VBulletin As A Personals Website?

[chandra]

:banana: Today was my first day of being exposed to Vbulletin. It is obviously very professional and happily has an ever growing group of users that continue to adapt the program in innovative, new directions.

I am very interested in creating a personals website that rivals matchmaker.com and other similar websites. The main functionality that I have noticed missing in a lot of the scripts/programs out there in the world - is instant messenging with users who are presently online. I have found this Who Is Online functionality in Vbulletin along with the hack for instant messenging.

Now my only question regards the ability to search profiles based on a given criteria such as race, age, hair color, height, etc., etc. The profiles of course would also have to be picture profiles and incorporate an essay about oneself, etc.

I would also want to eliminate the forum functionalities - most likely. The website would be a simple and straightforward website. Users would simply login, create their profile, search profiles, see who is online, communicate with other users online either instant messenging or integrated web email and then logout.

Is there a hack that integrates this functionality into the Vbulletin product? Do you have an example online?

I have noticed that there are quite a few websites out there in the world using Vbulletin as a personals website - but they appear to be working within the confines of the original product release. I would want to offer users of the proposed personals website the ability to perform functions similar if not better than matchmaker.com and similar websites.

I appreciate your thoughts and ideas. Thank you for any help you can provide.

[DrkFusion]

The ideas that come from incorporating vbulletin are endless. I have seen many great things done with the power of vbulletin. Now the instant messenger of course would be the Private Messaging system that is built-in to vbulletin. Now, new profile fields can be created easily in the AdminCP, and basic coding will allow you to do exensive search of the profile.

Going with vb is a good choice for a personals site.

Good Luck
-Arunan

[Chris M]

Many of the vBulletin boards out there dont want to install vBulletin hacks that are posted here, because, like many vBulletin owners here, dont like the hastle of upgrading whilst still keeping their hacks on the board...

If you get some good software, like Beyond Compare, it is easily updated

Satan

[Erwin]

There are already personals websites using vB as their base. So yes, vB can do all you have mentioned and more. I would not remove the forums functionality though - that defeats the purpose of using vB, which is first and foremost, and forums program. Most if not all personals websites are community based and uses forums.

[SZ|TalonKarrde]

Yes, forums could also be a powerful matchmaking tool in themselves.

[chandra]

So it is possible then to incorporate pictures into the profiles? Is this a known hack? Also, is it a known hack to add additional questions to the profile?

[Erwin]

Yes, there is a hack to do this by BradC, with an update as well by another hacker.

Also, vB3, when it comes out, has photos standard.

[chandra]

My only remaining question then - is it difficult to add additional questions to the profile. Also is it difficult to add a search function on this information? In other words, searching by age, race, height, etc. Do you think this would be a problem?

[Tigga]

Adding additional profile fields isn't a problem at all... That's standard.
Here's the hack to allow your users to search custom profile fields - https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...ghlight=search

[zircon]

Where is this hack that has already been done, ie the one by BradC? thanks

Also, I looked at several standalone matchmaking programs and what I think would be nice is COMPUTER generated matches.....if someone could make a hack that can MATCH people together, based on profiles would be great. male to female, astro sign to compatible astrosign, and then based on matched "interests"/categories.....and option for proximity/location maybe with options to "exclude"/include based on PHYSICAL traits, ie look for "blond" hair only and blue eyes, or 6' or taller etc....so would require a lot more PROFILE fields.

I would be willing to contribue some $$ for takers perhaps if others can contribute someone will attack the project. It would be pretty big project I think but should be very doable.