vBulletin Blog: Feature Request List Thread [Archive]

Razasharp

Fri 22nd Jun '07, 12:35pm

Ok, I'll start:

Ability to move threads into blogs - sometimes some things are more suited to blogs, and being able to move a thread to a blog will be a nice feature (I can actually already do this on my blog system).

Multiple levels of blog 'homes'. Generally you'd have a blog home that lists all the latest blogs, then you might have a category home that lists all the latest blogs in that category (then perhaps the same for sub category). Then you'd have a blog home for a particular user, and then a page listing their blogs in specific categories. So my request is to have an option where we can create a 2nd, or 3rd main blog home where we could perhaps only show blogs from certain authors, or, from certain categories - this would make it easier to run an 'official' site blog along side user blogs. (This could actually be very powerful if used with a little thought.)

Search engine friendly URLs - we really need this if we want the blog to be of similar spec to the other leading blogs out there.

Tag system - many of the leading blog software has a tagging system, and I imagine this will be a popular request.

Well that's it for starters! Will add more as I think of them.

You next? :)

MJM

Fri 22nd Jun '07, 3:01pm

Ability to move threads into blogs - sometimes some things are more suited to blogs, and being able to move a thread to a blog will be a nice feature (I can actually already do this on my blog system).

Uh-Oh, devs are probably cringing at this request.
Similar request (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1376239&postcount=132) for Project Tools

But it's true, that because a Blog, and also the need for an advanced Profile system providing the ability to link to specific 'About me and my interests" threads has come late in the community solutions game, that there will be a need to move content around between addons.

We may indeed choose to keep some profile/blog components within the forum/thread system, (and using 3rd party gallery addons), so at least (as far as I can tell) we can define topical categories within the new Blog system, and users can use bbcode to display links or quotations from threads at the forums to the Blog.

It will be interesting to see how everything is going to pan out, and how well these adons are going to be able to integrate with the forum software, in combination with the methodologies we have employed using this software in the interim.

Razasharp

Fri 22nd Jun '07, 5:43pm

I can't see why it wouldn't be possible - and I guess the team won't feel the need to venture far from what they do with threads and posts already - given that the nuts and bolts are essentially the same: Thread post one (= blog entry) followed by thread replies (= blog comments).

I'm not sure about project tools tho as I haven't looked into that, but again don't see a problem if it revolves around one post and then subsequent posts..

Milado

Fri 22nd Jun '07, 6:08pm

MJM

Fri 22nd Jun '07, 6:17pm

I'm clueless about the technical side of things and am just looking at this from the practical aspect of using these addons.
My guess is that addons, being what they are, have certain components that perform independently from the main software, while other components such as user access and permissions, bbcode etc must be fully integrated.
If, for example, the Move/Copy and other forum functions are to be implemented, then the devs would need to make a concerted effort to hook these components up as part of the addon.
Because, (if you read the follow up to my post), I don't think this was even considered as a component of the Project Tools addon, I'm guessing it also hasn't been considered as part of the Blog.

As always, I'll be thrilled to find out that I am wrong in my assumptions. :)

Jose Amaral Rego

Fri 22nd Jun '07, 6:23pm

WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) editor would be nice, but only have that as a paid subscription to access it.

I agree with Milado with suggest and add permission and or subscription to activate. Still early to make 'Request for New Feature(s)' for vBulletin Board logger.

MJM

Fri 22nd Jun '07, 6:50pm

Still early to make 'Request for New Feature(s)' ....

It's always best to start early, because eventually developers will say "no can do" ... or if your'e lucky ... "perhaps in a later version"

There comes a point that developers can no longer undo what coding they have done without breaking other things and/or having to start all over.

The alpha stage (is that where we are now?) is perhaps the most important of all times that we must express our wishes.

JeffJo

Sat 23rd Jun '07, 9:48pm

I suggest careful control of who can post comments to a blog, and who can't.

Maybe, start with the blog owner's vB Buddy list. If a person is on your vB Buddy list, he can post comments to your blog, but otherwise he can't. Set that as the default.

Then, the blog owner should be able to override the default with a "my bloggers" list that he controls. What I'm trying to say is.....

1. Import the vB Buddy list as the default "my bloggers" list for a member's blog. People on the "my bloggers" list can post comments to the blog, as the default action.

2. The blog owner can edit his "my bloggers" list as he pleases. Add names or remove them.

3. The blog owner can also set the choices.....

a. only I can post anything to my blog.

b. anybody on my "bloggers" list can post comments in reply to my blog content.

c. anybody in the world can post comments. (Dangerous! - maybe the vB board admin should have ultimate control here.)

It'll be interesting to see what the vB team has come up with in the area of blog comment control.

Razasharp

Sat 23rd Jun '07, 10:38pm

Hi Jeff - comment control is already included ;)

MRGTB

Sat 23rd Jun '07, 11:43pm

"Make Draft" option, I have this option on my IPB Blog and it's a really good feature, it enabled you to start a topic on your Blog, that you can save as draft (hidden from view). So you can continue another day until complete and ready for posting for full viewing.

Not sure if this feature is already included, if not it's a great feature.

JeffJo

Sun 24th Jun '07, 12:08am

Hey, no fair, you got ahead of me on seeing the screenshots. :) I was sure vB had done something in the area of comment control, but I didn't know exactly what.

For others who haven't seen the screenshots yet, they're in this thread.....

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=229238

we_are_borg

Sun 24th Jun '07, 4:54am

Able to grant the blogger some rights in his/her blog just as a moderater in a forum has special rights.
Closed for comments
Only selected users can comment
Make announcements in the blog
Announcement stickyThis are little examplese but i think most get the idea. But here is the catch this right must be user based not all are being trusted with this.

Razasharp

Mon 25th Jun '07, 11:48am

More feature requests:

These are to do with the enhanced myspace type profiles.

Admin set friend types (so people can seperate friends from various places: eg, friends, workmates, schoolmates etc etc)

Profile to list 'my latest blogs' with links to admin set number of latest blogs (titles shown)

Profile to list 'my latest threads' with titles as links (same as above)

Profile to list admin set 'my latest _____' threads from admin specified forum - so for eg if we had a pictures forum we could set that forum's ID and then label it as, 'my latest pics'.

2 and 3 from above I would say are very important, as it makes it much easier for friends to keep up with each - all they need to do is visit someone's profile to get a run down of what's going on in their life at present. It may not sound like much but it will be one of those stealth things that makes vB great :)

Related feature request (social network related)

Groups

Drupal has something called organic groups, indeed many of the social networks have them. They are simply where members can create their own groups, admin them, action join requests, delete posts, etc etc

When forums become too saturated and busy, organic groups will take the heat off and give members something more personal to get into. It will be a great way to forge smaller communities inside one big one, and where normally some people get turned off forums that get too busy, this will help keep them active.

I rate it as very important, and in the light of forums no longer seen as the king of online communities, this really could help bring it all back.

fusion2

Mon 25th Jun '07, 4:43pm

Here are my thoughts which i posted back in March when they announced vBlog. It had a lot of popular support from other customers. Maybe some of this will be considered, though doubtful.

I am really HOPING that the vBulletin Blog Add-on will have the ability to customize the look and feel!

As i said in my last post, i tried vbAdvanced and vBlogetin but they didnt look any different then the vBulletin forum, with boarders and frames around every entry.

I really want a Boarderless blog entries like Wordpress, Blogger and Drupal use. Does anyone know?

Here is my wish list, though im sure they would have thought of these common blog functions:

There be a "Front Page" to vBulletin so that the blogging and forum are sub-sections not the main page.
Administrators have the ability to decide what can be featured on the Front Page. Like a preview of all the latest blogs or forum posts. Or at least allow Administrator to post blogs to Front Page while members maintain seperate blogs on User Profile.
The "Front Page" can be customized seperately from forum. (The whole reason i went away from vbAdvanced and vBlogetin to Wordpress and finally Drupal is because i want table-less blog entries, i dont want something).
The ability to categorize blogs under 1 or more categories that the Administrator created.
Did i say "BOARDERLESS BLOG ENTRIES"?
Lastly, the ability to enter customized URL Addresses. (Until now, you had to buy vBulletin SEO. But, Drupal has the ability for you to enter a custom URL when posting the blog. This would be great for administrators at least, though integrating SEO would be great too).

Razasharp

Mon 25th Jun '07, 4:58pm

I think the look and feel of the blog may be down to the designer or the style used. I have seen vBulletin powered blogs that look, nothing like vBulletin.

If it uses the same style system as vB there's no reason why you won't be able to achieve the look and feel you need :)

Grover

Tue 26th Jun '07, 7:06am

MRGTB

Tue 26th Jun '07, 8:42am

Yeah, I'm using the IPb Blog myself, and it is good, in fact I've just installed a hack that displays a link under each persons name in there posts on the forum, that when clicked will take a person to there Blog if they have one. Of course if they don't have one, they link is not displayed. Thios would be a good default feature for this Blog, as it makes the chances of a person Blog being visted and search engines following the links from posts to there Blogs to get them indexed much better

Onimua

Tue 26th Jun '07, 10:16am

Razasharp

Tue 26th Jun '07, 11:39am

Another feature request.

I'm assuming this will be the case anyway, but thought I'd better post it just in case.

Same usergroup permission system as the forums

Ability to control which usergroups have what permissions in each blog category etc. Basically liek the 'forum permissions' bit we currently have.

So say we have a category that is called 'Opinion' but we want all posts and threads in it moderated - we should be able to specifiy this through usergroups.

:)

OS,

Tue 26th Jun '07, 12:11pm

I have already mentioned this within the original thread, so thought i'll just put it in here also as its more constructive.

I hope my suggestions and criticisms will be taken on board, its just my own personal viewpoint. But i look forward to the end product.

Ive seen the screenshots, and i am "somewhat" disappointed. It looks like a forum unfortunately and nothing like a personal/blog/users ownspace.

I remember we installed the vbdrupal blog on our forums from vb.org, and it wasnt so popular so we uninstalled it. It looked very much like the forum it self, looked as if people were just posting. Users were not able to customize their pages and couldnt do a lot other than just write their life stories. This is still the early stages with vbulletin, so things can change, (well I just hope they do for the best interests of many bloggers out there).

I think some of the basic mandatory principles of a typical blog/blogging software is missing. Im not sure if vbulletin is making a blogging site for users or a friends network? I think if they implemented both then it would be very cool. Here are some criticisms and suggestions ive recommened for both, blogging/friends network.

1. Users should be able to customize their page, background, colour etc...

2. Users should be able to add their own photos, videos from youtube/google video to be streamed directly from their own page,

3. Audio box where users will be able to add their own audio or link it from elsewhere, so when new guests and users visit their page they can play a track?

Here are some crucial points to implement:

4. Have a photo rating/comment feature possibly also? Where the blogger has his/her photos in their gallery, the other users will be able to come and leave them comments and rate them also? This will be very hot and appealing. I dont think many other blogging sites have this feature and it will be a bonus for vbulletin.

5. Giving gifts to each other, so it can be displayed on the other users mainpage profile of who left them what in small mini icons 10x10 images? Like.. "Best Friend", "Roses", "Birthday Cake", "Sexy" etc

6. Freinds box to display all the buddy's the particular blogger has on their main page, preferably showing in thumbnails avatar/picture,

7. Friends "Left Comments for Profile" etc.. to be displayed on mainpage of the blogger?

If i was to create something then ofcourse i would want my product to be very different and unique to any other product that is already out there. I can understand that vbulletin is trying to do just that, but i dont think its really has the appealing look to it so far.

But you see, its obvious and the standards of what to expect from a blogging/friends page has already been set. If you ask somebody a typical question about what to expect from a blogging site/friends network, then they will tell you, regardless of what type of blogging site it is, it must maintain the standards that one would expect from a blogging/friends site.

It must have the mandatory features that any blogging page would have, and what one would expect it to have, that includes some of the "mandatory" features ive already mentioned above.
We are already accustom to what to expect from a blog site/friends netowrk. Just for arguments sake if users were not able to leave comments on a page then what type of blogging site is it? Do you see the example im trying to get across?

I would strongly suggest vbulletin to look at myspace, hi5.com, and facebook.com (not that you havent) to get the jist of things. All three are blogging/freinds networking websites and are very very different from each other and yet unique in their own way. I run a forum mainly consisting with users ranging from the ages of 16-30 years of age, and vbdrupal from vb.org didnt go down so well, because it looked no different to a forum.

Some of the things i have mentioned may have already been implemented, i dont know. Im just giving an over view of what would be a good idea and what wont work so well. If not everything ive mentioned will work, then i hope atleast some of my suggestions will be taken on board.

I have bought a domain for such a blogging/freinds network feature. I am already contemplating whether to buy a blogging/friends network feature from phpfox or go with this vblog that is being developed. Price comparison will influence me in my decision making as phpfox is very expensive aswell as the features both have to offer. I'll have to wait patiently and see.

I hope my suggestions and criticisms will be taken on board :) I wish you guys all the best and good luck with it! ;) looking forward to the release!

I have one question to ask, will this be available for 3.5.4?

MRGTB

Tue 26th Jun '07, 12:13pm

Another one to think about. Displaying the latest Blog entry on the forum board at the bottom. Maybe a new section near: Todays Birthdays

Wayne Luke

Tue 26th Jun '07, 12:14pm

So say we have a category that is called 'Opinion' but we want all posts and threads in it moderated - we should be able to specifiy this through usergroups.

Each blogger makes their own categories for their personal blogs. They control who can and cannot view or comment to their personal blog.

Running everything through the permissions system by usergroup based on the categories that bloggers choose would get prohibitive very fast. Admins do have general permissions and can control things like this but not based on blog category but on standard usergroup permissions.

Look at the individual permissions here:
http://images.vbulletin.com/blog/blog-options.png

Wayne Luke

Tue 26th Jun '07, 12:15pm

I have one question to ask, will this be available for 3.5.4?

No. It will require at least 3.6.6 and most likely 3.6.8 as the minimum version.

Razasharp

Tue 26th Jun '07, 1:14pm

Each blogger makes their own categories for their personal blogs. They control who can and cannot view or comment to their personal blog.

Running everything through the permissions system by usergroup based on the categories that bloggers choose would get prohibitive very fast. Admins do have general permissions and can control things like this but not based on blog category but on standard usergroup permissions.

Look at the individual permissions here:
http://images.vbulletin.com/blog/blog-options.png

That's thrown a spanner in the works :(

One of the main purposes of using the vB blog on my games site was where only members of certain clubs (vb groups) can post in those club sections... it's what the forum is based on now, and we were going to carry the same principle over to the site's blog (so eg only people who are members of the PS3 club would be able to comment in the PS3 news blogs). The blogs main use was going to be the site's official blog - we weren't going to offer blogs to our members. I guess I may have to look at drupal blog instead (with the drupaltin module so we can still use vb forums).

It would be great if admin could be higher up in the permissions tree. Especially for those sites who want to run an official blog alongside member blogs - where categories become unlocked for those who are part of the official blog team usergroup.

Unrelated: how about normal vB conditionals, will they work? (eg, if condition = member of, do this, else, do this.)

Wayne Luke

Tue 26th Jun '07, 1:19pm

It uses the same template engine that vBulletin does so everything you can do in the forum software templates, you should be able to do in the blog software templates. For version one, you would probably need some sort of addon for admin specified blog categories. You can control who creates blogs though using standard permissions based on usergroups.

MRGTB

Tue 26th Jun '07, 1:21pm

Yeah, I mean there are plenty things the forum can't do, but there are hacks to make it do it. The same will happen with the Blog to expand it. Coders will be drooling to create add-ons for this

Razasharp

Tue 26th Jun '07, 1:26pm

I'm not fussed on installing 3rd party hacks - that's the whole draw of an official vB blog :)

Milado

Tue 26th Jun '07, 1:56pm

That's thrown a spanner in the works :(

One of the main purposes of using the vB blog on my games site was where only members of certain clubs (vb groups) can post in those club sections... it's what the forum is based on now, and we were going to carry the same principle over to the site's blog (so eg only people who are members of the PS3 club would be able to comment in the PS3 news blogs). The blogs main use was going to be the site's official blog - we weren't going to offer blogs to our members. I guess I may have to look at drupal blog instead (with the drupaltin module so we can still use vb forums).

It would be great if admin could be higher up in the permissions tree. Especially for those sites who want to run an official blog alongside member blogs - where categories become unlocked for those who are part of the official blog team usergroup.

Unrelated: how about normal vB conditionals, will they work? (eg, if condition = member of, do this, else, do this.)
I think you can make what do you want by creating joinable usergroups, then give every usergroup its own permission.

MJM

Tue 26th Jun '07, 3:01pm

In the instance where members have already been using the Forums - AKA - Threads, to create "blog" entries, will a user be able to enter links to Forum Threads in these categories, thereby directing commentary to these forum threads, without using specified Blog categories as the place for commentary?

Essentially an improvement I've been hoping for in the default Forum User Profile, is where users could easily arrange their thread links into folders/subfolders for others to view in a more organized manner, possibly with a main (default) folder/categorization system created by admin, perhaps based on the Forum category structure used ...

---------
Two main things I'm personally concerned about in using the Blog addon.
- Turning a special interest site into an OT social networking venue, causing performance issues, draining staff and other resources.
This is why the forums topical categorization, access to and usage permissions, and management system has been so important for defining the nature of our site.

- Drawing away key contributors at our forums, who prefer to use the Blog addon to enter content and direct commentary to, due to it's more personalized and extensive user Profile formatting etc.
This could adversely affect the 'community' soul and substance that makes our forums the primary place for discussion.

MRGTB

Tue 26th Jun '07, 3:24pm

This was why I touched on the subject of adding a new link to the profile section of members in threads, A link that can be seen and clicked in each forum thread or post a member creates that leads to there blog when clicked, not only would that be good for SEO because search engines follow links and would index members Blogs much easier and faster, but it would also encourage members to make posts on the forums, knowing there is more chance of a person clicking there Blog link in a thread or post they make, than seaching the Blogs or looking at there profile to view there blog.

A bit like image shows that I've attacked, but maybe use a little blog image instead of a text link

Razasharp

Tue 26th Jun '07, 3:30pm

That's a very good point MJM.

On my other site I allow the main blog homepage to be shown by 'topic related' (the topic of the site), non-topic related (all off-topic blogs), and 'All'.

Reason being is that when the blogs take off and get busy, I will 'only' show the topic related ones on the blog homepage, and all off-topic blogs while still can be posted by our users, will be more for the users friends and families to find by going to their blog homepage or subscribing to their blog. Like you said, otherwise we become just an anything and everything site - which will dilute the focus of the site.

I can do this right now as I as admin set the categories that blogs can be placed in.

I think categories and a tagging system will be much better than user categories alone. If this doesn't become an option, that's 3 sites I can't really use the vB blog for :( (and they are my main sites that would use a blog at all).

Razasharp

Tue 26th Jun '07, 3:49pm

Another feature request:

Ability to post in (or mark a blog for) multiple categories

MJM

Tue 26th Jun '07, 4:56pm

Very well said Razasharp!
This is exactly how I've wished for, in concept, of a "marriage" between a forum and blog system.

Onimua

Tue 26th Jun '07, 8:45pm

Razasharp

Fri 29th Jun '07, 12:55pm

Very well said Razasharp!
This is exactly how I've wished for, in concept, of a "marriage" between a forum and blog system.

Glad you think so MJM :D

C'mon everyone else, get posting your requests :)

Reeve of Shinra

Fri 29th Jun '07, 2:03pm

I think this may already be a feature based on the screen shots but...

Group Blog Catagories: Catagories defined by the admin which multiple users can add blog entries under. It would be related to the site and not to be confused with Personal Blog Catagories (emo, I hate my job, my poetry).

Link Posts: Optional Block(s) where threads started by a user in certain forums will appear in a list. For example, on my site we have a specific forum dedicated to writting. The user posts thier work and we critique-- we would want the list of threads they submitted to be displayed on the blog. (could also be accomplished by a plugin as long as the right hooks are in place but I'm worried about the impact a 'search' would have).

Wayne Luke

Fri 29th Jun '07, 2:30pm

C'mon everyone else, get posting your requests :)

I am sure we will get more suggestions when the closed beta starts and people actually get their hands on the software instead of basing suggestions off a few screen shots that don't even show the whole package.

MJM

Fri 29th Jun '07, 3:27pm

The whole point of making suggestions before the beta release is to hope some of the suggestions will find their way into the beta.
Sure, maybe the developers have already implemented some of the suggestions on their own without our input, or maybe our suggestions caused the developers to implement a suggestion for the beta.
Nonetheless making customers feel actively involved in the development process is a good reason for dialogue like this.
And it's kinda cool to make a suggestion and find it in the release. (regardless if your suggestion was the reason or not for it happening)

Also history shows that once the beta is released, many feature requests and functionalities could be a long time coming (months - years)
... or may never happen without custom modifications.

Razasharp

Fri 29th Jun '07, 10:41pm

I agree with MJM - it'd be much better to get the features that people want in now, than have to wait for a revision or two or three. Besides, some of the things posted might be extremely significant, and if omitted could result in poor reception of the product when it's finally released.. hopefully a thread like this might highlight any such issues. (As I think it has re the categories, being able to seperate <site> topic related blogs and off topic ones.)

I know the devs read these threads and I know devs have included things I (and others) have 'requested' in the past, which is why I went to the trouble of posting :)

I'm a big vB fan, and am eager to use the blog system, but I like many have to be let the final say depend on functionality - there are blogs out there that can do the job I want, and I guess I'm just trying to do my bit to get the things I 'need' into the vB blog - so I can use it instead :D

Wayne Luke

Sat 30th Jun '07, 10:48am

Just posting why some people aren't making comments. I am sure we'll get a lot more during beta testing.

Razasharp

Sat 30th Jun '07, 11:51am

Yeah, I think there'll be more postings about it once people get their hands on it.

But if anyone wants to be proactive right now, feel free to post in this thread :D

Ascor

Sat 30th Jun '07, 1:42pm

Multiple levels of blog 'homes'. Generally you'd have a blog home that lists all the latest blogs, then you might have a category home that lists all the latest blogs in that category (then perhaps the same for sub category). Then you'd have a blog home for a particular user, and then a page listing their blogs in specific categories. So my request is to have an option where we can create a 2nd, or 3rd main blog home where we could perhaps only show blogs from certain authors, or, from certain categories - this would make it easier to run an 'official' site blog along side user blogs. (This could actually be very powerful if used with a little thought.)

Good suggestion, i whas asking me ho i can separate members blogs and o.n.g or social and charity blogs, you give the answer, i hop dev's reading your propostion

There be a "Front Page" to vBulletin so that the blogging and forum are sub-sections not the main page.
Administrators have the ability to decide what can be featured on the Front Page. Like a preview of all the latest blogs or forum posts. Or at least allow Administrator to post blogs to Front Page while members maintain seperate blogs on User Profile.
The "Front Page" can be customized seperately from forum.

They are so many people who just use vbadvanced or other portal to have a home for display latest news , threads, members etc.. that i find this is the best suggestion :)
If this com out it's great, for exemple ipb has simple portal who can set up for home, this is "sufficient" for most user.
Now with this new addon whe have a lot more information to display so i thing it's the good time for a "build-in" home

Razasharp

Tue 3rd Jul '07, 3:18pm

Another request:

This ones to do with the enhanced profiles again. I guess it will be another popular request...

Please let us allow users to have their username in the actual URL which they can use to link to (as opposed to their user id number), eg:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/member/razasharp

or

http://www.vbulletin.com/member/razasharp

or

http://www.vbulletin.com/razasharp

Wayne Luke

Tue 3rd Jul '07, 3:30pm

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/member.php?username=razasharp

Reeve of Shinra

Tue 3rd Jul '07, 3:32pm

Now thats interesting...

Wayne Luke

Tue 3rd Jul '07, 3:36pm

Now thats interesting...
Has been in the software since the early versions. Think 1.1.3.

Razasharp

Tue 3rd Jul '07, 3:41pm

lol why didn't I know that! It's not ideal, but still better than not having anything at all.

What happens if a user has a space in their name? I know some browsers automatically add %20 but not all do as far as I remember.

If it is possible though, www.site.com/username would be the most preferred option :)

muf

Tue 3rd Jul '07, 3:50pm

If it is possible though, www.site.com/username (http://www.site.com/username) would be the most preferred option :)

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^users/(.*)$ member.php?username=$1 [L]

www.site.com/users/username (http://www.site.com/users/username) -> www.site.com/member.php?username=username

Razasharp

Tue 3rd Jul '07, 4:08pm

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^users/(.*)$ member.php?username=$1 [L]

www.site.com/users/username (http://www.site.com/users/username) -> www.site.com/member.php?username=username

Thanks Muf :)

Although in all honesty I would prefer not to have to use mod rewrite, I already have loads of lines in my htaccess and am trying to cut down on them lol

Wayne Luke

Tue 3rd Jul '07, 5:19pm

mod_rewrite is the most effective way to handle it.

Razasharp

Tue 3rd Jul '07, 6:19pm

Another feature request:

(Not sure if I mentioned this previously actually, but if not..)

Multiple 'friends' categories

Where users can place friends in a category, admin set - such as: real-life friend, workmate, went to school with, etc etc

Razasharp

Wed 4th Jul '07, 9:44am

Another feature request:

Show more than one image on profile page

Not sure how myspacey vB blog is going to be, but at a mimimum, please please please allow (admins to be able to set) more than one image for the profile - they won't be much of a profile if the users can only have one pic up.

Even better would be to allow a description to go with each picture too :)

Edit: please also keep these profile pics seperate from attachments, in the sense that while 'everyone' may be able to have more than one profile image not everyone will be allowed to post attachments on the forums etc What would be even better is to allow a different number of profile pics per usergroup - so we can offer more to subscribing members etc :)

Assim

Wed 4th Jul '07, 11:07am

Make it cost $25

Floris

Wed 4th Jul '07, 11:16am

Make it cost $25
Availability and pricing is not known yet.

Razasharp

Wed 4th Jul '07, 11:41am

He's not asking how much it is Floris - just putting his request in ;)

Although I would have to disagree with him - good software is hard to find, and if the vB Blog has all the right features I am more than happy to pay a premium for it. I would much rather pay a little extra to get much more :D

Ohiosweetheart

Wed 4th Jul '07, 12:47pm

As long as it comes with an import tool where my members can import their Wordpress blogs into vB Blog, I'll be a happy camper.

Wayne Luke

Wed 4th Jul '07, 1:07pm

As long as it comes with an import tool where my members can import their Wordpress blogs into vB Blog, I'll be a happy camper.
Send in a support ticket attention Jerry for Blog Importers. He is compiling a list by demand.

www.vbulletin.com/go/techsupport/

Lpspider

Wed 4th Jul '07, 1:17pm

I mentioned this in another thread, but I'd love to see RSS feed for individual user's blogs and for "all" blogs. That would be amazing.

Ohiosweetheart

Wed 4th Jul '07, 1:22pm

Send in a support ticket attention Jerry for Blog Importers. He is compiling a list by demand.

www.vbulletin.com/go/techsupport/ (http://www.vbulletin.com/go/techsupport/)

Done. Thanks Wayne.

Wayne Luke

Wed 4th Jul '07, 1:33pm

I mentioned this in another thread, but I'd love to see RSS feed for individual user's blogs and for "all" blogs. That would be amazing.

Its on the todo list.

Lpspider

Wed 4th Jul '07, 1:59pm

Its on the todo list.

Awsome! :cool:

Razasharp

Wed 4th Jul '07, 2:48pm

Another feature request:

More than one profile per member?

This could be a killer feature. If you let members have more than one profile, they could have different themed ones, eg one based on music, one on film, one about them, so a profile for different interests. A bit like multiple accounts, but with one master account, and although the 'options' would be the same, the profiles and related blogs could be different. This may also suit role playing communities, and communities where multiple profiles could come in use - such as for families, or a vehicle related site that would allow one profile per vehicle. Giving these unqie URLs and allowing them to be linked to each others friends list as well, would be spot on :)

Alfa1

Wed 4th Jul '07, 3:07pm

Photoblog.

3dsoft

Wed 4th Jul '07, 3:28pm

I also vote for a gallery like photoblog.

captainslater

Thu 5th Jul '07, 6:48pm

I don't read all the pages, so sorry if this is duplicate:

Private comments - only blog owner will see it
Ability to add own costum (profile) fields like current mood and something like that.
Better seperation forum vs. blog for phrases eg. I read something like 'this thread' - it should be 'this blog' but this is some minor stuff ;)

Alcar

Thu 5th Jul '07, 8:36pm

Very interested in vBulletin Blog, looks spiffy at the moment, can't wait to see the social networking aspect.

One cripe, in the "Recent Entries" / "Recent Comments" tables, currently a user's avatar is being squashed down to 16x16. Have to be honest, it looks terrible. Would it be possible for custom user (16x16) icons?

Alcar...

Doug Nelson

Thu 5th Jul '07, 10:00pm

Sorry if this is already there, or has already been requested, but I'd like some way to restrict blogs and comments to just "senior members" (especially comments, would eliminate spam)

Onimua

Thu 5th Jul '07, 10:02pm

Sorry if this is already there, or has already been requested, but I'd like some way to restrict blogs and comments to just "senior members" (especially comments, would eliminate spam)
It's probably possible using permissions, just like only customers can have access to the blog now.

MJM

Fri 6th Jul '07, 12:53am

I see no option > Blog Category dropdown menu from which to view blogs in a specific category.

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/blog.php

Onimua

Fri 6th Jul '07, 1:03am

I see no option > Blog Category dropdown menu from which to view blogs in a specific category.

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/blog.php
Well, it would be sort of hard to do that since we make our own categories... so if it want by that there would be a huge list of categories.

Though if there were only main topics (like Food/Drink, Miscellaneous, Life, Poetry/Writing for example) and when we make our own categories (say, "Recipes") and we can select which main topics it would relate to, then I supposed that could work.

Wayne Luke

Fri 6th Jul '07, 1:04am

Sorry if this is already there, or has already been requested, but I'd like some way to restrict blogs and comments to just "senior members" (especially comments, would eliminate spam)

You can control who can write to blogs via usergroup permissions as an Admin.

Users can contral who can comment on their blogs on three levels : Buddies, Ignore List, Everyone Else.

MJM

Fri 6th Jul '07, 1:46am

Though if there were only main topics (like Food/Drink, Miscellaneous, Life, Poetry/Writing for example) and when we make our own categories (say, "Recipes") and we can select which main topics it would relate to, then I supposed that could work.

Yes, this was how I was thinking, that admin set the standard for the default category structure, and then maybe users could create their own categories off of these.
It's already becoming mind blogging to sift through one day of blogs.
----

User option - to determine number of blogs shown per page.
Currently 'Find More' only shows 5 entries before going to next page.

Also I'd like to see users Blog Entries: (showing above the thread post) as a link.
I know they can be accessed in the user profile, just thinking of a easier/faster/convenient way of viewing a users blogs while reading thread postings.
... and I'd prefer that the link opened in a new window, keeping position in thread open in original window, though I know others opinions differ regarding whether or not links should open in a new window.

Wayne Luke

Fri 6th Jul '07, 2:24am

kiwilerner

Fri 6th Jul '07, 3:05am

The blog feature looks very interesting, guys. Congrats for the development milestone!

My thoughts and suggestions. I've been using vBlogetin, which is excellent software. Right now, I think it's ahead of what we're seeing here. I know all of your features aren't enabled or 'live' yet, but there are some things that I love about vBlogetin that appear to be missing here.

Ability for blog owners to change layout. In vBlogetin, my users can choose to have a left-hand sidebar, a right-hand sidebar, a top or bottom block, or no blocks at all.
Ability to change blocks in the sidebar(s). I looked in my Blog Options area and I don't see anything regarding changing the content. What if (for some reason) people don't want a calendar block, or if they don't want a block with latest comments? Vblogetin lets me offer my users a selection of different content blocks (e.g. "currently listening to...", calendar, and favorite links).
I like the idea of helping to block spam by using the Akismet thingy, but you offer no explanation of what it does, or what I'm supposed to enter in the text field.
Ability for blog owners to choose to apply a certain board style to their blogs. Ideally blog owners would have colors and fonts they can change via CSS, but I understand that's not part of the feature set right now. vBlogetin doesn't allow that either -- however, it does allow me to upload a variety of styles (even ones I don't offer on my forum as a whole!), and my users can choose one to apply on all their own blog pages. Even though their styles aren't unique, at least they get a variety of designs with which they can express themselves.
Ability to show the newest blog owners and/or latest posts in "What's Going On." (This might already be part of the featureset but not turned on, I dunno.)
A "Blog This Post" link in the forum postbit, which would automatically create a new blog entry with a quote from the specific forum post.That's all I've got right now. So far I like what I see and hope things keep growing, featurewise. Congrats again, vB Team!

ThorstenA

Fri 6th Jul '07, 4:32am

There should be two products Blog Social Networking

And I would pay 4x for the Blog if it would have Tags.
Imagine a forum about cars, there could be Blog Tags for Porsche, BMW, Chrysler in combination with other tags like Buying, Tuning, Repairing.

Grover

Fri 6th Jul '07, 6:59am

MJM

Fri 6th Jul '07, 9:12am

I'll be interested in how admin/mod notification of all blog entries works, if it is similar to the forum system.
One concern about introducing a blog system to our site is the potential for it's nefarious use, and of undermining the performance of our site and overworking management due to the incessant deluge of bloggety goop.

Our site is very subject orientated so we would want the blogs to stay reasonably well within our subject area.
I understand usage is usergroup permission based, but I also see that blogs by nature provide a podium whereas individuals can be much more 'expressive'.
So in this respect, introducing a blog system to our site is like potentially releasing a herd of wild horses, and I would want to be sure that staff moderation capabilities were well designed.

captainslater

Fri 6th Jul '07, 9:40am

Linking to single comment in blog pit like the same as in postbit with single post.

Tigratrus

Fri 6th Jul '07, 12:16pm

Honestly, I think there are a lot of admins out there that just plain don't think Blogs belong in a Forum system as it dilutes your membership's posting effort and can end up sapping some of the sense of community that we work so hard to build. You need to focus on creating *synergy* between blogs and the forum, not building two separate but paralell systems.

One of the major things to consider is how the blogging fragments your membership posting time/effort. You get a lot of members who post things to their blogs, but it never shows up in the search engine results/recent posts so it never really gets seen.

Having blog entries in a separate search pool is a big mistake IMO. If you really want to do that I strongly suggest having a way to tie blog postings to a forum and vs. versa. Vblogetin's "Blog this Post" is a big step in the right direction ( it lets members use their blog as a scapbook to collect useful posts that they come across etc), but the ideal would be the ability to have blog entries be cross posted in a specified forum thread.

Example:

You have a Forum called "Progress Blogs" and each member can start a thread in there, when they add a post in that thread it automatically adds an entry to their Blog (with a category = to the OP title) with a link to that particular post in the thread. That way the Blog system can become a highly useful index to the thread, all entries *are* in the search results, the member is blogging while posting in their thread for all to see. It raises visibility of the blogging system as a whole, allows things like Subject Matter Expert led discussions etc.

Ohiosweetheart

Fri 6th Jul '07, 12:33pm

I suggest to allow users to enter there CSS values, or at least to make the creation of blog styles as easy as possible (different from styling of the forum itself), so we can provide multiple styles to our users, then the blogging system will be more attractive to users to use it, while you give them the ability to customize the appearance.

That's almost exactly what I came over here to ask. Being a vB styles designer, I think it would be wonderful if the blogs can be skinned separate from the forum skin, and users be able to choose from a variety of pre-made skins.

possible?

Ohiosweetheart

Fri 6th Jul '07, 12:35pm

Honestly, I think there are a lot of admins out there that just plain don't think Blogs belong in a Forum system as it dilutes your membership's posting effort and can end up sapping some of the sense of community that we work so hard to build.

Truthfully I don't see that at all. If anything, blogs can be a draw. If your members import their blogs into the vB Blogs on your site, they spend more time there, they can blog and post at the same place, thereby increasing time spent at the forum, and most likely, posting.

Wayne Luke

Fri 6th Jul '07, 12:52pm

Honestly, I think there are a lot of admins out there that just plain don't think Blogs belong in a Forum system as it dilutes your membership's posting effort and can end up sapping some of the sense of community that we work so hard to build. You need to focus on creating *synergy* between blogs and the forum, not building two separate but paralell systems.

I am actually in the process of building a vBulletin powered site where the Blogs will be the focus and the forums will be used as a central community area. Think of a small town. It is made up of neighborhoods with each being its own sub-community. Neighborhoods hang out, drink lemonade and throw block parties. This would be analagous to blogs and the people who participate in the different ones. Then the town holds town meetings, socials, movie nights and so forth to bring all the neighborhoods together for a larger socializing event. This would be analagous to the community forums where everyone participates. I am not going to participate in every blog on a site but will participate in the forums.

What is changing is the entrypoint and focus of the community as a whole and the blog addon facilitates that change in a vBulletin site. Its not just forum communities but mailing lists and other systems as well that are affected. Social Networking works when it is allowed to grow naturally through user contributions and doesn't confine the user. That is the whole point of the Web2.0 paradigm.

Ohiosweetheart

Fri 6th Jul '07, 12:58pm

VERY good analogy Wayne!

captainslater

Fri 6th Jul '07, 12:59pm

The Sims is already available ;) but your concept sounds interesting.

I would be glad to look into this when you're opened your site.

Tigratrus

Fri 6th Jul '07, 1:00pm

::shrug::

I've seen posts saying virtually the same thing (that blogs and forums don't mix well) by quite a few admins, and we have *seen* the same thing over a period of 6 months after introducing Blogs on our site. We have a *lot* of members that generally view the forums almost exclusively via the Recent Posts, if it's not there it's not seen. Keep in mind that the admins that feel this way are not likely to be reading/posting on this thread.

We had a forum that was purely a forum based blog (one thread per member) and we know what the views per day averaged and the views for entries in a blog are way *way* below that. The number of comments posted to blogs is also extremely low compared to the number of responses that we got on the thread based blogging. To be frank, we got a LOT more community involvement and interaction on the Progress Blogs threads than we have ever seen in the Blogs, and given that we have about 8 times the membership we did when we shifted from the Progress Blog Threads to the Blog system it should be entirely the other way around (the growth of our site has been *despite* the change in bloging system, not due to it).

The membership as a whole has been quite "meh" about blogging, even after we added recent blog entries as a right hand sidebar on almost every page on the site. Blogging (as implemented here and in older versions of vblogetin) really doesn't have a lot of synergy with forums as a whole. We've got a few folks that enjoy it, but on the whole the interaction of members following other people's progress on their projects and commenting has dropped off substantially. Building them (blogs and forums) as separate systems is counter productive IMO, and our experience over the last 6 months has only made that more and more clear.

It doesn't have to be that way though... What you need is a way to dynamically tie your forums and blogging together so they create some synergy and give your members capabilities that they *don't* have without the Blogs. See my post above for one way that could be done.

To those that are looking at vBlog as gee-wiz tech that your members will jump on just because it's cool, I suggest you really think through the ramafications. It's quite likely that your members will not feel the same way after the "shiney new" appeal has worn off.

Tigratrus

Fri 6th Jul '07, 1:08pm

I am actually in the process of building a vBulletin powered site where the Blogs will be the focus and the forums will be used as a central community area. Think of a small town. It is made up of neighborhoods with each being its own sub-community. Neighborhoods hang out, drink lemonade and throw block parties. This would be analagous to blogs and the people who participate in the different ones. Then the town holds town meetings, socials, movie nights and so forth to bring all the neighborhoods together for a larger socializing event. This would be analagous to the community forums where everyone participates. I am not going to participate in every blog on a site but will participate in the forums.

What is changing is the entrypoint and focus of the community as a whole and the blog addon facilitates that change in a vBulletin site. Its not just forum communities but mailing lists and other systems as well that are affected. Social Networking works when it is allowed to grow naturally through user contributions and doesn't confine the user. That is the whole point of the Web2.0 paradigm.

Wayne:

It's a valid concept, but we have to also deal with *established* sites/communities that aren't build along those lines. I think limiting your philosophy of blog development to that paradigm would be a mistake. There is a great deal of synergy that can be created by using the Blogs to reinforce and extend the overall capability of the forums, but it's not something that has been developed well to date and I'm sad to say that I don't see it so far in vBlog either.

A very large percentage of vBulletin sites that I've seen have the forums as the heart and sole of the site, and vBlog currently seems to be implemented without really taking that into consideration. I feel that the Blogs and the forums should be part of one integrated system that both add value and a richer experience for the membershiup as a whole. The existing system seems to be along the lines of all the other blog implementations I've seen where you devide your membership into bloggers and non-bloggers and the site as a whole loses a lot of the interactivity between the two.

Floris

Fri 6th Jul '07, 1:16pm

Just a very small thing....

To report a blog entry you use this button :
To report a post you use this button :

Why not put some consistency in the system and use the SAME icon for both? Hint : use the first one, because to be frank the default vBulletin graphics are pretty horrible... (they don't match the overall style at all, the blog graphics are a huge improvement on this matter).
I do not mind that the graphics are changing, but they have to be consistent I agree. I prefer the report and ip icons to be the same throughout the forum. If not only to confuse the end-user or staff members less.

Reeve of Shinra

Fri 6th Jul '07, 1:33pm

Tigratrus: I understand the point your making... how do we translate that into action items? Integrating search results for blogs/forums/third party add-ons would be a great first step... what else?

Wayne Luke

Fri 6th Jul '07, 1:49pm

Wayne:

It's a valid concept, but we have to also deal with *established* sites/communities that aren't build along those lines. I think limiting your philosophy of blog development to that paradigm would be a mistake. There is a great deal of synergy that can be created by using the Blogs to reinforce and extend the overall capability of the forums, but it's not something that has been developed well to date and I'm sad to say that I don't see it so far in vBlog either.

A very large percentage of vBulletin sites that I've seen have the forums as the heart and sole of the site, and vBlog currently seems to be implemented without really taking that into consideration. I feel that the Blogs and the forums should be part of one integrated system that both add value and a richer experience for the membershiup as a whole. The existing system seems to be along the lines of all the other blog implementations I've seen where you devide your membership into bloggers and non-bloggers and the site as a whole loses a lot of the interactivity between the two.
This is something that each community will have to struggle with. What works on one site might not work on another. It will be tough at the beginning but as time goes on, you will see new features, addons and other gizmos to further integrate all of this into the user's life.

Let's take a look at MySpace... I know everyone hates myspace but look at how they work. You don't enter the site through the blogs or forum, you enter it through your profile which is a community control center. You can chat with friends via private messaging add new friends, add blog entries etc. The key is it is centered around the user, not the site. I believe that is the key going forward and giving users different venues to express themselves benefits not only them but you.

However each site will be different. There are hundreds of different models out there. It will take market research for the site owner to find out what models fit his site and userbase.

Grover

Fri 6th Jul '07, 1:52pm

That's almost exactly what I came over here to ask. Being a vB styles designer, I think it would be wonderful if the blogs can be skinned separate from the forum skin, and users be able to choose from a variety of pre-made skins.

possible?

Yes, a blog is a personal weblog for a reason...;)

So I agree, a user should definately have the ability to choose from a variety of pre/made skins. It will make a blog more personal. In fact, it would be even more nice if they could change the appearance of the blog themselves (adding backgrounds, colours and stuff) next to picking pre-made skins.

Floris

Fri 6th Jul '07, 1:52pm

Grover

Fri 6th Jul '07, 1:56pm

I do not mind that the graphics are changing, but they have to be consistent I agree. I prefer the report and ip icons to be the same throughout the forum. If not only to confuse the end-user or staff members less.

Yup, thanks for supporting this Floris! If only you were a developer...:)

Floris

Fri 6th Jul '07, 2:00pm

If I were a developer the quality of this product would be quite poor. hehe

Grover

Fri 6th Jul '07, 2:03pm

Grover, go check out virb.com and once logged in go to customize your profile. Do you perhaps think something like that is interesting to see in some kind of shape/form for the blog here? (I am talking about their basic customization where users can click on colors for certain tags)

I took a look : I haven't registered there but I did look through some user profile pages and I guess this is indeed what I mean. Users having different background-colours, different backgroud images, different text-colours and stuff. Yes, I believe things like these make a blog more personal. I am convinced that people are more eager to use a blog system on my site if they 'can make it their own'.

Floris

Fri 6th Jul '07, 2:15pm

Razasharp

Fri 6th Jul '07, 2:30pm

Interesting discussion.

If people want a blog, they're likely to go to one of the main blog sites - because they are more fully featured, and to be truthful, look better.. so will be more appealing to the average person on the street.

Blogs being added to forums I feel, are a different kettle of fish - unless your site is topic-less, or rather for anything and everything.

People generally use blogs for general musings - some of the blog entries may be about your sites topic, and some may not. But from a 'topic related' site's point of view, you will want to be able to categorise everyone's blog entries so they are archived in a way that is accessible to all, and in a more control-able form.

So, by categorising them, you have control over which show where - eg, if you were getting too many off-topic blogs, you can choose to show just the topic related ones on the main blog homepage and simply link to the page of all the off-topic ones. You could have a listing for x, y, and z topics. This makes it much more useful to a topic orientated site.

Also, by having blog posts appear in the latest posts search keeps their activity going as many people use that feature whilst on a forum, but again, being able to control which type of blogs appear in the list will prove useful.

Tags would be a help and to be honest I see as a bear minimum for the vB Blog. Admin specified categories would be better tho - but even better would be both, tags and categories.

Tigratrus

Fri 6th Jul '07, 3:03pm

Tigratrus: I understand the point your making... how do we translate that into action items? Integrating search results for blogs/forums/third party add-ons would be a great first step... what else?

That's a big first step. The other key areas that I would focus on are:

1. Adding functionality that provides an icon on every post that a member can click to copy the entirety of that post into their blog with either a default category, or force the member to select a category (option set in the ACP to determine how it's handled) and with a link back to the post/thread provided in the blog entry. This allow the member to use the blogging system as a scrapbook if you will, a way to quickly and easily grab and save useful posts/thread for later use and info.

2. Add the ability to automatically create entries in blogs for every post that the Original Poster makes within an admin specified forum. The category the entry is created under should be the same as the Forum Name itself or possibly the Thread title. This would allow a totally integration of forum and Blog for a *useful* value added feature that would draw forum readers into the bloging system and bloggers into the forum system, but not require that they choose one *or* the other if they want to participate. The OP's blog would then become a highly useful index to their posts within the thread. This would be useful for something such as a progress blog, or for OP led discussions or any number of things. Again, it's using the blog system to provide a value added experience for the member, not just a totally separate system to post things where fewer people will read them and even less comment.

The key phrase here is: "Value added" We want the blog system to enrich the forum experience, not provide an alternative to it, therein lies the path to community fragmentation and loss of focus.

This is something that each community will have to struggle with. What works on one site might not work on another. It will be tough at the beginning but as time goes on, you will see new features, addons and other gizmos to further integrate all of this into the user's life.

Let's take a look at MySpace... I know everyone hates myspace but look at how they work. You don't enter the site through the blogs or forum, you enter it through your profile which is a community control center. You can chat with friends via private messaging add new friends, add blog entries etc. The key is it is centered around the user, not the site. I believe that is the key going forward and giving users different venues to express themselves benefits not only them but you.

However each site will be different. There are hundreds of different models out there. It will take market research for the site owner to find out what models fit his site and userbase.

I have to respectfully disagree. Don't look at MySpace, that's not your market segment at all. Or at least building towards something like that ignores a *very* vital and important part of your existing userbase. vBulletin is the 800 lb gorrilla in the Forum arena. THAT is your core business, and THAT is what you should be leveraging to make your Blog system better and more useful than anyone else.

vBulletin is used by and for building *communities*, *NOT* for providing individual virtual spaces. By focusing on the individual blogging model that you're talking about you lose the focus on the community and seem to be trying to move to something else entirely, something that's not community based. Each member has a finite amount of time that they are willing to spend posting and writing up expereiences etc. By segmenting that posting effort into tiny little stove pipes you isolate them from everyone else and run a very real risk of losing the critical mass needed to maintain a really vital community.

vBlog has a real potential to trailblaze a vital, exciting new area of blog ENABLED forums where both the blogs and the forums make each other richer and more useful/rewarding for the member, but at the moment it's looking more like Forums with a blog system running alongside it. No real value added to the forum experience at all.

And if it doesn't make the *Forums* better, what's the point? If I just wanted to add a blog system to my site I could use a much more feature rich, robust system that does just blogs specifically. What Jelsoft brings to the table is the ability to really leverage their forums expertise to make a combined product that is greater than the sum of it's parts. And THAT's what would make me and probably a lot of other site admins that haven't posted on any of these threads buy vBlog.

Our site is based on the Forums, that's what makes everything work, that's what makes the community strong and interactive. A totally separate blog system does not provide a major benefit there, and can in fact be a detriment.

At the moment vBlog is looking a lot like Vblogetin (very) lite. And I wouldn't count *too* much on the mod community to fill in the holes. Given Jelsoft's declared intention to move in this direction the talented developers that create the most useful mods and sell them commercially, aren't likely to spend much time working on a mod that will be made obsolete when Jelsoft simply adds that feature to their next version. Looks like vBlogetin is already sunk... How many other independant developers are going to be interested in following in their footsteps? ::shrug::

Grover

Fri 6th Jul '07, 3:10pm

Ok, well, if you go to your basic layout customization you get a bunch of popups and input fields you can quickly customize like in the main css of vbulletin. on the right you get a 90% matching preview of the page.

This works great, and still does not have an effect on the overall design.

upload as attachment failed for some reason, so here it is

http://www.fortehwin.org/virb-1.jpg

colors are a bit off because i already use their advanced editor. but you get the idea.

Thanks for posting the screenshot Floris.

Yes, something like this is what I had in mind indeed. Just like we can control some colours and CSS stuff in our ACP, our members should be able to change the appearance of their personal blog as well through their Blog Options.

Wayne Luke

Fri 6th Jul '07, 3:39pm

Our site is based on the Forums, that's what makes everything work, that's what makes the community strong and interactive. A totally separate blog system does not provide a major benefit there, and can in fact be a detriment.

Like I said there are 100 different models out there and you will need to find what works for you. The site I will be using the product on will be centered around the blogs. I have been waiting specifically for this addon to implement it. The forums will be secondary to that. In that respect for my site, MySpace is the competition.

I am not saying the blog is the answer to everyone's needs. It will be the answer for many though because it is one of the most frequently requested addon features on this site. It will still be up to individual admins to implement it in a way to benefit their community. vBulletin and the addons are the engine. Admins provide the implementation.

Right now you're talking all theoretics. Give us ideas on solutions that fit your needs and maybe they can be integrated. Otherwise, we're just trying to read minds and that doesn't work very well. Your suggestion the previous post might work for some but it is getting lost on the continued theoretical. This is why compendium threads like this very rarely see ideas implemented. There is simply too much to process and it all gets lost.

Lizard King

Fri 6th Jul '07, 3:41pm

Thanks for posting the screenshot Floris.

Yes, something like this is what I had in mind indeed. Just like we can control some colours and CSS stuff in our ACP, our members should be able to change the appearance of their personal blog as well through their Blog Options.
I think a similar modification has been released at vb.org couple month ago. Here it is http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=138793 Probably something similar to this can be easily modified to work with vb blog.

Ohiosweetheart

Fri 6th Jul '07, 3:45pm

Yes, a blog is a personal weblog for a reason...;)

So I agree, a user should definately have the ability to choose from a variety of pre/made skins. It will make a blog more personal. In fact, it would be even more nice if they could change the appearance of the blog themselves (adding backgrounds, colours and stuff) next to picking pre-made skins.Exactly!

Grover, go check out virb.com and once logged in go to customize your profile. Do you perhaps think something like that is interesting to see in some kind of shape/form for the blog here? (I am talking about their basic customization where users can click on colors for certain tags)

Yup, thanks for supporting this Floris! If only you were a developer...:)

I took a look : I haven't registered there but I did look through some user profile pages and I guess this is indeed what I mean. Users having different background-colours, different backgroud images, different text-colours and stuff. Yes, I believe things like these make a blog more personal. I am convinced that people are more eager to use a blog system on my site if they 'can make it their own'.
Yeah I like that, too. Thanks Floris.

Ohiosweetheart

Fri 6th Jul '07, 3:47pm

I think a similar modification has been released at vb.org couple month ago. Here it is http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=138793 Probably something similar to this can be easily modified to work with vb blog.
Wow, I never saw that LK. That would be awesome.

Tigratrus

Fri 6th Jul '07, 4:21pm

Like I said there are 100 different models out there and you will need to find what works for you. The site I will be using the product on will be centered around the blogs. I have been waiting specifically for this addon to implement it. The forums will be secondary to that. In that respect for my site, MySpace is the competition.

I am not saying the blog is the answer to everyone's needs. It will be the answer for many though because it is one of the most frequently requested addon features on this site. It will still be up to individual admins to implement it in a way to benefit their community. vBulletin and the addons are the engine. Admins provide the implementation.

Right now you're talking all theoretics. Give us ideas on solutions that fit your needs and maybe they can be integrated. Otherwise, we're just trying to read minds and that doesn't work very well. Your suggestion the previous post might work for some but it is getting lost on the continued theoretical. This is why compendium threads like this very rarely see ideas implemented. There is simply too much to process and it all gets lost.

Than I shall repeat what I said in the post above ;-) :

Quote:
Originally Posted by Reeve of Shinra
Tigratrus: I understand the point your making... how do we translate that into action items? Integrating search results for blogs/forums/third party add-ons would be a great first step... what else?

That's a big first step. The other key areas that I would focus on are:

1. Adding functionality that provides an icon on every post that a member can click to copy the entirety of that post into their blog with either a default category, or force the member to select a category (option set in the ACP to determine how it's handled) and with a link back to the post/thread provided in the blog entry. This allow the member to use the blogging system as a scrapbook if you will, a way to quickly and easily grab and save useful posts/thread for later use and info.

2. Add the ability to automatically create entries in blogs for every post that the Original Poster makes within an admin specified forum. The category the entry is created under should be the same as the Forum Name itself or possibly the Thread title. This would allow a totally integration of forum and Blog for a *useful* value added feature that would draw forum readers into the bloging system and bloggers into the forum system, but not require that they choose one *or* the other if they want to participate. The OP's blog would then become a highly useful index to their posts within the thread. This would be useful for something such as a progress blog, or for OP led discussions or any number of things. Again, it's using the blog system to provide a value added experience for the member, not just a totally separate system to post things where fewer people will read them and even less comment.

The key phrase here is: "Value added" We want the blog system to enrich the forum experience, not provide an alternative to it, therein lies the path to community fragmentation and loss of focus.

Hopefully that's specific enough to be useful?

Honestly, I think that Blogs can be a hugely useful part of a forum based site, but I'm disappointed to see a lack of emphasis in how the Blogs can make the forums better and a focus on them as a parallel system. MySpace may be what you *personally* are competing against, but I imagine a lot of the vBulletin customers are somewhat more focused on the Forums, and I'd expected a Blog system developed by Jelsoft to leverage the Forum integration.

At the moment I'm currently praying that vBlogetin is resurrected, competition is good for innovation, and Adrian and Cheesegrits were doing many things right, vBlogetin was/is a good product and feature wise was several iterations past what we're seeing of vBlog so far. That's only fair as they worked on it a lot longer though eh?;).

I hope vBlog proves to be more than it's looking like now, would you like me to split off to a Blog/Forum integration thread instead of leaving posts in here? If that has a better chance of being seen that's fine by me...

Lizard King

Fri 6th Jul '07, 6:39pm

Sorry Tigratus but i disagree with you. I have vblogetin live on my board for more then 3-4 month and it never slowed down any posting on my boards. On the other hand blogs had tons of positive effects on my board. Blogs even helped us to keep the quality on one of our literature sections. As users have full power on their blogs they can now use them as their personal homepages and if they find a funny thing and that thread has no section on the boards they use their own blogs to post.

Each forum has different structure. I know your board and i can see your point but there are tons of other boards who can use blogs as perfect additions. I also had a plan to build a social network site on vBulletin structure and use forums with a very different aspect.

I also hope vBlogetin will be resurrected but i think i will switch from vblogetin to vb blog the day it is released. There are couple reasons for that and the main reason vblogetin is not optimised on the level i am looking. Also the development speed dissapoints me a lot because each other day my blogs are groving and i don't want to build everything on a product which i have no idea what will be. But i still wish Adrian and Hugh start working on vblogetin again and have a good competiton with vb blog system. Because competition always brings good quality products.

Dream

Fri 6th Jul '07, 9:24pm

Total/monthly/daily views of blogs and entries.

Dream

Fri 6th Jul '07, 9:42pm

1. Adding functionality that provides an icon on every post that a member can click to copy the entirety of that post into their blog with either a default category, or force the member to select a category (option set in the ACP to determine how it's handled) and with a link back to the post/thread provided in the blog entry. This allow the member to use the blogging system as a scrapbook if you will, a way to quickly and easily grab and save useful posts/thread for later use and info.

2. Add the ability to automatically create entries in blogs for every post that the Original Poster makes within an admin specified forum. The category the entry is created under should be the same as the Forum Name itself or possibly the Thread title. This would allow a totally integration of forum and Blog for a *useful* value added feature that would draw forum readers into the bloging system and bloggers into the forum system, but not require that they choose one *or* the other if they want to participate. The OP's blog would then become a highly useful index to their posts within the thread. This would be useful for something such as a progress blog, or for OP led discussions or any number of things. Again, it's using the blog system to provide a value added experience for the member, not just a totally separate system to post things where fewer people will read them and even less comment.

I have to disagree with this. The Blogs are not designed to be a scrapbook. And creating a blog entry when creating a thread would create unnecessary double content. Not sure where you see the benefit of both of them.

Blogs are Blogs, they are not designed to make the Forum better. They are an alternative for the user to express himself. The Blogs do not steal members from the Forums, it actually gives them something to talk about and show off for the other members. I can't see for the sake of me how Blogs can steal members from the Forum, unless they use the Forums as a Blog. If that's the case, you have two options: implement the Blogs and have the users use the real thing, or decide the current system works better for you (generates more discussions) and not use it. I can't really see any other options.

Doug Nelson

Fri 6th Jul '07, 9:57pm

There needs to be a way to change placement and size of attachment thumbnails. Blogs frequently use several images, of different sizes, throughout the text. The single-size attachment thumbnail is too small and the current placement mechanism is too cumbersome.

IOW, we need fullsized inline images, with option of any size thumbnail (if image is larger than we want inline).

Also, separate blog attachment permissions from forum, in case we don't want guests accessing forum attachments but do want guests accessing blog attachments.

kafi

Sat 7th Jul '07, 6:36am

I second attachments features as Doug posted.

Categories feature!

I see that each blog has ability to create its own categories, but how to filter those blog entries by categories?
Lets say I only want to check tech categories and I am not interested in other blogs. How do I filter them?
There should be overall category system I think.
Thanks

Michelle

Sat 7th Jul '07, 8:14am

K4L

Sat 7th Jul '07, 8:55am

Ability for the user to customize not only the CSS but the complete templates that appear in his blog AND the CSS, like in blogger. Nobody will want to have a blog with a predefined style that's the same for every other blog in the site and that he can't change it at all.
Ability for a single user to have multiple blogs
Ability for a lot of users to write to the same blog
Tags
My links section (shouldn't be a special feature if 1. is fullfilled) like in Blogger
Autosave every x seconds when writing a new blog post (like in blogger)
User categories displayed in the sidebar
Ability to name the blog and that name will be in the blog's url (it can then be made someting like blogname.domain.com via apache if the admin wants)
Recent blogs on the homepage
Ability to select more than 1 blog post as featuredNo thanks!!! Most of them can be hacks but not in default blog plz!
3, would b nice.
6, mayb

Tackbacks? yes.

Doug Nelson

Sat 7th Jul '07, 9:12am

Some sort of an API so 3rd-party developers can make browser plugins to assist in posting (such as google's "blog this" button).

Ohiosweetheart

Sat 7th Jul '07, 10:43am

Features that I believe are a MUST for a blog system, and vBlog will never be competitive without them:

Ability for the user to customize not only the CSS but the complete templates that appear in his blog AND the CSS, like in blogger. Nobody will want to have a blog with a predefined style that's the same for every other blog in the site and that he can't change it at all.
Ability for a single user to have multiple blogs
Ability for a lot of users to write to the same blog
Tags
My links section (shouldn't be a special feature if 1. is fullfilled) like in Blogger
Autosave every x seconds when writing a new blog post (like in blogger)
User categories displayed in the sidebar
Ability to name the blog and that name will be in the blog's url (it can then be made someting like blogname.domain.com via apache if the admin wants)
Recent blogs on the homepage
Ability to select more than 1 blog post as featuredand a lot more in fact. Take a look at Blogger and Wordpress again and try to make this product competitive. Try to give your clients a reason besides vb integration to use this. If an admin wants his blog section to be equally important for the site as the forum does, vb integration is not a good enough reason to prefer this over Wordpress MU... :(
I hope this to be a lot better when its released, it has the potential, even if the price has to be a lot more.
We prefer a better product even if its more expensive!!

I don't feel that all of these are needed to be competitive. However some of them are needed to entice our forum members to move their blogs from Wordpress (and others) to our forum blogs.

#1 I would at the very least, like for our users to have the ability to choose from a list of premade skins. And I would like to have to option to design premade skins for my members to choose from. Yahoo 360 does this and it's quite popular.

#3 would be nice.

#4 would be great.

#'s 5 and 7 ARE an absolute must.

#9 would be great.

We want to be able to entice our members who have Wordpress, or some other outside blog script, to move their blogs to our forum and vBlog.

We have to have more to work with for this to happen. I LOVE the blog the way it is now, don't get me wrong, because I see alot of potential for it. But I probably would not purchase it, as is, for the simple fact that there's nothing there (yet) to entice my members to move from their current blog script to this one.

Floris

Sat 7th Jul '07, 11:01am

Moduler sidebar where I can choose my order, and add custom blocks. This way I can include my twitter status, or use facebook API, or have my xbox live card.

Another feature I'd love to see is a little input box where I can enter a forum username, to find that person's blog quickly.

Also, it would be great to have a vb options for styles, where I can change the my_blog_tcat, my_blog_thead, my_blog_tfoot my_blog_alt1 and my_blog_alt2 to get a more unique design for my blog page.

It would also be great if throughout the forum and especially the blog there's support for inline flash from a preset list of urls.

MJM

Sat 7th Jul '07, 11:37am

I have to disagree with this. The Blogs are not designed to be a scrapbook. And creating a blog entry when creating a thread would create unnecessary double content. Not sure where you see the benefit of both of them.

Blogs are Blogs, they are not designed to make the Forum better. They are an alternative for the user to express himself. The Blogs do not steal members from the Forums, it actually gives them something to talk about and show off for the other members. I can't see for the sake of me how Blogs can steal members from the Forum, unless they use the Forums as a Blog. If that's the case, you have two options: implement the Blogs and have the users use the real thing, or decide the current system works better for you (generates more discussions) and not use it. I can't really see any other options.

In all honesty, what's the difference between a Blog Topic and a Thread Topic?
A Blog Topic can become a Thread and a Thread can begin as someone's Blog.

Blog entries and Thread Topics are not distinctly separate methods of expression, it's just the methodology of coding and structuring provided that has made Blog and threads disctinctly separate entities.

Now I'm sure this type of separate Blog addon is appealing to some, as it has similarities to what is already out there.

But I'm sorry, I'm not jumping up and down with joy. I find vBlog difficult to navigate and quite dysfunctional. Obviously it will improve over time.

Meanwhile I will hold out for the time being and await for the real spark of ingenuity, when a unique and truly integrated 'Blog/Profile system becomes part of the forum software.

For example, imagine how nice it would be if a user could place (links to) their Forum Threads into organized/categorized folders in their Profile area.
Why should a users Blogs have a higher precedence and be able to be presented better than the 'Blog' Threads that they have created at the forums.
Imagine if all the functionalities currently in this Blog addon were integrated into the current users profile!

I think it's time to begin a separate 'vB Profile feature request thread' so we can begin to ignite a spark of imagination into the minds of the developers to provide those who are interested with an alternative but fully integrated community blog/profile solution.

Wayne Luke

Sat 7th Jul '07, 11:43am

It would also be great if throughout the forum and especially the blog there's support for inline flash from a preset list of urls.

Telling you, AME is the way to go. I pronounce it "Amy" because she is a sexy and cool mod. If there was ever a plugin/product that should be integrated into the system it is AME. No need for bbcodes to be used by the user. Just paste in a youtube URL and it does the replacement.

It supports pulling in new services via XML as well so you can keep up with the ever changing landscape of embedded media. Even supports non-video media so you can let your users embed music from other sites or links from Amazon.com and spiff them up.

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=150863

Wayne Luke

Sat 7th Jul '07, 11:45am

MJM

Sun 8th Jul '07, 12:47am

You haven't even the Social Networking part yet which pretty much centers around the user profile.

I will delight in eating my words if I find this blog addon truly integrates well with the forum software.

The word I would like to highlight in your comment is - centers

The focus of many site owners sites centers around the forum and the structure we have created for users to express themselves.
A user can currently , by being a Thread starter, post a 'blog' entry into a forum that we have designated for a particular field or subject representing our community's interests.
In this respect, at our site, we have never had any members clamoring for a blog. They can already blog to their hearts content in our forums.

What they want is a better profile interface and ability to create a web portfolio about themselves that they would be proud to link others to,
- the ability to organize their forum based 'blog' entries in a better way then the current 'See all users posts or threads'.
- ability to choose who can see what in their profile, easily subscribe to their entries etc etc, all based, naturally, on user/group and forum access permissions that we have set up for them within our forums.
- etc etc

It's been said many times over that the vB user profile system is very rudimentary and has seen little development over the years.
I have no objections if vb was to provide an advanced profile system as an addon, giving others the option to continue to use the out of the box Lite version.

I guess that my objection is that the new independently functioning Blog system took precedence over the current users vb profile, and what I consider to be a crucial component for attracting users and visitors to use our forums as the center for their personal and community (subject related) interests.

I still think that if the Profile improvement issues had been addressd first, that the forum blog entries (or call them diaries, journal, articles or whatever) component, and the ability to reference to them etc etc would have naturally surfaced.

Wayne, you have mentioned that you are looking into a starting a site in which the center of focus will be around this Blog addon. Cool. And I know others may want to use the Blog addon as a means of separating the content posted at the forums. Cool.

But I am challenging the developers to provide us with a user profile blog/thread organization system that is truly integrated within the community forum structure that we have spent years cultivating.

Michelle

Sun 8th Jul '07, 2:04am

I don't feel that all of these are needed to be competitive. However some of them are needed to entice our forum members to move their blogs from Wordpress (and others) to our forum blogs.

This is what I mean by "competitive". It should have features that will make both the admin (that will buy it) and the end user, prefer it over Wordpress or Blogger. Corrently the only advantage for the admin is the vb seamless integration (that's quite tempting, but just not enough by itself) and NOTHING for the end user!
Perhaps the misunderstanding about "competitive" is caused because english is not my native language.:o

#1 I would at the very least, like for our users to have the ability to choose from a list of premade skins. And I would like to have to option to design premade skins for my members to choose from. Yahoo 360 does this and it's quite popular.

I didn't say that premade skins are bad, even Blogger has a lot and they are really nice! However, in Blogger the user can make his own theme as well, or at the very least, customize a few spots, add blog-addons and stuff. Users, and especially bloggers don't like to be restricted. If they can't do with their blog what their friend who uses Blogger can, they will simply leave and go to Blogger as well. Not to even mention about moving their blog from Blogger to our site, when pigs fly!

We want to be able to entice our members who have Wordpress, or some other outside blog script, to move their blogs to our forum and vBlog.

We have to have more to work with for this to happen. I LOVE the blog the way it is now, don't get me wrong, because I see alot of potential for it. But I probably would not purchase it, as is, for the simple fact that there's nothing there (yet) to entice my members to move from their current blog script to this one.

Totally, 100% agreed! These are exactly my thoughts!

I'd really want to see this become really GOOD. I'd hate it to be "forced" to use Wordpress MU, just because its the best out there (and pay a coder to do the integration) :(

Grover

Sun 8th Jul '07, 7:33am

I think it's time to begin a separate 'vB Profile feature request thread' so we can begin to ignite a spark of imagination into the minds of the developers to provide those who are interested with an alternative but fully integrated community blog/profile solution.

Well... feel free to add your sparks to this thread : Improvements for the User Profile Field System (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=179108)

I started this a long time ago and some of the suggestions (unfortunately mainly the ´minor´ suggestions) overthere were implemented in vBulletin. I am very curious to find out what the developers did with the upcoming Social Networking Functionality.

Anti-blank

Sun 8th Jul '07, 8:10am

Requested Feature:

1. Ability to mark an individual blog post as 'friends only'.

Right now the function exists only on the whole blog level that I can find. But sometimes when I make a post I'd like to set it so only people on my buddy list can see the entry. But that doesn't mean I want every post in the blog to function that way.

2. Continue the "View a Random Blog Entry (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/blog.php?do=random)" through each Options block regardless of the page.

Right now on the main Blog page you have this link option to click. Nice feature, but once it takes me to the random blogger's page I then have to return back to the main Blog page to use the link again. To really enjoy the feature the link should be found in the options block on each blog page.

Sychev_S

Sun 8th Jul '07, 11:44am

I have posted these in the announcement thread. Thought they would quicker get noticed on here.

Here is a few important (imo) suggestions for SN part of the product:

- A simple Photo Gallery within a user's profile where users can comment on each other's photos.

- Option to completely get rid of the avatars and use profile pictures (normal and small size for blog, postbits etc...ie replacing avatars with smaller images of profile pics). I think this is crucial for Social Networking. I already have this implemented on my site, thanks to custom coding :)

- Enhanced online.php page, where members can be sorted by their profile field input (gender/city/country from etc).

criscokid

Sun 8th Jul '07, 12:18pm

The ability to install vB Blog in a site's root directory so if a admin wanted they'd have
/forum and /blog rather than /forum/blog

MJM

Sun 8th Jul '07, 12:38pm

Well... feel free to add your sparks to this thread : Improvements for the User Profile Field System (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=179108)
Great! Thanks Grover. I will check it out and add some suggestions soon.

Meanwhile a final ponder on the profile puzzle concerning this addon, as it either has the potential of providing solutions or adversely creating complications in the way in which the current vB profile interface and the Blog addon interface are presented.

(A disclaimer here on behalf of vb as we are still at the pre-beta phase)

Here we have a users profile page:
Caution: Put on your sunglasses or better still, protective welders visors before going to this link.
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/member.php?u=1034
(The Blog link here does not work as a link (yet) )

And here is the link to the users Blog page
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/blog.php?u=1034

So, what I'm addressing here is that a users profile, interests and postings are now split into two places.
If a user has not posted anything in the blog section, they do not have information profiled there.
If a user has posted into the Blog section they have limited profile information there and their other profile info is at the User Profile page

It will be interesting to see how these two profile places evolve when the sns is ready.

As I've already said, we also consider certain thread starters postings that a user has placed at the forums to be 'blog entries', just as we may consider Blog entries to have the same calibar as a thread postings.

Whether the 2 shall meet and whether a user can succinctly organize their forum/thread based and blog based blogs for the convienence of the reader is yet to be seen.

Most of all, I am hoping that the site admin can create the basic infrastructure for categories/folders which the user can build upon, more than likely something based on the likeness of a forums (parent category) structure.
With all this stuff happening all over the place it is crucial that a site admin infuse some resemblence of order within the sites structure lest our users be stricken with bloggers blyte. ;)
A computer related Blight ...
- To affect with blight; to blast; to prevent the growth and fertility of. "[This vapor] blasts vegetables, blights corn and fruit, and is sometimes injurious even to man." (Woodward)

- Hence: To destroy the happiness of; to ruin; to mar essentially; to frustrate; as, to blight one's prospects. "Seared in heart and lone and blighted." (Byron)

- That which frustrates one's plans or withers one's hopes; that which impairs or destroys. "A blight seemed to have fallen over our fortunes." (Disraeli)

induslady

Sun 8th Jul '07, 1:45pm

The current blog has allowed the users to define their own categories. This is going to result in millions of categories with no coherent way for a reader to group them across bloggers.

For a reader, they want to find the blogs in say "technology" or "recipe" category. In order to do so, the category should be defined at the admin level and individual bloggers can chose which category they want to publish their blog entry against. Bloggers can chose multiple categories (with a max of 3, say) so that there is some flexibility for them.

This will enable some coherent grouping and orderliness of the blogs.

Reeve of Shinra

Mon 9th Jul '07, 11:26am

2. Add the ability to automatically create entries in blogs for every post that the Original Poster makes within an admin specified forum. The category the entry is created under should be the same as the Forum Name itself or possibly the Thread title. This would allow a totally integration of forum and Blog for a *useful* value added feature that would draw forum readers into the bloging system and bloggers into the forum system, but not require that they choose one *or* the other if they want to participate. The OP's blog would then become a highly useful index to their posts within the thread. This would be useful for something such as a progress blog, or for OP led discussions or any number of things. Again, it's using the blog system to provide a value added experience for the member, not just a totally separate system to post things where fewer people will read them and even less comment.

I have a forum that caters to our writers, each new thread is a work that they have posted for commentary. I am planning on adding a small block to the users blog that will show the threads they submitted in that forum. This will automatically capture past works and future works and it will eleiminate having the same content posted twice in the database and keep comments/replies focused in one area instead of two.

Sychev_S

Mon 9th Jul '07, 11:43am

Oh yeah and another feature for SN part.
Required Profile Picture Upload on Registration! (with the option to enable or disable it) I am getting tired of all of these empty profiles on my site (I am sure others will agree with me too) Plus it might also prevent spam bots registering.

Ohiosweetheart

Mon 9th Jul '07, 12:54pm

Do you really think your members should be required to upload a profile pic?

ThorstenA

Mon 9th Jul '07, 4:25pm

Blog categories. I'd like to have the admin / moderator create categories for all users. or users should be able to use categories from other users.

Ohiosweetheart

Mon 9th Jul '07, 4:39pm

You're talking about the categories that their blog will be listed under, right?

Sychev_S

Mon 9th Jul '07, 7:34pm

Do you really think your members should be required to upload a profile pic?
I would not have mentioned it if I did not think so. :)

ThorstenA

Mon 9th Jul '07, 7:51pm

South Fork

Mon 9th Jul '07, 8:52pm

Ohiosweetheart

Mon 9th Jul '07, 9:56pm

I would not have mentioned it if I did not think so. :)
No kidding :rolleyes:

I would never require my members to upload a picture either profile or avatar. That should be their choice, imo.

Sychev_S

Mon 9th Jul '07, 11:24pm

No kidding :rolleyes:

I would never require my members to upload a picture either profile or avatar. That should be their choice, imo.
That's probably because you have a website with a different goal.
My web site is mostly based on profiles (ie social networking) rathen than forums. Profile pictures is a crucial part of my website.

Razasharp

Mon 9th Jul '07, 11:32pm

Hi All

Thought it best to keep Suggested Changes, Feedback and Questions in a seperate thread as this thread was started before the blog was made live here (I wasn't expecting it to make an appearance so soon!!).

It might actually be better if this thread is closed and the new one used, so long as we stick to labelling what we are posting. Will leave that decision up to the mods tho.

Here it is:

vBulletin Blog: Suggested Changes, Feedback and Questions Thread (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=236002)

Ohiosweetheart

Tue 10th Jul '07, 2:53am

That's probably because you have a website with a different goal.
My web site is mostly based on profiles (ie social networking) rathen than forums. Profile pictures is a crucial part of my website.
I have 3 different sites, one being a community site (i.e. getting-to-know you, talk about anything type of site).
I can see where this would be useful for you. As long as there is an option to disable this requirement, it's good. :)

The current blog has allowed the users to define their own categories. This is going to result in millions of categories with no coherent way for a reader to group them across bloggers.

For a reader, they want to find the blogs in say "technology" or "recipe" category. In order to do so, the category should be defined at the admin level and individual bloggers can chose which category they want to publish their blog entry against. Bloggers can chose multiple categories (with a max of 3, say) so that there is some flexibility for them.

This will enable some coherent grouping and orderliness of the blogs.Excellent idea!

Jose Amaral Rego

Tue 10th Jul '07, 11:29am

Users Attachment List

binarystarr

Tue 10th Jul '07, 12:06pm

It would be really good to be able to tell the style manager to use a .png extension for a graphic rather than .gif.

It would make re-skinning forums far quicker and more flexible.

Jose Amaral Rego

Tue 10th Jul '07, 6:45pm

Separate 'Style Varibles' controls for

BBcode [CODE][PHP][HTML] etc..
Message Area Width

MRGTB

Tue 10th Jul '07, 9:40pm

I posted this in the wrong section, so I'll post it here.

I just noticed, unless I missed it. That there is no online feature that shows Guests and Members browsing the blogs, like when you view a thread and you can see how many people are viewing that thread at the bottom.

Are there any plans to add that feature to the Blog?

Jose Amaral Rego

Tue 10th Jul '07, 10:37pm

I rather have that only as an option, as you can set who can view your blog and I do not need more queries to run a board logger. I rather have statistics for most active, viewed.

MRGTB

Tue 10th Jul '07, 10:45pm

Well I did mean it as an option that can be turned on and off, the same way you can for "who is browsing threads", so members have the choice to use it or not.

induslady

Tue 10th Jul '07, 11:39pm

I was trying to figure out how to word that. You've done it nicely.

So then how does one navigate those admin defined categories / sub-categories?

Currently, when a member is trying to post a blog entry, they have the option to choose the "category" for that blog. As it exists now, they have the choice to choose between the categories that the user himself has created. If my suggestion is executed, this category options will be pre-populated with the admin defined categories. The member will have the option to select up to 3 categories to post their blogs against.

shri

Wed 11th Jul '07, 12:53am

My biggest requirement would be to run the blog system outside the forum directory.

http://www.domain.com/blogs/

Not sure if this is covered or discussed before.

ThorstenA

Wed 11th Jul '07, 5:22am

There has to be a message "your comment is taken but has to be moderated". Otherwise looking forward handling thousands of "where is my comment" requests :D

MJM

Wed 11th Jul '07, 7:16am

There has to be a message "your comment is taken but has to be moderated". Otherwise looking forward handling thousands of "where is my comment" requests :D

Lest we forget ... same request also applies to moderated thread/posts
Suggestion Moderated post directs user to Message: (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=223093) :)

--------
At users profile page - /forum/member.php?u=#
... where it shows users Blog entries, if user has any blog entries ...
Make it a clickable link
Edit Update: DONE! - View all blog entries by username

Jose Amaral Rego

Wed 11th Jul '07, 8:53am

Separate 'Style Varibles' controls for

BBcode [CODE][PHP][HTML] etc..
Message Area Width

Just like to bump this, as I already see that it does needs it own Style Varibles.
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1388354&postcount=1
GOTO LINK (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1388354&postcount=1)

Ohiosweetheart

Wed 11th Jul '07, 10:52am

My biggest requirement would be to run the blog system outside the forum directory.

http://www.domain.com/blogs/

Not sure if this is covered or discussed before.I wouldn't count on that, since the blog is fully vB integrated.

Galeon

Wed 11th Jul '07, 2:25pm

Addon photoblog or a gallery like windows live spaces.

MRGTB

Wed 11th Jul '07, 4:54pm

I wouldn't count on that, since the blog is fully vB integrated.

I agree also, it complicates things when you run add-ons outside the forums directory.

Doug Nelson

Wed 11th Jul '07, 5:58pm

My biggest requirement would be to run the blog system outside the forum directory.

http://www.domain.com/blogs/

Not sure if this is covered or discussed before.

Or even better would be domain.com/<username>/

Reeve of Shinra

Wed 11th Jul '07, 6:01pm

I would love to be able to run the blogs outside of the forum directory.

Most of the issues have to do with setting the correct path but it could default to /blogs/ or autofind based on the config file settings and give you a drop down selection to choose from.

MRGTB

Wed 11th Jul '07, 6:29pm

I would have liked to have seen a stand alone vBBlog, that didn't require the forum at all. But I know that was never planned and it's highly unlikely we'll ever see one either.

kafi

Thu 12th Jul '07, 6:39am

Feature requests:

1. Blog posts by categories. Currently each blog has it's own category system. How about pick thouse up the way tags works and have a category cloud?

P.S. where do we get dedicated feature request forum for vblog? This is a mess thread...

Jose Amaral Rego

Thu 12th Jul '07, 8:03am

kafi I agree that who ever starts the thread should place all requset of features in points on first post. I hate going through a thread to see if someone requested or if it was not requested. I am sure the thread creator can organize every request into first post.

MJM

Thu 12th Jul '07, 9:42am

kafiI am sure the thread creator can organize every request into first post.
Ideally the best way would be to have staff begin such a thread ...
This way we can take pleasure in seeing our support fees put to great use, and the suggestions can be organized by staff in such a way to make them easily reviewed for condsideration by the developers.

I'm sure when the Blog addon has been completed and ready for public Beta that a forum will be provided that we can list requests individually in separate threads.

Meanwhile it has been a great step forward to get a preview of the Blog addon during development and discuss/subscribe to this thread for ideas.

Ultimately though it would be even greater if vB announced an ongoing/upcoming development of a new addon /new version way ahead of time and began a suggestion forum specifically for itemizing each request.

(I suppose I should have posted this into the main suggestion forum. ;) )

Ah well, here's another vBlog suggesstion ...

At listing/links of Blogs: Recent Entries Best Entries Best Blogs
Provide a preview of blog entry (cursor hover) similar to threads preview at forumdisplay.

The blog preview would help a lot in deciding whether to read the blog.
Currently going to each blog can be a time wasting excursion. ( no offense to anyone ;) )

Pc1203

Thu 12th Jul '07, 11:14am

Or even better would be domain.com/<username>/

That would be better for the social networking part. I'll read up and see if I can do anything like that.

- Pc1203

Ohiosweetheart

Thu 12th Jul '07, 11:24am

I agree also, it complicates things when you run add-ons outside the forums directory.

OK - you need to warn me when you're about to agree with me, lol. Now I have a mess to clean up :mad:

:D

MRGTB

Thu 12th Jul '07, 11:46am

OK - you need to warn me when you're about to agree with me, lol. Now I have a mess to clean up :mad:

:D

You'll get used to me, sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't :p

jeffinj

Fri 13th Jul '07, 12:01am

i like it with stats and blocks on the right. I hope thats an option to change.

shri

Fri 13th Jul '07, 12:18am

I wouldn't count on that, since the blog is fully vB integrated.

That is perhaps a simplistic assumption, unless and until we've seen how good or bad the code is.

A simple chdir or an intelligent include mechanism or just duplicating the files in a new directory or server could take care of things if it is a matter of having the right or wrong code in place.

Lets face it ... most, if not all of what the software needs other than the code (which can be copied over) is in the DB.

Keeping the blogs in the forum directory could make this fairly unscalable for large sites. We'd like to put the blogs.domain.com type setup, running from a common database engine on a different server for example.

From the VB settings, it has been fairly easy for us to move a fair bit around and spread it across multiple servers without hacking away at the code (images / css / javascript etc run of static serving engines)... so why not the blog?

Ohiosweetheart

Fri 13th Jul '07, 1:16am

Perhaps it is a simplistic assumption. However, seeing as how the blog is being developed specifically as an add-on for vB (not to mention that I've seen at least one staff member say the same thing) I may not be too far off base ;)

If it can be used as a stand-alone, great!

shri

Fri 13th Jul '07, 1:18am

Don't mean standalone as a product they sell seperately.

I have no problems if it ties into the license, database or code one way or another, but to tie blogs into a directory called /forum/ just does not make sense.

by tieing directories, I also meant tieing concepts... blogs != forum

Anyways, lets see how it goes.

Ohiosweetheart

Fri 13th Jul '07, 9:16am

I hope that we will be able to add our own links to the side column?
The ability to add blocks to the side column (or what Wordpress calls "widgets") would be ideal ;)

Grover

Fri 13th Jul '07, 11:07am

Above you see the Blog Editor, ofcourse it's the vBulletin Editor which is used throughout the whole product.

In [vB Editor] Increase/Decrease Size suggestion (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1233224&postcount=20) I have suggested some improvements for the vBulletin editor (see the screenshots in that thread, which will make everything clear), the main thing being that the vBulletin Advanced Editor does not support Full Screen Editing Mode, whereas Invision Power Board for example does offer this to it's users/customers.

I just tested it out in Invision on their site and posting a Blog Entry into the Blog works the same as posting a post in a thread. You get the same editor, which makes Full Screen Blog Editing possible:

Seeing the above screenshot of the new vBulletin Blog and looking at the layout (with all the stuff in the second column on the right) I wonder if we are still stuck with this tiny little editor for posting and editing our blog entries? When you often produce *rich* textblocks for your postings (werther it be postings or blog-entries) the Invision solution is so much more userfriendly. Please vBulletin devs : take a second look at your editor and make it more flexible in terms of resizing. Thanks!

Well I just saw this entry in Kier's Blog (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/blog.php?b=419):

You've probably noticed that the blog sidebar has now moved to the left of the main content.

The original intention had always been to have the sidebar to the right, as this would allow the main content to sit nestled up to the left margin. You can see several style changes I made to facilitate getting the content as far left as possible such as the new skinny vertical 'thead' bars on entry and comment lists.

Unfortunately, with some customers insisting that 800 pixel wide screen resolutions must still be supported, and others posting massively wide images in their blog entries, there can now be no alternative but to move the sidebar to the left so that the main content does not overflow underneath it.

Other problems with the sidebar on the right included the fact that the vBulletin text editor is a few pixels too wide for the layout at 800x600 when all of its buttons are shown and so the margin between the editor and the sidebar disappear with the sidebar located on the right.

Anyway, it's done now. I hope you still like it. I just wanted to explain some of the reasons why it was necessary to move it.

He is talking about the vBulletin editor being a few pixels too wide for the layout at 800x600 when all of its buttons are shown and so the margin between the editor and the sidebar disappear with the sidebar located on the right.

Well, these kind of problems is ONE of the reasons why I believe the Invision implementation of their editor is much more userfriendly. When editing a blog-post in Invision, you don't have to worry about blocks on the left or right side... because there are no blocks to be seen... 800x600? No problem whatsoever. You have a fully functional and flexible editor at your disposal, exactly the same as when writing a forum-post in Invision.
-
Please consider this for vBulletin. Thanks.

Grover

Fri 13th Jul '07, 11:42am

Moduler sidebar where I can choose my order, and add custom blocks. This way I can include my twitter status, or use facebook API, or have my xbox live card.

We definately need a modular sidebar. Don't know if you are registered on the Invision Forums? I guess not with your position. ;) Although I am in love with vBulletin I just registered there because I find Invision has implemented a lot of things faster and more aimed at a good intuitive USERexperience compared to Jelsoft.

I will probably never leave vBulletin (hoping that the aquirement by Internet Brands works out well that is...) and won't buy an Invision license, because I am very keen on Jelsoft as a company (the kind of people and the customerservice is top notch). But I certainly hope the speed of development will improve here AND that vBulletin will become more aimed at the USER-experience instead of the programmer/admin-experience of things. So just because I was interested how Invision works from a user perspective I registered there and went hammering away on my Blog.

They DO have sidebar blocks that can be dragged and dropped in the order you want. And they DO have custom blocks (where you can write your own text, such as a disclaimer for your Blog, things like that. Oh and here (http://forums.invisionpower.com/blog/rikki/index.php?) is your Xbox Live card, Floris...:cool:).

Edit: --->

In Kier's blog Wayne wrote this:

There will probably be a new shell posted on vBulletin.org soon enough with it on the right for those who don't care about 800 X 600 resolutions. So not really worried about it.

I think things such as where the blocks are positioned should be left over to the USER. Shell on vBulletin.org? Hmmm... why not provide the option to the USER inside their Blog Options as to where their blocks are positioned? I just checked over to the Blog Settings in Invision and not to my surprise anymore... the user overthere has the ability to position the blocks wherever he/she likes. Left or Right. You can set this inside your Blog Settings for each block individually or....you can even drag and drop them live on your page! From top to bottom and.... from left to right! It is pretty and amazing... pretty amazing to be honest. Dragging them around with your mouse around the screen updates the positions of them in your Blog Settings... and vica versa ofcourse. This is real flexibility and -again- very USERfriendly to say the least.

Hopefully Jelsoft will be able to produce this kind of experience for us aswell.

Ohiosweetheart

Fri 13th Jul '07, 3:40pm

...... So just because I was interested how Invision works from a user perspective I registered there and went hammering away on my Blog.

They DO have sidebar blocks that can be dragged and dropped in the order you want. And they DO have custom blocks (where you can write your own text, such as a disclaimer for your Blog, things like that. Oh and here (http://forums.invisionpower.com/blog/rikki/index.php?) is your Xbox Live card, Floris...:cool:).

I think things such as where the blocks are positioned should be left over to the USER. Shell on vBulletin.org? Hmmm... why not provide the option to the USER inside their Blog Options as to where their blocks are positioned? I just checked over to the Blog Settings in Invision and not to my surprise anymore... the user overthere has the ability to position the blocks wherever he/she likes. Left or Right. You can set this inside your Blog Settings for each block individually or....you can even drag and drop them live on your page! From top to bottom and.... from left to right! It is pretty and amazing... pretty amazing to be honest. Dragging them around with your mouse around the screen updates the positions of them in your Blog Settings... and vica versa ofcourse. This is real flexibility and -again- very USERfriendly to say the least.

Hopefully Jelsoft will be able to produce this kind of experience for us aswell.

These are all exactly what you're able to do with Wordpress blogs, and what I'm hoping for here. Otherwise, I don't see how we'll be able to entice members to import their WP blogs to our forums. ;)

Grover

Sat 14th Jul '07, 6:44am

Another thing which can be improved is the way the Blogtitle is presented in the current version of vB Blog. I know you can change the fontsize/colour and stuff, but it still doesn't look very good when it's presented with the rest of the layout on your Blogpage. The Title-text is just there on a white background... it does not stand out in any way really.

------

In screenshot 1 you see the presentation of our Blog Title in vBulletin
In screenshot 2 you see the presentation of our Blog Title in Invision.

What I like about the vBulletin one is that you have control over the text-appearance (size/colour, etc). But I don't like the way it's presented on the actual Blog-frontpage.

What I like about the inVision one is that is really stands out on your Blog-frontpage. It looks more professional that way. But you can not change the appearannce like you can with vBulletin. Nevertheless I still much prefer Invision's way of presenting the Blog-Title.

Grover

Sat 14th Jul '07, 6:55am

I think things such as where the blocks are positioned should be left over to the USER. Shell on vBulletin.org? Hmmm... why not provide the option to the USER inside their Blog Options as to where their blocks are positioned? I just checked over to the Blog Settings in Invision and not to my surprise anymore... the user overthere has the ability to position the blocks wherever he/she likes. Left or Right. You can set this inside your Blog Settings for each block individually or....you can even drag and drop them live on your page! From top to bottom and.... from left to right! It is pretty and amazing... pretty amazing to be honest. Dragging them around with your mouse around the screen updates the positions of them in your Blog Settings... and vica versa ofcourse. This is real flexibility and -again- very USERfriendly to say the least.

Hopefully Jelsoft will be able to produce this kind of experience for us aswell.

Since pictures say more then....

Screenshot 1 : I am dragging my mini-calendar block from the right-panel to the left!
Screenshot 2 : I have dropped my mini-calendar on the left side.
Screenshot 3 : The positions of your blocks are automatically updated in your settings, the moment you drop them!

Brilliant :cool:.

Sychev_S

Sat 14th Jul '07, 4:29pm

Since pictures say more then....

Screenshot 1 : I am dragging my mini-calendar block from the right-panel to the left!
Screenshot 2 : I have dropped my mini-calendar on the left side.
Screenshot 3 : The positions of your blocks are automatically updated in your settings, the moment you drop them!

Brilliant :cool:.
Tables, tables, tables...vblog's got less squared look, I like it way more then what's in your attachments.

MRGTB

Sat 14th Jul '07, 4:35pm

Grover

Sun 15th Jul '07, 8:27am

I think the point he's trying to get across is that the IPB Blog has some great features that vB should on the "QUITE" take a good look at for ideas. Cough, cough!!!

But I'm pretty sure the staff here already know exactly what the IPB Blog can do. There not stupid ya know!

Exactly, that was my point. And both applications look 'boxy/squarred' to me actually. I know it's -at this point- not fair to compare IB Blog with vB Blog, because IB Blog was developed/released much earlier apparently. I absolutely love vBulletin/Jelsoft : I just pointed to IB to show what can be possible with a Blog and I really like what I see there on IB (from a USER's perspective)! It's not that I wish for features in vBulletin because it's in Invision... no : I wish for features in vBulletin because we are in need of those userfriendly much-asked features, and they happen to be in IB Blog already.

Sychev_S

Sun 15th Jul '07, 8:48am

Exactly, that was my point. And both applications look 'boxy/squarred' to me actually. I know it's -at this point- not fair to compare IB Blog with vB Blog, because IB Blog was developed/released much earlier apparently. I absolutely love vBulletin/Jelsoft : I just pointed to IB to show what can be possible with a Blog and I really like what I see there on IB (from a USER's perspective)! It's not that I wish for features in vBulletin because it's in Invision... no : I wish for features in vBulletin because we are in need of those userfriendly much-asked features, and they happen to be in IB Blog already.
I tried really hard to find any additional features of IBlog that vblog doesn't have (judging by your screenshots) and couldn't really see anything other than movable blocks in settings.
Could you point them out for me?

Grover

Sun 15th Jul '07, 8:52am

I tried really hard to find any additional features of IBlog that vblog doesn't have (judging by your screenshots) and couldn't really see anything other than movable blocks in settings.
Could you point them out for me?

Please read my postings carefully. I have posted several suggestions for vBulletin that I find better implemented in Invision. I don't know any other blogsoftware (like Wordpress), so I just picked Invision, because I was already registered there.

vBlog is just in it's early stages, so I am sure new functionality and userimprovements will get implemented overtime. I am very excited about this new add-on release. It's a little bit too late to be frank (hopefully in the future we will see an improvement on the development-speed), but it's finally there and that's the most important thing.

Grover

Sun 15th Jul '07, 9:14am

From another thread:

Hello everyone,

I wanted to create a brief, simple video for articulating feedback for the vBulletin Blog add-on and some of my initial impressions of it, what I like, what I dislike, what features I'd like to see added in the future, etc.

To view the blog entry and the video, please visit my blog (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/blog.php?b=446).

Thank you in advance, and I look forward to your comments!

Enjoy! :)

Kind Regards,
Brandon

Great so see this kind of feedback in the form of a video!

I saw you addressed at least 3 things that I suggested in this suggestions-thread also:

The buttons on the vBlog look indeed nice, clean and easy to look at. It's still pretty amazing to me that the buttons which are specifically designed for vBulletin overhere on the forum look soooo terrible. They do not fit in with the rest of the clean style at all. So yeah, these public domain (or whatever you call it) icons for the Blog are an improvement (and they aren't even specifically designed for vBlog...)
Akismet or whatever you call it : there needs to be some additional explanation
BlogTitle/Title-description : it doesn't stand out indeed.Great video!

bmc

Sun 15th Jul '07, 1:39pm

From another thread:

Great so see this kind of feedback in the form of a video!

I saw you addressed at least 3 things that I suggested in this suggestions-thread also:

The buttons on the vBlog look indeed nice, clean and easy to look at. It's still pretty amazing to me that the buttons which are specifically designed for vBulletin overhere on the forum look soooo terrible. They do not fit in with the rest of the clean style at all. So yeah, these public domain (or whatever you call it) icons for the Blog are an improvement (and they aren't even specifically designed for vBlog...)
Akismet or whatever you call it : there needs to be some additional explanation
BlogTitle/Title-description : it doesn't stand out indeed.Great video!

I'm glad to hear you enjoyed my video, and that we shared some of the same thoughts on things that need to be appropriately addressed. Hopefully others will watch my video I created and provide feedback on it as well.

Thanks for watching and for your comments! :)

Jose Amaral Rego

Mon 16th Jul '07, 9:53pm

Media Player(s) - Flash Video (FLV) & Shockwave Flash (SWF). Option to upload after review of file(s), ability to add your own compiled list of media links from Blog Control Panel. Frontside board logger should have media player with selection list.

That or add a live webcam area for future events posting in your calendar section, so incase if you have something intresting to say to the masses.

jeffinj

Mon 16th Jul '07, 10:21pm

Facebook is becoming famous. How about feature to extract information from facebook (or myspace etc...) profile and automatically add them into the profile page of vB. Jelsoft could work along with Facebook developers to make things compatible with each other. There are lots and lots of cool addons on facebook created by facebook fans. Couldn't we make some of them compatible with vBulletin too and vice-versa?
Check this out: http://developers.facebook.com/resources.php

vB + FB = Coool :eek:

Floris

Tue 17th Jul '07, 7:43am

Don't know if you are registered on the Invision Forums? I guess not with your position. ;) I am registered on their web site.

Joe Blow

Tue 17th Jul '07, 7:49am

I would like to see the option to display attached images as thumbnails in a blog entry.

Excuse me if this has already been suggested but I think that the ability to display at least thumbnail images in a blog posts would be very beneficial to my users.

Floris

Tue 17th Jul '07, 7:52am

Joe Blow

Tue 17th Jul '07, 8:01am

I believe this is already possible? http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/blog.php?b=162

Ahhhh.. so it is Floris. I didn't have Display Images checked in my UserCP!

Thank you for that.

One other suggestion I have is that there be a text box next to the blog categories, so you can create a new Blog Category just before you submit a new entry, instead of having to create a new Blog Category before or afterwards.

Grover

Tue 17th Jul '07, 8:36am

I am registered on their web site.

Ah, okay! :) Those dragable blocks are pretty nice, aren't they?

Ohiosweetheart

Tue 17th Jul '07, 2:23pm

Ah, okay! :) Those dragable blocks are pretty nice, aren't they?
Wordpress has them as well. I love it.

Ohiosweetheart

Tue 17th Jul '07, 2:24pm

I'd really like to have the ability to see who is subscribed to my blog... ;)

Sychev_S

Tue 17th Jul '07, 3:05pm

Small Request: Ability to search blogs by username right from the mainpage without need to click on the advanced search.

Grover

Wed 18th Jul '07, 7:40am

I was wondering if we could use the vBlog as 'Personal Pages' instead of having to rely on the typical blog chronology by date? I can imagine that part of my memberbase wants to use the vBlog to create personal pages, just like you can do on a personal 'homepage'. For example : they would want a pages or pages where they can publish an extensive 'About Me' or something like that.

So just some pages that stand on their own (outside of the blog-postings) and thus do not rely on the entries which are related to the date you publish them. Do I make myself clear? ;)

Edit--> Hmmm... having said that I realize the 'About Me'-content would perfectly fit a user's vBulletin profile ofcourse. Unfortunately the vBulletin Profile System has been very underdeveloped for a long time now, so I am very curious to find out what the Social Networking/improved Profile System is going to offer us. A user could write a extensive 'About Me' in his/her vBulletin forum profile (please allow bbcode and all the rest of it!) and that could show up as a prominent link on the user's vBlog homepage.

Nevertheless, next to an 'About Me' - page, there are definately more examples of how one could use 'static' personal pages on a personal Blog. I think that way we can offer our members more than 'just' a blog. What is the most important thing about a Blog in my view? The fact that it is personal. So I welcome all features/improvements in vBlog that can make it more personal. At the moment the very first version of vBlog does not offer much in that 'make it personal'-direction (no custom CSS (or beter : uploadable and/or custom styles!) possible, no custom movable blocks (or better: widgets!) possible, etc).

Please take the last remark above as constructive feedback. The fact is, I am very excited about this new Blog software from Jelsoft : finally we are seeing Jelsoft offering stuff that gives us the ability to create a real community instead of just the forum. Since it's just the very first version of this new product I am convinced we will see improvements on the flexibility/userexperience in due time! Keep up the great work!

Ohiosweetheart

Wed 18th Jul '07, 9:43am

Personal Pages instead of Blog Content.....
Grover, this is an excellent idea. What you're asking for may very well be part of the SN feature that they're hard at work on, and we've yet to see. At least I hope so! ;)

Grover

Wed 18th Jul '07, 10:48am

From another thread:

I think still nobody ever checked the source and realized that the entrybits donot have any tables :) I hope the beta testing stage will finish ASAP

Does this mean that vBlog will be much easier to style (because of the lack of tables) then the forums for example? Or has this got nothing to do with it? The key in making the blogs feel more personal is the ability to upload pre-defined (or custom) styles, so I really hope a future version of vBlog will offer that to it's users. When you compare the blocky squarred look of the vBlog (and Invision's one for that matter) to dedicated solutions like Wordpress you can see what a tremendous difference it makes to the look and feel of a person's Blog when they can upload their own style and stuff.

It just makes all the difference and I strongly feel that my members will definately make more use of their Blog if it has the option to change the look of it to one's personal taste.

Wayne Luke

Wed 18th Jul '07, 11:28am

Grover

Wed 18th Jul '07, 3:25pm

Isn't this what a User Profile and Custom Profile Fields fulfill?

Yes, that's why I said above:

Edit--> Hmmm... having said that I realize the 'About Me'-content would perfectly fit a user's vBulletin profile ofcourse. Unfortunately the vBulletin Profile System has been very underdeveloped for a long time now, so I am very curious to find out what the Social Networking/improved Profile System is going to offer us. A user could write a extensive 'About Me' in his/her vBulletin forum profile (please allow bbcode and all the rest of it!) and that could show up as a prominent link on the user's vBlog homepage.

The problem is at this moment that the User Profile (and Custom Profile Fields) are underdeveloped. See -amongst others- for example : Improvements for the User Profile Field System (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=179108)

So I am curious to find out what the new improved User Profiles/Social Networking part is going to offer us. I hope the User Profiles/Social Networking part is tightly integrated with the new Blog and I do hope that an user can use a custom profile field the exact same way as he/she can use a posting. So... full editing capabilities concerning the use of BBCODE and stuff like that, otherwise it's not much of an use I'm afraid.

If that won't be possible, then I can see definately see the benefits of custom pages inside the vBlog.

Ohiosweetheart

Thu 19th Jul '07, 9:31am

As discussed in this thread -
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=237096

We would like to see the option to choose male/female when registering. OR at least as part of the new SN feature.

Purty please?

Ohiosweetheart

Thu 19th Jul '07, 11:15am

Question... I've asked before but am still not clear on this.

Will I be able to skin the blog separately from the forum??
Will I be able to design skins for the blog that will be for the blog only?

Sychev_S

Thu 19th Jul '07, 1:09pm

Wayne Luke

Thu 19th Jul '07, 1:10pm

Will I be able to skin the blog separately from the forum??
It has its own templates but uses the forums MainCSS, headinclude, header, and footer.

Will I be able to design skins for the blog that will be for the blog only?
Not at this time. This would require plugins to modify how the style system works.

Ohiosweetheart

Thu 19th Jul '07, 4:57pm

That, right there, will deter ALOT of Wordpress users from moving to vBlog.

Razasharp

Thu 19th Jul '07, 7:06pm

It has its own templates but uses the forums MainCSS, headinclude, header, and footer.

Not at this time. This would require plugins to modify how the style system works.

Will we not be able to give the blogs a seperate style/child style tho? Just like we can for particular forums? I assumed that would be a given hence why I didn't even suggest it :-/

Wayne Luke

Thu 19th Jul '07, 7:18pm

Will we not be able to give the blogs a seperate style/child style tho? Just like we can for particular forums? I assumed that would be a given hence why I didn't even suggest it :-/

It isn't a built-in option at the moment. I don't think a plugin would be hard to create though. Could place it on the style_fetch hook.

The same could be done for allowing the users to choose styles for their blog though that is more in depth.

Razasharp

Thu 19th Jul '07, 7:54pm

Ohiosweetheart

Thu 19th Jul '07, 11:36pm

Grover

Fri 20th Jul '07, 7:21am

This can already be done with vbulletin's profile fields...

Yes, but he wants it to be built in by default. Which I agree upon, because I think vBulletin should become a more personalized platform. The new Blog and Social Networking parts finally offer us tools in that direction, so I do agree with this idea from MRGTB/Ohiosweetheart that a gender profile field should really be a default field.

Grover

Fri 20th Jul '07, 7:41am

I'm not fussed on plug-ins to be honest and would much prefer it is a standard feature, especially if it as easy as you say it is.

I really do think people will be incredibily dissapointed if it's not standard, many will (like I did) think it a given, especially because we can do it for forums already.

I have to agree. If I can't style my blog separately from the forum, I doubt very much that I'll be purchasing it. I really can't see many people wanting to import their WP blogs either, not when they have made, or purchased, a special theme for it, and they can't use it if they move.

I absolutely agree with both sentiments. A blog differs from the forum in the way that a blog is a personal space/area for the user. So that -in my view- makes it much more important that the user can personlize the Blog to her/his wishes. I never quite understood why a user should be able to pick a different style for the forum actually. Okay, liquid or non-liquid I can perfectly understand... it's a functional improvement/flexibility. But providing whole different layouts to your users for the forum? What is the point? You want users to have a certain experience which YOU think is best for your site, the site/forum is in the end created by YOU, the site-owner.

Blogs however are not owned by YOU, they are personal pages by your USERS. So just like you -as the admin/webmaster/owner of the site/forum- the USER -who is in fact the admin/webmaster/owner of her/his own Blog- should be able to create a personal style for himself. A user is able to express him/herself by the text she/he published in her/his blog; please let them also express themselves through the individual styling of their Blog. At the moment when I purchase vBlog ALL personal Blogs of my members will look exacty the same. That is no good. And to be honest... they not even look the same, they also do not look quite good. The blocky 'table-like' layout doesn't do the readability much good I'm afraid. Look at this example (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/blog.php?b=9). All the little replies inside those blocky squares... the presence of those blocky squares almost overshadow the text inside it. Especially when the comment is small and the user has no Avatar.

At this moment you can provide your users with different styles for your forum (which -like I said- isn't thát important really), but it is not possible for the blog oddly enough (where it is much much more important to be able to create really personalized pages).

Yes, please include this in vBlog.

MJM

Fri 20th Jul '07, 8:35am

... a gender profile field should really be a default field.
Male/Female/Other ;)

I'm sure style choices with be forthcoming, though more so than fonts and colors is how it would affect overall appearance or uniformity of blog previews etc?

Grover

Fri 20th Jul '07, 8:45am

Male/Female/Other ;)

I'm sure style choices with be forthcoming, though more so than fonts and colors is how it would affect overall appearance or uniformity of blog previews etc?

What do you mean by uniformity of blog previews?

MJM

Fri 20th Jul '07, 9:06am

What do you mean by uniformity of blog previews?
To be honest, I don't know enough about this subject, what everyone would want differently and if you mean by admin providing a preset number of styles a user could use.

Ohiosweetheart

Fri 20th Jul '07, 9:20am

To be honest, I don't know enough about this subject, what everyone would want differently and if you mean by admin providing a preset number of styles a user could use.

This is what I asked for, at the very least. I would prefer that members be able to style their own blogs, as they can everywhere else. But at the very least, let admins be able to provide pre-made skins for the blogs, that are separate from the forum skins.

However, atm, we're told this isn't happening without a plugin. Something like this should be default.

Grover

Fri 20th Jul '07, 9:29am

I was going to ask for default Youtube embedding support for blog entries and comments but I believe AME (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=150863) will work from vBulletin.org so will be using that. Though if AME (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=150863) became a default vBulletin feature I won't complain.

I won't complain either. :) Embedding youtube-videos or any other media inside one's Blog is something that is going on on a large scale now. I strongly believe vBulletin should offer it's users a userfriendly interface to embed those kind of mediafiles inside blog-postings or forum-postings. Most of my forum-members are certainly no forum-techies: bbcode, say what?! ;) People want things to be SIMPLE. Ofcourse, media-embedding-support inside Blogs will definately attract more people to look at blogs and eventually get them interested to create one for themselves.

So I completely support your suggestion to have in vBulletin by default. I don't want any third-party plugin : vBulletin should provide the interface itself, both for Blogs and the Forum. Oh... and please please please developers : make BBCODE finally USERGROUP depended! We want to control which users can use which BBCODE! This has been requested sooooo many times. Thanks!

Floris

Fri 20th Jul '07, 9:33am

Media embedding will probably eventually become a default option. It has my vote ;)

Grover

Sat 21st Jul '07, 7:30am

At the moment when I purchase vBlog ALL personal Blogs of my members will look exacty the same. That is no good. And to be honest... they not even look the same, they also do not look quite good. The blocky 'table-like' layout doesn't do the readability much good I'm afraid. Look at this example (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/blog.php?b=9). All the little replies inside those blocky squares... the presence of those blocky squares almost overshadow the text inside it. Especially when the comment is small and the user has no Avatar.

There a millions of good style-examples over the internet, but I will just pick one randomly:

Look at this page (http://mezzoblue.com/archives/2007/07/11/icon_design/) and scroll down to the reader comments. What I like about this one is that they use an alternate background colour for the following comment. This improves the readability of the comments. What I also like is that comments made by the author of the blog get's a different backgroundcolour compared to all the other users.

So... compare a custom style (http://mezzoblue.com/archives/2007/07/11/icon_design/) to vBulletins non-changeable default style (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/blog.php?b=9) and you realize what a huge difference in the look and feel and readability a custom style can make.

I'm not sure yet, but I think I will hold out on buying a Blog license until it becomes possible to upload custom styles. But then again... maybe I will not because I am very excited about this new great product of Jelsoft. :cool:

Grover

Sat 21st Jul '07, 8:13am

I don't know if this is common in the blog-world (I just stepped into this world a week ago ;)), but what I like about forums like vBulletin is that you can refer to an individual posting inside a thread. I use this very much on my own site and overhere at vbulletin.com

You know... referring to a single post inside a thread : like this (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1385164&postcount=74).
And referring to a post in the context of a thread (mostly I use this): like this (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1385164&postcount=74).

I noticed this is not possible with a blog. Well... it is possible to use the Permalink, but that only accounts for the initial Blog-entry. It does not apply to individual comments. So it is not possible to refer to a single comment in a blog-discussion and -likewise- it's not possible to refer to a single comment in the context of a blog-discussion.

Like I said, I do not know if this is common practice in the Blog-world, but since I use vBulletin boards so much, I miss this kind of functionality inside vBlog. Another thing that I miss is the Quote-functionality. Maybe Blogs aren't mean to be a discussion(?), but since I am so used to the Quote-button inside the forum, I do miss it when I read an interesting comment inside a blog and want to quote that.

And you know... every vBlog buyer owns vBulletin. So I expect a real integration of those 2 products really. Wouldn't it be nice if our users could refer to a specific comment inside some blog by putting a referring link to it inside a posting on the forum?

Skull

Sat 21st Jul '07, 9:13am

1) I use vBlogetin on my board and there is the possibilities of modules for every user. I see that the vBulletin Blog lack of this. So every blog looks the same without any linklists or other stuff.

2) Beside this there should be the possibilty that every post I write on my Blog I could send a copy of that into the forum and also every post I write on the forum I could send a copy to my blog.

3) The new Blog entries should be listed in New Posts or at least the possibilty for the administrator to configurate the vBulletin board in such a way, that they would be listed there.

Btw. nice job with vBulletin Blog :)

Grover

Sat 21st Jul '07, 9:38am

In addition to the Permalink for blog-comments and quote-option (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1394126&postcount=211) I suggested above, there's another thing that is available in the forums but not on the blogs : Similar Threads.

A vBulletin forum provides an overview of Similar Threads for each and every thread published on the forum. Wouldn't it be a nice idea if there was something like that for Blog entries? I think it's not thát important really (at least not for me) compared to the permalink for blog-comments and the quote-option, but just an idea that may come in handy for some.

Ohiosweetheart

Sat 21st Jul '07, 11:39am

There a millions of good style-examples over the internet, but I will just pick one randomly:

Look at this page (http://mezzoblue.com/archives/2007/07/11/icon_design/) and scroll down to the reader comments. What I like about this one is that they use an alternate background colour for the following comment. This improves the readability of the comments. What I also like is that comments made by the author of the blog get's a different backgroundcolour compared to all the other users.

So... compare a custom style (http://mezzoblue.com/archives/2007/07/11/icon_design/) to vBulletins non-changeable default style (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/blog.php?b=9) and you realize what a huge difference in the look and feel and readability a custom style can make.

Very nice example, Grover. I was checking out vBlogetin last night, and Adrian has a blog skin called "clear" which is devoid of the boxes and bulky stuff. It's just a nice, clean blog layout.
Speaking of blog layout, your layout is completely customizable - you can have a 2 or 3 column layout, move your blocks anywhere you want to, put them in any order, turn them off and on, create your own custom blocks (just like Wordpress widgets), and in the next version, you'll most likely have your own css to customize the look of your blog.

This is where vBlog needs to go. ;)

Grover

Sat 21st Jul '07, 11:59am

Very nice example, Grover. I was checking out vBlogetin last night, and Adrian has a blog skin called "clear" which is devoid of the boxes and bulky stuff. It's just a nice, clean blog layout.
Speaking of blog layout, your layout is completely customizable - you can have a 2 or 3 column layout, move your blocks anywhere you want to, put them in any order, turn them off and on, create your own custom blocks (just like Wordpress widgets), and in the next version, you'll most likely have your own css to customize the look of your blog.

This is where vBlog needs to go. ;)

Thanks for sharing this info, Ohiosweetheart. I just checked the Vblogetin website for the first time. Can you provide a link to a site/blog that uses this 'clear' skin?

I realize that Jelsoft is just at the start of their VBlog project, so comparing it in its early stages to fully packed third-party software wouldn't be fair ;) ... but I certainly agree with you : all the things that you mention in your post should be available in vBlog soon. The focus of all software should be on the end-user ofcourse and this especially applies to personal Blogs. In this area vBlog can, no needs to be improved!

MJM

Sat 21st Jul '07, 4:59pm

Would I be correct in assuming that
- admin/mods can receive email notification of alll blogs posted?
- blogs as per usergroup permission can be screened/moderated before approval?
- time limit on editing of blog entries and titles after posting is the same as forum system?

- Blogs have no views counter?

At this time the greatest dysfunctionality I see at the blog page is lack of organizational structure.
With no predefined categories set up by admin it's just a big free-for-all of postings, and much more difficult than at forumdisplay to browse through and preview latest entries, let alone read the full articles.

No way am I going to scroll through the currently 300+ blog entries with the system provided to search for interesting articles.

With there being a number functionalities not present in the blog that makes the forum software such a great tool, I am hoping, in the future that some blog feature requests posted here will at some time be added to the base forum software package so that those of us who are currently using our forums as the place for blog entries will have some improvements to offer to our members.
Unfortunately these addons appear to have taken the wind out of the sails, or caused a distraction in the development of vB4 by both the developers and the vB community.
Hopefully this is just my imagination playing havoc with my dissappointment that this addon may not be appropriate for our site.
Maybe I'll have no option but to install it just to get some of the user profile features.
My concern is that if, or I should say, hopefully, when vB provides improvements to the base forum software user profile/article tagging system etc, will I be able to import components used in this addon over to the default forum user profile interface?
Or are we seeing a new trend develop here, in which if we are to want any improvements in the currently very basic user profile page, we will have to purchase the Blog addon for this purpose?

Skull

Sat 21st Jul '07, 5:42pm

What about Impex for vBulletin Blog???
Is there the possibilty to convert vBlogetin to vBulletin Blog?

Thx

Floris

Sat 21st Jul '07, 6:20pm

Once the blog will be available more details about the impex scripts will be made available too.

davenj

Sun 22nd Jul '07, 2:16am

I too, would like to see a way for the admin to organize the blogs into categories.

For instance, on a community site, it would make sense for there to be a category of 'blogs by local officials' or 'blogs by local organization leaders' or 'blogs by business owners.'

And there should be a simple format for those categories to be viewed. Perhaps a box of featured blog categories just like the box that now houses the 'Featured blog entry.'

Milado

Sun 22nd Jul '07, 2:33am

Come on guys, this is a blogging tool, you're supposed to provide a blogging tool to your users, and they are going to have a complete control over their blogs, you don't have the right to force them to use default categories, this is not your business. want your users happy? then give them their rights, or they are going to blogger.com or wordpress.com

that's it simply.

MJM

Sun 22nd Jul '07, 12:13pm

I'm not suggesting that users can't create categories, but that predefined sections can be created which users can place their categories.
The reason is not only to provide some definition of your site's blogs but to help readers find these blogs.

This is the same reason for having a forum structure at the forums.
Users know where to post and readers know where to find them.
For example the blog system could be initially set up based on the parent categories at the forum with links at the parent forum to these blog parent categories.

I can understand there are difference of opinion because as has been said, 'blogging' has already been accomplished at the forums long before vB introduced this blog addon.
In this case this blog addon may be used for completely separate personal entries perhaps not even related to the site's general discussion content.

Ohiosweetheart

Sun 22nd Jul '07, 1:59pm

I understand where you're coming from, Mark.

I do agree that it would, no doubt, be beneficial to have a pre-defined list of categories for the user to place their blog into,
i.e. Personal blogs, Business blogs, etc.

This, of course, has nothing to do with members' ability to create their own categories within their respective blogs.

Lizard King

Sun 22nd Jul '07, 2:01pm

I think instead of categories we shall have tags option in blogs. If you search around you can easily see that categories are dissapering from blogs and tags are taking over that spot.

Floris

Mon 23rd Jul '07, 12:39pm

One could make a category called "digital media"
and tag an entry as "tv" or "movies"
and then sort entries from digital media based on popular tags..

that would be pretty handy :)

Grover

Tue 24th Jul '07, 5:49am

Very nice example, Grover. I was checking out vBlogetin last night, and Adrian has a blog skin called "clear" which is devoid of the boxes and bulky stuff. It's just a nice, clean blog layout.

(...)

This is where vBlog needs to go. ;)

Well there are countless examples of other blogs/styles which show at what areas the newly great vBlog could be improved. For example, I just discovered this new vBulletin addon called 'MyGTBlog'.

What I like about that one is -for starters- the layout of the Blog-entries:
http://mygtblog.org/blog-1/cid4/vbulletin-articles

Compared that to the blocky layout of vBlog:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/blog.php?u=11606

Feature-wise I like the fact that there are horizontal tabs at the top of one's page. You have [Blog] [Gallery] [About Me] [Friends] [Favorites] [Neighbors] [Forums] - tabs prominent visible at the top and that is really a good thing.

Like I have suggested above I hope vBlog will allow custom pages in the future, so that we can attach such a custom page to a tab at the top of the page. Wordpress for example provides this. The essential [About Me] page/tab is a good example. I assume the About Me - page could even be retrieved from the vBulletin newly produced Profile Field(s) actually. But that all depends on what functionality they new profile fields offer. If it has no BBCODE support and stuff like that, it won't do I'm afraid.

Another feature I like is that paying members can replace the domainbar/logo, like explained here (http://mygtblog.com/).
And ofcourse the Gallery that is a must/have really when you provide Blogs/Social Networking to your members.
And last but certainly not least... you can choose styles or customize them!

But hey, we are just looking at the very first beta product of Jelsoft. In the time to come we will see those kind of improvements appearing I asssume.

Grover

Wed 25th Jul '07, 10:02am

Another thing is this. I really like the Overview of Blogs which you get on your screen when you click on the link where it displays the amount of 'Total Blogs' on the Blog Statistics block (at the upperleft area of your screen).

This is the kind of overview I was looking for exactly...

Just by accident I clicked on that link and found that the feature I wanted was already there! (And it's not even Office2003! (see my sig ;) ). I suggest to give this very usefull overview (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/blog.php?do=bloglist) a more prominent/visible link somewhere on the blogpage. It's just too invisible now really, because you have to know to click on this number and that really is not very intuïtive to the end-user. Usefull features like this need a link on their own : Bloglist, Total Blog List, or whatever you seem fit to call it.

Grover

Wed 25th Jul '07, 10:35am

Just testing this further on the end-user experience....

I always assumed vBlog didn't support categories inside categories. But apparently it does. I just checked the blog options for creating categories for the first time and you can enter a parent category there. This is great!
It gives you more flexibility in ordering/structuring your categories. Invision for example (and a lot of other blogsystems apparently), lacks this.

The reason why I assumed there were no subcategories possible at first, was the fact that I didn't not see any graphical/visible 'proof' of it on the Blog Categories - block on a blogpage. You see, there is NO visibility of the order/structure of the categories there. Why is that? ALL categories are presented the same way, with NO indent visible for any of the subcategories : they are all vertically aligned at the same position.

Ofcourse, this is nothing essential by all means, but I think it could be handy to see the structure of the categories in one go.

Grover

Fri 27th Jul '07, 7:54am

Since most people will access their Blog (and all other board-functionality for that matter) through Forumhome (your Forumindex) I was wondering if the 'welcome-block' in the upperright-corner of the forum will get enhanced when the Blog module is released?

You see we need an area where vB indicates if we:

- have new private messages (already available)
- have new friends/buddies invitations (I am expecting the new SN-part will provide this functionality ofcourse)
- have a friend who celebrates her/his birthday (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1396658&postcount=32) in a few days,

Stuff like that. So why not move this block below the navbar and enhance it with more information? Since we are getting the Blog and SN modules I vote to personalize the forum entrance aswell and include the user's avatar/profile picture inside this welcome block. This was already suggested earlier overhere (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=159004) in the now closed/invisible 'Under Consideration'-forum.

I really want to see a more tighter integration of the Blog, (SN) and Forum. I think that is the KEY factor actually. Why would people diss their Wordpress or whatever Blogs and step over to vBlog? What vBlog should set apart from all other external blogs, is the fact that it's internal : it should provide a tight integration with vBulletin. A lot of external, dedicated blogapplications like Wordpress offer sophisticated functionality which vBlog does not at the moment (custom pages (instead of blog-entries), uploadable/custumizable styles, custom blocks, widgets and the list goes on...) but they can never offer vBulletin-forum integration. Okay, third-party vBulletin plugin-products do offer this, but the benefits of Jelsoft software are obvious. So I hope vBlog -in combination with the SN-module- will gives us a real, usefull integration of all.

Yours Truly

Fri 27th Jul '07, 4:43pm

The ability to quote comments i think should be a standard feature which im surprised isn't in there

Grover

Fri 27th Jul '07, 7:28pm

The ability to quote comments i think should be a standard feature which im surprised isn't in there

You are not the only one.....

Another thing that I miss is the Quote-functionality. Maybe Blogs aren't mean to be a discussion(?), but since I am so used to the Quote-button inside the forum, I do miss it when I read an interesting comment inside a blog and want to quote that.

But I am not really suprised it isn't in. A lot of (dedicated) blogsoftware does not have this in really. Invision Powerboard -for example- however does. And I think that is a good idea indeed.

Ohiosweetheart

Sat 28th Jul '07, 8:47am

The ability to quote comments i think should be a standard feature which im surprised isn't in there

But I am not really suprised it isn't in. A lot of (dedicated) blogsoftware does not have this in really. Invision Powerboard -for example- however does. And I think that is a good idea indeed.
I have to say that I am surprised that it's not a standard function, since this blog is so tightly integrated with vB. If it has to look like vB it should function like vB as well. :)

You're correct tho Grover, my Wordpress blogs don't come with quote functionality, it's an add-on.

ang2el

Sun 29th Jul '07, 12:10am

Conventional blog software has right hand column I mean blog information column like go to my blog, post to my blog etc.

Since I am used to right handed what does it make any sense when VB blog came up with left hand column.

Shifting the column doesn't make any sense I guess, feautures does.

I wish it were on the right.

Onimua

Sun 29th Jul '07, 12:19am

It was. Kier explained the reason for the change: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/blog.php?b=419

eJM

Sun 29th Jul '07, 8:47pm

Grover

Mon 30th Jul '07, 5:03am

The avatar background should be the same color everywhere. I designed my avatar to blend into the forum postbit of the style I use, but on the blog it looks ugly. I think consistency is important. Wherever the avatar appears, the background should be the same.

Jim

And then what happens if vBlog is going to support custom styles in the future? Your Avatar may look good on a default style, but if a member decides to customize his/her style and you have written some comments on his/her page... your Avatar is not going to perfectly blend with their style. I think you should not worry about your Avatar blending : just design it so it looks good regardless of the page-background.

eJM

Mon 30th Jul '07, 6:25am

I designed my avatar specifically to blend with the style I chose. It should be the default style throughout the system. IF vBlog allows selecting custom styles, or otherwise allows for changing the style, that wouldn't be default and I can deal with that. But the site should be consistent in the design UNLESS I make choices to alter that.

It should not be necessary to select an avatar that will work with 2 different styles in the default setup.

Jim

Grover

Tue 31st Jul '07, 10:53am

What I sometimes find confusing regarding the blogs is this. Look at the screenshot or here (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/blog.php?b=670). It's the fact that it's sometimes difficult to see where the blogowner has responded in the comments-section. I has to do with 2 things really I think:

The Profile Picture of the blogowner is showed at the upperleft corner. But the Avatar of the blogowner is shown in the comments-section which makes it rather confusing at some times to recognize the comments of the Blogowner. Because you have 2 icons/indications really for the same person at the very same page.
You recognize the comments of the blowowner by the Avatar, because you as a boardmember are so used to the Avatar (in comparison to the Profile Picture). But since the Avatar most of times is a complete different picture compared to the Profile Picture it's still confusing (see point 1 above) to recognize. You sometimes are simply not aware that you are at the blogpage of somebody who has commented.So, 2 incons/indications on the same can be confusing. I think it's a good idea to include the Avatar also in the Blog-entry of the blogowner. That way it's more clear really, because you then have the avatar in the entry and all the comments of the owner. Apart from that, a solution could be to emphazise the comments of the blogowner more. Give the background of the owner's comments a different colour or something, so they stand out more from the rest of all the comments. Here (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1394116&postcount=210) I mentioned before that I liked the userfriendly style on this site (http://mezzoblue.com/archives/2007/07/11/icon_design/). Scroll down to the reader comments. What I like is that comments made by the author of the blog get's a different backgroundcolour compared to all the other users on that style.
-

Grover

Thu 2nd Aug '07, 2:10pm

Reading the suggestions and blogs overhere it seems that the feature most people want in a future release is the ability to let members customize their blog styles.

In the attachment you will find another example of how another site (www.ning.com (http://www.ning.com)) provides this functionality to it's members.

You can choose from 34 (!) predefined styles and.... you can subsequentially customize such a predefined style to your likings. You can change the colours of certain areas and change the background pictures also. When you click on the [Advanced]-tab you can even add custom CSS-code to your page....

Custom CSS... don't know if that's taking things a bit too far (most of my members don't even know what CSS is...), but predefined styles and the ability to customize them (through a userfriendly interface with colourpickers and stuff) is really something I would like to see in the vBulletin Blog.

Rizzo

Thu 2nd Aug '07, 11:32pm

I can't seem to find a 'new blogs posts' like the 'new posts' button? Is there a way to see all new posts made in blogs? I'd want that function, so that i don't miss anything. Or do you have to manually subscribe to all blogs?

Mr_Bob

Fri 3rd Aug '07, 1:40am

Hmm, reading through several suggestions, Grover's comments on profile pictures vs avatars specifically, maybe include an option to use either the profile picture or the avatar inside the blog. This can have a forum default setting, along with a user defined setting in their blog control panel. I like the idea of using avatars only, being that forum members are so used to them, although I know for a fact many forum-goers will probably prefer using a profile picture, or at least the option.

Also, I know it's been suggested, but please change "view blog" in the username dropdown to "view username's blog". :)

---MAD---

Sat 4th Aug '07, 11:34am

And then what happens if vBlog is going to support custom styles in the future? Your Avatar may look good on a default style, but if a member decides to customize his/her style and you have written some comments on his/her page... your Avatar is not going to perfectly blend with their style. I think you should not worry about your Avatar blending : just design it so it looks good regardless of the page-background.
Precisely my thoughts.

Grover

Sat 4th Aug '07, 12:56pm

Another thing which I find a little bit confusing is this:

- When you click on the Avatar inside a Blog's comment, you are directed to the Blog of the commenting member, but...
- When you click on the Avatar inside a Forum post, you are directed to the Profile of the member who posted.

I miss some consistency in this. We are used to go to the profile if we click on the Avatar on the forum, but in the Blog this behaviour is suddenly different.

Grover

Sat 4th Aug '07, 1:13pm

Reading the posting above and Confusing icons / emphasizing owner comments (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1399548&postcount=237) you've noticed that I have some trouble with the use of the Avatar and Profile Pic. ;)

And here's another example. You just have to try and see things through a new-user-point-of-view. In fact, I see this one through the eyes of a veteran-user-point-of-view ;) :

Screenshot 1 : There you see a blog-comment from 'Freshfoot'. He/she has an Avatar (the red/white one) so we all recognize his/her post immediately through this.
Screenshot 2 : Now, when we click on this avatar in screenshot 1 we are being redirected to the Blog of 'Freshfoot'. In screenshot1 his/her post was cleary recognizable thanks to his/her avatar. But in screenshot2 there's suddenly no Avatar to be seen. He/she has no Profile Picture and since the Avatar is not shown there... there is NO visible recognition (apart from the username in the upperleft corner) that this actually the blog of 'Freshfoot'.

Do you understand a little bit what I mean? :)

---MAD---

Sat 4th Aug '07, 1:33pm

Grover, I would appreciate if you just edited your posts when you want to add more to it, thanks :).

Grover

Sat 4th Aug '07, 1:40pm

I have just deleted ALL of my blogentries. But when I go to my blog (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/blog.php?u=4599) I can still see all of these entries, including their comments. The entries do have the trashbin-indication and it says 'This blog entry has been deleted by Grover (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/member.php?u=4599)' everywhere (see screenshot3), but I can still click on the entry-title and read the full contents including all the comments.

Is this how it is supposed to behave? I would expect the entries to be completely invisible: really fysically deleted. Since you as the blogowner are in fact the Moderator/Webmaster of your own blog, you would maybe expect the same functionality that you have with forumthreads/postings : a non-fysical deletion or a fysical deletion, so you can undelete the item in the future if you wished to.

I guess this must be a bug really, because when I go to a deleted blogentry and click on the link 'Post a Comment' (screenshot1)....I am presented with the message shown in screenshot2.

Can anybody confirm this, so I can report a bug? I just reported a bug. I also can't seem to find a way to soft-delete entries / comments, but it should be possible somehow, reading other people's post inside the bugtracker.