New - wondering about features ease of use

[Auric]

I haven't purchased yet. I've tried the Demo's a few times, and I'm not a programmer by any means.

There are a few things I'd like to do with vbulletin for my site.

1. Make it look a lot like the main pages of my site - Top Banner, and vertical image that runs along both sides on the edge of the Bulletin Board.

2. Have certain users have priveleges to access areas that are paid subscriptions.

3. Have preloaded avatars (do I have to purchase these seperate or do they come with my purchase/lease?)

4. Can I make stickies go by a different name than "Sticky", and as an administrator do I have the ability to make members posts "stickies"?

Other concerns:

How long should it take for me to get everything organized before I have it up and running since I'm not familiar with programming?

I'm interested in looking at some different templates... Does vbulletin offer some templates with purchase?

[---MAD---]

1. Pretty easy, just requires modifying the templates which you should be able to do since you made your website pages. Just requires basic HTML.

2. Thats possible.

3. You have to make the avatars, not sure if you can actually have them put on users, I think its possible though.

4. Yes thats a phrase I believe in phrase manager.

You dont need to know programming to set up a forum. You need to read the manual you just play around and see what works best for you. Its not hard to learn how to use the admincp as its straight forward. Also, it takes about 30-45 mins to install the software if its the first time you do it or you can get jelsoft to do it for you.

Different templates (you mean skins?) you can get those over at www.vbulletin.org (http://www.vbulletin.org). There are a few on vbulletin.com

[SSSlippy]

I haven't purchased yet. I've tried the Demo's a few times, and I'm not a programmer by any means.

There are a few things I'd like to do with vbulletin for my site.

1. Make it look a lot like the main pages of my site - Top Banner, and vertical image that runs along both sides on the edge of the Bulletin Board.

This is possible, there is a mod on vbulletin.org that can add side columns. Warning on this though thats ALOT of space that the board needs. I would put max one column either on the left or right.

2. Have certain users have priveleges to access areas that are paid subscriptions.

Yes the system has an automatic subscription manager.

3. Have preloaded avatars (do I have to purchase these seperate or do they come with my purchase/lease?)

These are 90% free. There may be some sites with avatars that u pay for but otherwise their is TONS of sites with free ones. Remember avatars can be used on any forum system. Vbulletin does not any official avatar packs but you can easily find them.

4. Can I make stickies go by a different name than "Sticky", and as an administrator do I have the ability to make members posts "stickies"?

Yes there is the ability to rename anything "phrase" in the language manager. And yes you can stick anything you want.

Other concerns:
How long should it take for me to get everything organized before I have it up and running since I'm not familiar with programming?

I'm interested in looking at some different templates... Does vbulletin offer some templates with purchase?
A couple of hrs if you tweak settings to get the core up. I usually spend about an hr or so just changing settings for the way I want. No coding required to install and run vbulletin. Some common sense and basic understanding of the web is good. Also knowing HTML is very helpful.

They are no pre made templates but there are a bunch here at vb.com and more at vb.org. You can also very easily make your own basic template.
Vbulletin has a built in CSS manager(the code for the colors) and you can change these inside by keeping the default layout and changing the colors.