just informed enough to confuse myself...

[dawn100]

I have been playing around with vbulletin and IPB for the past few days and have throughly confused myself. Here is basically what I want my site to do:

1) have a forum (what I have seen on VB so far is fine)
2) have a page with images/a gallery. I tried to post from photobucket into threads on the demo, and it said only 4 pics were allowed per post. Surely that can't be right? :confused: If so, what can I do to get around this? (I know there must be something). And can I paste in a URL link?
3) have a user friendly admin panel. the IPB one was much easier for me to figure out. (I have virtually no computer skills). Are there addons/plugings for this to make the admin easier?
4) what plug-ins/add-ons are available? I have been to so many VB forums I am confusing myself. I am basically trying to make the admin of my site (and everything else) as "non-code" as possible, since I don't know any code.
5) what would be the hosting requirements for this? (forum + gallery page, if needed). I know it is dependant on space, but do I need a subdomian? (please don't laugh, I know nothing).
6) it does not look like VB offers any hosting... how hard is it to install and maintain? once you install, is there really that much maitenance involved, other than backing up your files? (any suggestions for host sites welcome) if a site crashes, is it my job to fix it, or the hosts?
7) have support if/when I break something- this is one of the things I have liked best about VB- people willing to help you out!
8) be able to have ads- adsense or something similar. how hard is this to set-up? any addons/plugins to help?
9) what exactly is a hook, and how does it work with addons/plugins?

ok, I think that is it. Thanks for not laughing (at least not too much).:)

dawn

[l SKN l CHRIS]

I have been playing around with vbulletin and IPB for the past few days and have throughly confused myself. Here is basically what I want my site to do:

1) have a forum (what I have seen on VB so far is fine)

2) have a page with images/a gallery. I tried to post from photobucket into threads on the demo, and it said only 4 pics were allowed per post. Surely that can't be right? :confused: If so, what can I do to get around this? (I know there must be something). And can I paste in a URL link?
You CAN post links and the limit of pictures that can be posted in threads can be easily changed via admin cp

3) have a user friendly admin panel. the IPB one was much easier for me to figure out. (I have virtually no computer skills). Are there addons/plugings for this to make the admin easier?
Nope your stuck with the crappy one

4) what plug-ins/add-ons are available? I have been to so many VB forums I am confusing myself. I am basically trying to make the admin of my site (and everything else) as "non-code" as possible, since I don't know any code.
There are many plugins available take a look at vBulletin.org(The official vBulletin customization site). And NO you do NOT need to know how to code but its always good knowledge to have.

5) what would be the hosting requirements for this? (forum + gallery page, if needed). I know it is dependant on space, but do I need a subdomian? (please don't laugh, I know nothing).
Any shared hosting would do, take a look at Medialayer.com and Downtownhost.com (Both amazing hosts)

6) it does not look like VB offers any hosting... how hard is it to install and maintain? once you install, is there really that much maitenance involved, other than backing up your files? (any suggestions for host sites welcome) if a site crashes, is it my job to fix it, or the hosts?
Its not the hosting responsibility but some hosts will help to a certain degree, very easy install and maintaining it is fairly simple. If it breaks you can always contact vBulletin support

7) have support if/when I break something- this is one of the things I have
liked best about VB- people willing to help you out!

8) be able to have ads- adsense or something similar. how hard is this to set-up? any addons/plugins to help?
Adsense is simple to implement, there are mods to make it easier, but doing it manually is very straightforward and there are many good guides out there on how to do it.

9) what exactly is a hook, and how does it work with addons/plugins?
Makes it so you edit much less code ;)

ok, I think that is it. Thanks for not laughing (at least not too much).:)
No laughing :)
dawn

There that should help you out

[SNN]

Edit: lol l SKN l CHRIS beat me.

2. You can change the limit for Images in the Admin CP.
There is a Image Hosting addon for vBulletin 3.6 over at vBulletin.org
You can post a URL...unless you mean http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/images/misc/vbulletin3_logo_white.gif (http://vbulletin.com) for example

3. There isn't really any way to make the Admin CP unless you want to modify the Admin CP sidebar and stuff :p (This is possible by editing a XML file) and editing phrases [Note: Not the easiest thing to do...]

4. http://vbulletin.org/ has many modifications

5. I believe PHP 4.3.3 and MySQL 4.1.22

6. They do not provide hosting. All you have to do is edit /includes/config.php, run /install/install.php and basically administrate just like at the Admin Demo (http://vbulletin.com/admindemo.php).

7. Once you purchase vBulletin, enter your forums email for priority support and you can post in the support forums, you can also get help by support ticket but the forums may be faster.

8. It's so easy to edit templates and place ads on your forum. There is one mod to do this...I think...


9. A hook is something in the templates that help people that makes plugins/products and users that want to modify their forum via the plugin system.

[dawn100]

see? that's what I like about Vb so much... people willing to help!!! thanks for the info... :)

one more dumb question- are the hooks embedded in the plugins, or is it a separate program? (do I need to install a hook program, then the plugins? or all they all rolled together)? thanks!!!

[SNN]

You do not have to do anything to get hooks in the system. :)
Hooks are put in the template system by the install script.

[RagnarokDensetsu]

To give a proper answer to your second question there are Gallery add-ons available by third parties... including PhotoPlog (http://photoplog.com) (which I use on my site) and PhotoPost (http://photopost.com), which you may wish to check out as well.

These are not written or supported by Jelsoft in any way, however.

[DelphiVillage]

9. A hook is something in the templates that help people that makes plugins/products and users that want to modify their forum via the plugin system.

Wrong hooks reside within the *.php source files template_hooks reside indeed within the templates but there is a difference ($hook and $template_hook)

[dawn100]

thanks for all of the input- good to know on hooks and photoplog looks great to me (photopost does more than I need and costs too much).

[Comtech]

There is also vBGallery from photopost as well, I think it is about $50.

I just checked and they have since merged those two licenses together & charge the same amount as they do for Photopost pro.

[gamestar]

Well, about the admin panel: you get easy used to it and there are different styles for the admincp. with another admincp look (other images and colors), it can already be much easier to find your way.
and i heard in vb 4.0 there will be a complete new admincp

And the upcoming vb 3.7 (running on this site) has user photo galleries.

[dawn100]

thanks for the input...

I did have one more questions, this one on the images... I need to be able to do batch uploads of images from URLs that have dynamic locations/file names. For example, website.com/file1/image12345.jpg. I am trying to find software that will pull the data for me (or at least let me copy/paste easily). I have tried pixgrabber, but it only allows wildcards at the image level (and not the file level). Is anyone aware of a way to do this? (Naturally, I would also want to upload/display these images in a gallery, which is why I need the gallery in the first place).

Thanks and feel free to move this post if it is in the wrong place. :)