The mod community will embrace vB5 Connect.

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  • IcEWoLF
    Senior Member
    • Jul 2008
    • 928
    • 4.1.x

    The mod community will embrace vB5 Connect.



    Hey all,

    As some of you may have noticed, we have our vB5 version of vBShout v6.1.0 [Lite] up on vBulletin.org here: http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=288915
    It's lacking some features compared to the vBulletin 4 version due to some design issues with vBulletin 5 that affects custom addons, which they are working on resolving.

    A lot of people have asked me what my experience with vBulletin 5 has been, because they have heard a lot of negativity elsewhere, and every time they do I give the same answer: When taken into the context that this is a completely new piece of software, it's actually not that bad. That's the thing people have to realise; even though there's still plenty of legacy code in there, vBulletin 5 is still a completely new piece of software. The issues with moddability are simply down to the fact that the person that designed it didn't have the foresight of an oracle.
    Think about it, if an architect designs a house based on a set of specifications, then years later the house is sold and a new family moves in, is it really the fault of the architect that the specific wall that family wants knocked down was a loadbearing wall?

    The devs and brass at vBulletin have been awesome at helping push the priority and push fixes for moddability issues, so I have zero doubt that when it's all said and done, vBulletin 5 will be wide open for some truly amazing modifications.

    More directly related to vBShout, to put it as succinctly as possible: The Site Builder is effin' awesome.
    Being able to create modules that you, the users, can easily configure and drag to a position of your choice via an intuitive drag & drop interface? Hells to the yeah. If Iain has taught me anything about usability, it is that this kind of thing rocks.
    Want to move the Shoutbox above the Welcome Panel? Go right ahead, you don't need us for obscure template variables and template editing instructions
    Want to place the same Shoutbox instance at the bottom of your forums as well as up top? Go right ahead, you don't need us telling you it can't be done

    This, plus the ability to call PHP code directly from the template system is simply awesome. It really frees you from the old system of having to mix templates in with PHP code. I've never been happy about the fact that I had to render templates into variables and inject that into another template that finally spits out the completed page. Yuk. It's messy and it makes it too easy to accidentally overwrite variables when everything is one big block of code.
    vB5 solves this by letting you fetch certain variables you need only when and if you need them.

    Don't even get me started on the way it handles AJAX requests. Would you like automatic return-value-to-JSON with full UTF-8 compatibility? Why yes, yes I would! JSON is by far the best way of handling passing data back from an AJAX request, but I couldn't get it working on vB3/vB4 without corrupting UTF-8 data (German umlauts, as an example of data that would be corrupted). vB5 handles this like a champ.

    I feel like a kid in a brand new sandbox when I'm figuring out new cool things I can do with vB5 that lets me replace old code or make it more efficient. So long as I don't venture too far into the areas that remain unfinished, vB5 is a dream to work with.

    We look forward to your comments below as always,

    Thanks for reading,

    Iain & The DBTech Team
    I thought I would share this with you guys for the people that don't read the dbtech blog.

    These guys are one of the premier vBulletin free and commercial plugin devs for vB.org, and I thought this is a great reaction from them and the possibilities vB5 Connect brings to the table.
    I am looking forward to see more and more devs embracing and giving vB5 Connect a shot.
    The 47 Ronin Gaming - www.47r-squad.com
  • Archaic
    Senior Member
    • Dec 2002
    • 145
    • 3.8.x

    #2
    Very encouraging. I'd actually been holding off purchasing owned licensed of several of their addons, since I was wondering how their vB5 support would be. Looks like I'll have little to fear.
    神出鬼没 - shin shutsu ki botsu

    Webmaster, Bulbagarden / Bulbapedia

    Comment

    • Riasat
      Senior Member
      • Aug 2006
      • 4013

      #3
      Personally, I love their add-ons and how they always have a "good-enough" free version. They are/will be doing a lot with vB5 add-on scene. +respect.

      Comment

      • Jan Klerks
        Senior Member
        • Jul 2002
        • 265

        #4
        vBulletin is DragonByte's bread and butter. You really expected them to go on a rant? Actually the crappier vB5 is, the more room they got to play with.

        Comment

        • Deimos
          Senior Member
          • Oct 2002
          • 1517
          • 3.8.x

          #5
          Originally posted by Jan Klerks
          vBulletin is DragonByte's bread and butter. You really expected them to go on a rant? Actually the crappier vB5 is, the more room they got to play with.
          I was going to say, it's funny how professional coders have basically deemed the code of VB5, to be crap, yet Dragonbyte is singing it's praises
          A tad disturbing in a way, but I guess he has to, because he has money to make, so if he put the product down, it means less money, because he might deter even more people from buying both VB5 and his addons :P
          Comical in a way how people can put aside morals for money.

          Comment

          • soniceffect
            Senior Member
            • Feb 2005
            • 938
            • 4.2.X

            #6
            Originally posted by Deimos
            I was going to say, it's funny how professional coders have basically deemed the code of VB5, to be crap, yet Dragonbyte is singing it's praises
            A tad disturbing in a way, but I guess he has to, because he has money to make, so if he put the product down, it means less money, because he might deter even more people from buying both VB5 and his addons :P
            Comical in a way how people can put aside morals for money.

            To be honest being a professional developer myself I can honestly say I could pick up anyones code in the languages I am extremely familliar with (.NET framework languages C# and VB.NET) or mssql and pull them to shreds, and people could do the same with my own. Companys and people alike will do some things right and another things wrong. Then there is also the subjective parts where there is more than one way of doing something and one person disagrees with another. That said there is no doubt there are things need changing in vb5 and are being changed in vb5 to suit developers better. All part of the learning process. We learn how to use the new framework, come across elements that cause us problems, they sort them problems and we all move on. Good fun to be honest
            Husky Owners Forum - For all Siberian Husky Owners

            Comment

            • rudedog1968
              Senior Member
              • Feb 2004
              • 719
              • 3.8.x

              #7
              I find it more interesting that, since vB5 has been put out there for people to buy. vB has pushed more people to 3rd party MODs saying get this mod or that mod if you want that in the product. I wonder what's going to happen when all these people come back with issues that vB won't support. Then again they only have ticket support for 30 days when the product goes live/gold. I don't ever recall the staff pushing customers to add-ons like they are doing now.

              Funny how things change.

              Sorry but I'll take Digitalpoint's word over DBTech any day..
              Not so Rude, Rudedog FPSadmin.com | twitter | Microsoft MVP 2009-2014 - Games for Windows

              Comment

              • soniceffect
                Senior Member
                • Feb 2005
                • 938
                • 4.2.X

                #8
                Originally posted by rudedog1968
                I find it more interesting that, since vB5 has been put out there for people to buy. vB has pushed more people to 3rd party MODs saying get this mod or that mod if you want that in the product. I wonder what's going to happen when all these people come back with issues that vB won't support. Then again they only have ticket support for 30 days when the product goes live/gold. I don't ever recall the staff pushing customers to add-ons like they are doing now.

                Funny how things change.

                Sorry but I'll take Digitalpoint's word over DBTech any day..
                Sorry but thats a ridiculous statement. IB and even jelsoft beforr it has always had a massive emphisis on third party mods so no i dont see how things change. Out of all the things that could be posted about the product this one ia just mental.

                And good luck with taking only one persons opinion. Personally i like an even balance of opinion but i guess each to their own.
                Husky Owners Forum - For all Siberian Husky Owners

                Comment

                • rudedog1968
                  Senior Member
                  • Feb 2004
                  • 719
                  • 3.8.x

                  #9
                  Originally posted by soniceffect
                  Sorry but thats a ridiculous statement. IB and even jelsoft beforr it has always had a massive emphisis on third party mods so no i dont see how things change. Out of all the things that could be posted about the product this one ia just mental.

                  And good luck with taking only one persons opinion. Personally i like an even balance of opinion but i guess each to their own.
                  While there was always a great emphasis on 3rd party apps, they where never supported and talked about here in their forums. They would always tell you to go away and check out vB.org

                  I agree with taking more then one persons advice/opinion. Who else from the commercial vB modding side has praised vB5's code?
                  Not so Rude, Rudedog FPSadmin.com | twitter | Microsoft MVP 2009-2014 - Games for Windows

                  Comment

                  • soniceffect
                    Senior Member
                    • Feb 2005
                    • 938
                    • 4.2.X

                    #10
                    Originally posted by rudedog1968
                    I agree with taking more then one persons advice/opinion. Who else from the commercial vB modding side has praised vB5's code?
                    As far as I can see there have only been 2 people commented and they are the two mentioned above. As stated before however it very much depends on mentality. I can pull apart most peoples C# or VB.NET code even if they are very good developers and good products. Simply as there is nobody who codes perfectly and anyone who says they do 100% of the time is lying. Also as I said there is often more than one way to go about a lot of things so an become extremely subjective.

                    Personally I try to look at the quality of the code from the outside rather than the code itself (unless it comes to security of course). In the respect that if its good to code with then IMO its good work. If its a good speedy front end then it obviously has achieved its intentions regardless of how much someone wants to pull the code to peices. Now I appreciate at present thats not the case, however in the same respect it is also a beta.
                    Husky Owners Forum - For all Siberian Husky Owners

                    Comment

                    • Trevor Hannant
                      vBulletin Support
                      • Aug 2002
                      • 24325
                      • 5.7.X

                      #11
                      Originally posted by rudedog1968
                      vB has pushed more people to 3rd party MODs saying get this mod or that mod if you want that in the product.
                      Such as?
                      Vote for:

                      - Admin Settable Paid Subscription Reminder Timeframe (vB6)
                      - Add Admin ability to auto-subscribe users to specific channel(s) (vB6)

                      Comment

                      • Loco.M
                        Senior Member
                        • Mar 2005
                        • 4319
                        • 3.5.x

                        #12
                        Originally posted by rudedog1968
                        Sorry but I'll take Digitalpoint's word over DBTech any day..
                        I would as well but it's just because I've never been a fan of the db-tech mods or pricing and that I've had a few conversations with Shawn, and never met the owner of db-tech.
                        I do know db-tech has been on the beta team for a while and working on their products and I can resepct that.
                        Only time will tell, vb5 is still in beta and I hope gold doesn't come anytime soon, I hope it'll look much better by the time it's released.

                        Interesting read either way, thanks for the link OP.
                        -- Web Developer for hire
                        ---Online Marketing Tools and Articles

                        Comment

                        • rudedog1968
                          Senior Member
                          • Feb 2004
                          • 719
                          • 3.8.x

                          #13
                          Originally posted by Trevor Hannant
                          Such as?
                          Look around at the staff comments. I've seen a lot of comments pointing people away to a mod because this or that is not included in vB5. Nothing wrong with that, it's just not like it use to be where staff would advise against modding vB because of support.
                          Not so Rude, Rudedog FPSadmin.com | twitter | Microsoft MVP 2009-2014 - Games for Windows

                          Comment

                          • Guest

                            #14
                            Title of the thread should say "Dragon-byte Tech will embrace vB5 Connect".

                            Comment

                            • In Omnibus
                              Senior Member
                              • Apr 2010
                              • 2310

                              #15
                              Originally posted by rudedog1968
                              Look around at the staff comments. I've seen a lot of comments pointing people away to a mod because this or that is not included in vB5. Nothing wrong with that, it's just not like it use to be where staff would advise against modding vB because of support.
                              Can you provide one example of a site running any version of vBulletin as it comes "out of the box", without a single add-on or template modification?

                              If these things came with the core software package they wouldn't be add-ons or template modifications. They would be upgrades or patches.

                              What is the correlation between staff advice and the third party modification community embracing vBulletin 5? I fail to see a connection.

                              The rest of the argument is like asking if someone is a Ford, Dodge or Chevy person. It's personal taste. For every coder who likes vB5 there will be one who dislikes it.

                              It's easy to embrace a product when it creates a revenue stream. If some of these coders were all they claim to be they would be writing their own software rather than criticizing the work of vBulletin's developers.

                              Comment

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