Some pre-sales questions from a wwwThreads vet.

Collapse
X
 
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • Adrian Ko
    Member
    • Nov 2001
    • 33

    Some pre-sales questions from a wwwThreads vet.

    Wow, just two minutes here and I'm already liking the system. It's aesthetically pleasing and feature rich.

    I'm a wwwthreads veteran and not the smartest PHP programmer in the world, but I'm learning. My installation of wwwthreads is slowing down, even for those on a T3 broadband connection. The server utilization is through the roof, but I'm getting a little tired of the software maintenance and the way I hotwired the templates to produce the ldesired layout, and if I update the system software, all my changes will be gone. My fault. I didn't know what I was doing back then, but now I have a far better idea.

    If you want to see my mess, drop over to http://swordforum.com/ and click on "Discussion Forums". I will probably still want to put a left-hand navigational bar. My first question is this: how does NetScape handle vBulletin - pretty well? I have over 20 forums, and because of the nested tables, it drove wwwthreads nuts and made it slow loading. (Again, this may not be 100% wwwthreads fault.. merely my bad programming from a short while back. I've grown wiser.)

    The second question is this: we get a lot of traffic and people who lurk as as well as use by registered users. Can vBulletin handle the load and not spike the server utilization and still remain fast even though you may have tens of thousands of posts?

    Thirdly, is it fairly easy for me to customize the look of vBulletin to look like it were an integral part of my website? I use a centered table and a header (again if you fine pre-Sales folks could take a peek at my site, that would be great.)

    Forth pre-sales question would be this: can we create passworded rooms? And if I set people up as moderators, do I have to add them to every single room? This is a pain for me in wwwthreads... the more forums, the more clicking in the admin shell. Argh...!

    I guess that's it for now. Thank you so much for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.
  • Tolitz
    Senior Member
    • Dec 2000
    • 1371
    • 2.3.0

    #2
    Re: Some pre-sales questions from a wwwThreads vet.

    Originally posted by Adrian Ko
    My first question is this: how does NetScape handle vBulletin - pretty well?
    Yep, it looks great on IE, Netscape, Mozilla and Opera ... There are even some textarea modifiers at the bottom of the Styles section, which lets you adjust the text area in Netscape (since Netscape usually renders them much wider than IE).
    Originally posted by Adrian Ko
    The second question is this: we get a lot of traffic and people who lurk as as well as use by registered users. Can vBulletin handle the load and not spike the server utilization and still remain fast even though you may have tens of thousands of posts?
    I think the best example would be a link:
    http://www.hardforum.com/
    Originally posted by Adrian Ko
    Thirdly, is it fairly easy for me to customize the look of vBulletin to look like it were an integral part of my website? I use a centered table and a header (again if you fine pre-Sales folks could take a peek at my site, that would be great.)
    You can customize vBulletin pretty easily and effectively - it just depends on how much time you invest in customization... you can check my site (click on my sig) and see how I integrated the forums into the site. vBulletin has almost 400(?) templates which control different aspects of the forum, and each one is customizable
    Originally posted by Adrian Ko
    Forth pre-sales question would be this: can we create passworded rooms? And if I set people up as moderators, do I have to add them to every single room? This is a pain for me in wwwthreads... the more forums, the more clicking in the admin shell. Argh...!
    Unfortunately, vBulletin 2.2 doesn't have a passworded forum feature yet (dunno why they don't). And yes, I think you still need to add moderators on a per forum basis in vBulletin...
    OPEN TECH SUPPORT
    "Tech is our middle name!"

    Comment

    • tubedogg
      Senior Member
      • Feb 2001
      • 13602

      #3
      As far as server strain goes, we have several customers with over 1 million posts running with no problems. They have gone through server optimizations and tuneups with some of our experts in the Server Config forum (towards the bottom of the main forums page). Some examples of heaily-used forums:
      This website is for sale! bigbigsavings.com is your first and best source for all of the information you’re looking for. From general topics to more of what you would expect to find here, bigbigsavings.com has it all. We hope you find what you are searching for!

      http://www.flashkit.com/board/index.php (this is using an older version of the software)
      Disney Discussion Forums and Message Boards - DISboards is the ultimate Disney planning community and resource for Disney World, Disney Cruise Line and Disney Vacations, including news, rumors, park hours, theme park descriptions and strategies.



      vBulletin does not have password-protected forums although this is on the todo list for the next major version, due out in Q1 2002. As far as moderators, it looks as though you are using them as what we call 'Super Moderators'; that is, they have moderator powers in all forums as opposed to being assigned to a specific one(s). This is simple to do in vBulletin; it involves changing their usergroup. You can get more of an idea of administration at our live Admin Control Panel Demo at http://www.vbulletin.com/admindemo.html .

      There are header and footer templates that are used system wide except for a handful of certain cases (redirect screens come to mind). You can wrap the whole page in a table, using one table row and having the left cell be your navigation and the right cell the vBulletin content.

      Comment

      • Adrian Ko
        Member
        • Nov 2001
        • 33

        #4
        Thank you! (More...)

        This is very positive feedback. I've been to some of the sites, and Toilitz' green-colored site is very similar to what I'm talking about. So that in itself was a template? The layout is very similar to what I have on swordforum.com - I'd very much prefer to keep the template in individual header and footer PHP files and then fire-and-forget.

        One thing I noticed though on Toilitz' site is that if people's nicknames are longer, this expands the cell which houses their thumbnails. Is there any way to avoid that?

        Looking good... looking very, very good. Okay, now I'm severaly tempted.

        Final question is this: Many Forums are trying to copy UBB or are a UBB style. But what does vBulletin have that makes it stand out that UBB does not have?

        Comment

        • Tolitz
          Senior Member
          • Dec 2000
          • 1371
          • 2.3.0

          #5
          Re: Thank you! (More...)

          Glad you liked it

          Originally posted by Adrian Ko
          Tolitz' green-colored site is very similar to what I'm talking about. So that in itself was a template?
          No, that's actually a STYLE ... a Style is made up of a headers, a footer, color schemes and a bunch of templates, each one customizable whatever way you like ... this way, you can develop radically different styles just by editing the headers, footers and templates within them

          I'll let the others answer your other questions...

          Originally posted by Adrian Ko
          Final question is this: Many Forums are trying to copy UBB or are a UBB style. But what does vBulletin have that makes it stand out that UBB does not have?
          More speed, more features, and more savings
          Last edited by Tolitz; Wed 14 Nov '01, 5:16pm.
          OPEN TECH SUPPORT
          "Tech is our middle name!"

          Comment

          • Steve Machol
            Former Customer Support Manager
            • Jul 2000
            • 154488

            #6
            If you want to see examples of the power of the template system in vB, just visit the different style links I have in my sig.
            Last edited by Steve Machol; Wed 14 Nov '01, 9:00pm.
            Steve Machol, former vBulletin Customer Support Manager (and NOT retired!)
            Change CKEditor Colors to Match Style (for 4.1.4 and above)

            Steve Machol Photography


            Mankind is the only creature smart enough to know its own history, and dumb enough to ignore it.


            Comment

            • tubedogg
              Senior Member
              • Feb 2001
              • 13602

              #7
              Re: Thank you! (More...)

              Originally posted by Adrian Ko
              Final question is this: Many Forums are trying to copy UBB or are a UBB style. But what does vBulletin have that makes it stand out that UBB does not have?
              We can honestly say we are not banned from use on any webhosts. I am a little bit biased but performance-wise we are easier on servers overall than UBB. We also have many more features, and many more dynamic features, such as:
              -Ability to not view other user's signatures (each user has this option)
              -Seeing who of the people who have replied to the thread you are viewing is online (that little v/checkmark symbol next to the 'profile' button in the row below each post is an online indicator)
              -Who is online in each forum
              -Mark this forum read
              -Attaching files
              -Custom avatars uploadable by the user (this is able to be disabled by the admin)
              -Polls
              Much more.

              Comment

              • Reeve of Shinra
                Senior Member
                • Sep 2001
                • 4325
                • 4.0.0

                #8
                Vb is good. Simple and easy and a great choice.
                Plan, Do, Check, Act!

                Comment

                • George L
                  Former vBulletin Support
                  • May 2000
                  • 32996
                  • 3.8.x

                  #9
                  Re: Thank you! (More...)

                  Originally posted by Adrian Ko


                  Final question is this: Many Forums are trying to copy UBB or are a UBB style. But what does vBulletin have that makes it stand out that UBB does not have?
                  the simple answer is vBulletin's backend/administration & templates is a light years ahead of the any forum software out there i think

                  other forums maybe look nice on the front user end... but one look and comparison on the backend/administration side and you'll understand

                  my vB forum = http://animeboards.com/index.php?s=
                  :: Always Back Up Forum Database + Attachments BEFORE upgrading !
                  :: Nginx SPDY SSL - World Flags Demo [video results]
                  :: vBulletin hacked forums: Clean Up Guide for VPS/Dedicated hosting users [ vbulletin.com blog summary ]

                  Comment

                  widgetinstance 262 (Related Topics) skipped due to lack of content & hide_module_if_empty option.
                  Working...