Where to begin?

[FearlessWeeder]

We like the design of this forum-
http://www.africancichlidforum.com/

How would we begin to learn about how to create our own forum from the ground up modeling it after the above site?

None of us have any experience using vBulletin software.

None of us have ever created a forum before.

Rather lost at this site because there is so much information and simply don't know where to begin.

Would like links to threads here to begin learning how to help ourselves create our new site using the vBulletin software we bought. Not even in a position to ask intelligent questions currently without guidance on where to go to start learning about the process.

[Lynne]

Have you seen the Articles forums yet? There is a lot of information in there. Also, the manual will help you a lot (link in my sig).

[FearlessWeeder]

Yes, I found the articles a few months ago and although I read many, they're over my head for the time being. I've still been reading them in hopes something sinks in.

Found the manual section. That will be a great tool once I figure out how to use it. Have been in there reading just today because of the link under your user name.

Have found another member here who appears to have a board along the lines of what interests us-
http://www.superclickers.co.uk/
Found this individual also provided a "hack" for columns
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...ht=forum+skins
Presumably this is what was used to create her forum.

Found an easy on the eyes color scheme where the greens are somewhat similar to what we had in mind but not exactly on the money-
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...t=desert+green
I believe we need the greens to be earthier and more compatible with the greens in these images-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sworrall/144756339/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/starlisa/1415828575/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfriver/409596398/

It's a horrible situation knowing what you want but not quite knowing how to make it happen.

Any chance of any online material I could start with that would make the manual and the articles easier for me to grasp? Something more entry level perhaps?

[Lynne]

I've seen a few people talk about wanting a vBulletin for Dummies type of manual, but I've never seen anything put together.

The best advice I can give is to start small. Don't make your site all complicated with hidden forums and special permissions and such at the beginning. Just put a few main forums on your site and a couple of usergroups and start simple. Add the small hacks at the beginning, nothing too elaborate. And then set up a test site where you can test modifications or changes to your forum first before doing it on your main site.

[FearlessWeeder]

Yes, that's what I need. vBulletin for Dummies complete with screen shots. Are there any threads like that out and about?

There will be no hidden forums. Do not want guests to be able to post. I read the pros and cons of guests online and we decided against that.

Yes, I read a few threads on starting out small with 10 boards and possibly a few sub boards for FAQs and TOS. I would agree with all that I have read over the past few months on starting out small however I do want the site to be visually appealing to one degree or another and in the right format before it goes up.

We have chosen the basic add-ons. Read that entire board thread by thread. We have identified ten that we feel will be a big help. Not hundreds like other people but ten. Once we figure out what we're doing, we'll most probably add more.

Explain to me exactly what a test site is and are there directions for how one goes about setting up a test site buried at this site somewhere please?

[Lynne]

Along with your vb license, you are allowed to set up a test site that is not available to the public, and try things out. Here is a thread on it - Step by Step: Create a test forum based on a 'snapshot' of your live one I find test sites useful whenever I want to make a change on the main site cuz I can try it out on there first.

When we launched our site, we did it in steps. There were about seven of us who set the site up, then we asked a bunch of our friends to come in and take it for a test drive. We kept it private that way for about a week while we worked out a couple of kinks. Then we went live.

But yeah, you do want to have forums setup, I'm just saying don't go overboard with the forums at first. You don't want to have 50 forums all with 1 post each. That makes the board look kinda deserted.

I really don't know of any threads that are for new admins though.

[tldagent]

Those are using vbadvance.com portal system integrated into vbulletin. So basically you want more than just a flat forum and something similar to that of a website with the forum integrated. No need for a side bar hack when you have vb. PM Sent!

[FearlessWeeder]

Thank you Lynne, I am over there at that thread reading right now. One issue right away, evidently the test forum is a snapshot of an existing forum. To be quite honest with you, we haven't even downloaded the forum software from the member site yet. We can't determine whether it is best to download it to one of our computers or directly to the server. Decisions decisions. We'll probably load it to the server.

Thank you tldagent. Should I recontact vB sales and purchase the vbadvance.com portal? I don't know the difference between a flat forum or a non-flat forum so I can't answer your question. I'm sorry to say I don't know how to use PMs. We are going to have a home page with the name of the .org and a button that says enter that should hyperlink to a main page. The application being used to create the home and main page is Microsoft's FrontPage. We want to keep the home page simple. The main page will be another webpage with a header and the name of the .org again followed by a section with little blurbs of available and feature articles and a side navigation bar to allow them to enter the area where articles will be maintained, where one could register or log on, or where one could go straight to the forums area, or to the education area. At least I think that's how we want it. The actual forums will be somewhere at the site and hopefully from there we'll figure out how to send people off to which ever board they want to be in with the click of their mouse.

[tldagent]

No need to contact VB Sales to purchase Vbadvanced. It's a free portal system so no worries there and it integrates fully into vb. VBSEO is a recommended purchase though. No need to worry yourself over flat or otherwise.

Lynne makes a good point but it all depends on what you plan on doing with it. I personally would not start another forum unless I planned it out so accurately that I know what it's going to be before I built it and that's because I've done it the other way. In any type of web design, planning is one of the most important steps. Sure we've all heard the old saying, "Fail to plan, plan to fail". Plus, once you have things sketched out it provides a vision of what it's going to be when completed which makes it that much easier to implement.

[FearlessWeeder]

Thank you to the both of you for your past comments.

Just a little note to tell you we are all thrilled with this software. We have the basics plus some hacks that we believed would be in our best interests to start with out the gate. Not all that many so that we'd be overwhelmed but enough to get a feel for the potential. We're all learning something new every day and our site should be up first quarter of the new year.

Would still be interested in a vB for Dummies