Few questions on available features

[Veev]

Hi all,

I am considering swapping over from phpBB to vBulletin since it seems to be the more professional software choice, but I had a few questions on the available features first. I am not expecting vBulletin to support all of these, but the more it does have the more inclined I'd be to buy it. I'll try to number them to make it easier for people to reply.

1) Is it possible to have a user's forum title be determined by which usergroup they are in? If they are in multiple usergroups could it be determined by the "highest" one? On my current forum I have about 4 different usergroups and whenever someone gets "promoted" I have to both add them to a new group and then manually change their title.

2) Is it possible to have a forum where people in no usergroup can only view threads that they created and any stickied threads? Think of a customer service forum where new users can view 2 stickied threads giving them instructions on how to post, then they can create a thread that any users in a designated usergroup can view and reply to, and the original author can then read those replies.

3) How good is the available portal software? Is it highly customizable and simple to use? Do most themes have portal support?

4) When posting an image attachment is it capable of showing a thumbnail of the picture as well?

5) Is there a way to customize how the forum URLs appear? I.e., I would like to use something like http://vbulletin.com/f20/t4830/ - I have seen this done on other web sites using vBulletin but I'm not sure if an additional mod or custom coding is needed.

6) Option to not require birth date/TOS agreement on registration?

7) Option to use a simple 'question and answer' method instead of CAPTCHA on registration?

8) Custom profile field support with the ability to display under a user's avatar when posting? Possibly a way to translate text into <inputted_text.gif>?

9) Must the vBulletin copyright information be shown when using a fully purchased version?

10) And my final question isn't so much feature related, but I'm curious if there happens to be a theme similar to DAJ Glass for phpBB?

Thanks in advance for any help.

(Attaching image to test.)

[Veev]

Also one more quick question after noticing this. The quick reply box says "Please click one of the Quick Reply icons in the posts above to activate Quick Reply" by default, and I have to click the quick reply image in my post or someone else's to activate it. Is there an option to not require that, and just be able to reply to the last poster? Seems kind of pointless. =/

[Ranger375]

Also one more quick question after noticing this. The quick reply box says "Please click one of the Quick Reply icons in the posts above to activate Quick Reply" by default, and I have to click the quick reply image in my post or someone else's to activate it. Is there an option to not require that, and just be able to reply to the last poster? Seems kind of pointless. =/

You can adjust the settings to avoid having to click.

[Shamil.]

Very Short Answers:!

1) Yes
2) Yes
3) vBulletin are releasing a CMS which you can use as a portal with vB 4.0, very soon
4) Yes
5) SEO tools comming in vB 4.0, so Not currently. People use vBSEO or TfSEO mod
6) I believe so
7) Yes
8) Yes, via templates
9) Yes, unless you chose the Branding Removal at purchase, or post purchase.
10) I haven't seen one, if I had, I'd be using it. You can ask someone to develop it - ie, paid skin or request on vbulletin.org

[Veev]

Thank you for the replies.

[cheat-master30]

Hi all,

I am considering swapping over from phpBB to vBulletin since it seems to be the more professional software choice, but I had a few questions on the available features first. I am not expecting vBulletin to support all of these, but the more it does have the more inclined I'd be to buy it. I'll try to number them to make it easier for people to reply.

1) Is it possible to have a user's forum title be determined by which usergroup they are in? If they are in multiple usergroups could it be determined by the "highest" one? On my current forum I have about 4 different usergroups and whenever someone gets "promoted" I have to both add them to a new group and then manually change their title.

Built in feature with usergroup manager and usergroup names as titles.

2) Is it possible to have a forum where people in no usergroup can only view threads that they created and any stickied threads? Think of a customer service forum where new users can view 2 stickied threads giving them instructions on how to post, then they can create a thread that any users in a designated usergroup can view and reply to, and the original author can then read those replies.

Not sure about the stickied, but there's an option under forum permissions to allow them to views others threads. Disable that, and they'd only be able to view their own topics. You could then have staff with permissions to view everyone's topics in said forum.

3) How good is the available portal software? Is it highly customizable and simple to use? Do most themes have portal support?

VB Advanced is fairly good, the CMS might also be good in future when vBulletin 4 is released. Any add ons go on the forum style, so it's all good generally with themes having portal support.

4) When posting an image attachment is it capable of showing a thumbnail of the picture as well?

I think it's possible, so yes.

5) Is there a way to customize how the forum URLs appear? I.e., I would like to use something like http://vbulletin.com/f20/t4830/ - I have seen this done on other web sites using vBulletin but I'm not sure if an additional mod or custom coding is needed.

Currently that can be done with modifications like VB SEO, and vBulletin 4 will have those kinds of URLs as a default feature with various configuations.

6) Option to not require birth date/TOS agreement on registration?

I think so. You can certainly remove any age restrictions, and those things could probably be done with some minor modifications if necessary.

7) Option to use a simple 'question and answer' method instead of CAPTCHA on registration?

Yes, three options are default; captcha, recaptcha, question and answer verification. The latter is exactly what you're looking for.

8) Custom profile field support with the ability to display under a user's avatar when posting? Possibly a way to translate text into <inputted_text.gif>?

Yes with a minor template edit (or a few, depending on how many pages you want the form field to show on)

9) Must the vBulletin copyright information be shown when using a fully purchased version?

Generally, yes unless you buy a branding free upgrade. You can however remove the version number from all front end forum aspects, and that might be recommended.

10) And my final question isn't so much feature related, but I'm curious if there happens to be a theme similar to DAJ Glass for phpBB?

Most probably such a style either exists for free, or can be purchased. Not sure personally.

Also one more quick question after noticing this. The quick reply box says "Please click one of the Quick Reply icons in the posts above to activate Quick Reply" by default, and I have to click the quick reply image in my post or someone else's to activate it. Is there an option to not require that, and just be able to reply to the last poster? Seems kind of pointless. =/

Yes, you can have it so you just click the quick reply box and start writing, without needing to click a button to activate quick reply. It's a default feature which is only activated here because vBulletin.com is literally running the out of the box configuration for the software.

[Veev]

Excellent, thank you very much. I will probably go ahead and purchase a copy but wait for 4.0 to be released.

[Abomination]

2) Is it possible to have a forum where people in no usergroup can only view threads that they created and any stickied threads? Think of a customer service forum where new users can view 2 stickied threads giving them instructions on how to post, then they can create a thread that any users in a designated usergroup can view and reply to, and the original author can then read those replies.

Not exactly.

A forum can be set up so only the person who starts a thread can see that thread unless they are in a specified user group which can see all threads.

They cannot see stickies others start such as admin.
They can see 'notices' and 'announcements' - which would serve the same purpose as a sticky.

I've got several vendor forums like that, and my own 'office' section to cut down on PMs and that works great especially for the people that only want to talk a few times a year because all the posts contain the conversation as opposed to searching for PMs.

What is really nice is a regular users post (any of them) can be copied or moved into that office section and then I send them a link to that thread. That is my way of starting up a conversation.

.

[Veev]

Great, are 'notices' and 'announcements' section-exclusive or across the entire forum system though? Guessing maybe a notice if on a per section basis and announcement is on whole forum?

[Abomination]

Great, are 'notices' and 'announcements' section-exclusive or across the entire forum system though? Guessing maybe a notice if on a per section basis and announcement is on whole forum?

Extremely flexible notice system. I cannot imagine anyone needing any features that are not included with the stock vB software.

Notices 'show up' as opposed to a announcement or sticky thread that people need to click on.

Maybe sign up for a demo for the vB admin control panel and play with it?

[Clewis]

Captcha for registration, turned off for posts

Can captcha be used during registration, but turned off for members making posts? I use 3.8.3 and don't see that option.

[Abomination]

Can captcha be used during registration, but turned off for members making posts? I use 3.8.3 and don't see that option.

I did not even know that captcha could be turned on for posting messages.

On my site re-captcha is on during registration & 'contact us' but is not enabled at any other time. We use vB 3.8.3