder, let me as a dumb question or two.

For my site they like the Top 10 stats and ShoutBox together.

Can I do that? And not squeezed left or right column, but middle or whole page?

[peterska2]

Yes, you can display anything where ever you want. Adding things to the center column is a little tricky at the moment, but the next release will have some changes to make this easier.

[CoreIssue]

Thanks.

I will set up a test board and check this out.
:knockedout:

[wes_517]

this is sounding really interesting...

can you tell me more about the permission settings? is it as granular as vbadvanced?

more specifically do you have the option to pick a group, and then say what pages that group can see, in addition to picking a page and seeing what groups have permission to it?

also any idea when the rss feeds will come into play? that's something i've really been looking to add to my site...

[peterska2]

At the moment, it is a case of apart from the guest message and member message (for obvious reasons included in their titles) everything is visible to everyone. There is also only one page involved at the moment.

The first of the RSS Add Ons has just been released, and more are in development. Once this week is out of the way then development will be back to being full steam ahead and more Add Ons will become available as quickly as I can get them coded.

[CoreIssue]

I was able to install the shout on the forum fully and get the it partially installed, 100% width, on the Portal.

But, it would require recoding to get the smilies, Archive and font color and face showing and working correctly.

Great idea, but I will wait until this gets a bit more advanced, or has some more blocks developed for it.

Just too much work for the return on needs for my site.

But great idea and coming along very nicely.

For info, to get the ShoutBox Templates at 100% I copied them all over onto the Portal Template, not the left or right.

I will be watching this one!

[peterska2]

I'm going to be doing some research into some items such as the shoutbox to see how they would integrate into vBonjour over the next week or so, so keep watching out, because as soon as I crack it, something will be released.

[Murty]

Ok, so where are the screen shots?
Why have screen shots when you can have a live demo?
The demo is available at www.peterska2.co.uk

Cos some people done have uberly fast internet