Need to be sold on the functional superiority of VB4 over VB3.8.x

[digitalpoint]

Try clearing advanced search preferences?

[RedHotChili]

Cool!

That did it!

[weather101]

still I am finding the search performance in IPB to be much faster and better then VB4. it is very excellent and performs much lighter on the server.

vb3 does it faster and better but i don't really care for it.

is there any way you can try your absolute hardest to convince me to get vb4 be my guest and please do it!!! thank you so much everyone. this community is extremely helpful. thanks again.

[Mark.B]

still I am finding the search performance in IPB to be much faster and better then VB4. it is very excellent and performs much lighter on the server.

vb3 does it faster and better but i don't really care for it.

is there any way you can try your absolute hardest to convince me to get vb4 be my guest and please do it!!! thank you so much everyone. this community is extremely helpful. thanks again.

Ultimately no we can't, and none of us a vB sales people.

If you prefer IPB - and more importantly if your USERS prefer IPB - then their current version is a perfectly competent and usable piece of software and you should stick with it.

If, on the other hand, you think you, or your users, will prefer vBulletin, then you should go down that route. There is no right answer, and nobody's going to be able to "persuade" you in that way.

What you CAN do, is request an admin demo of vBulletin - it's live for 24 hours and lets you play with the software, including the admin panel, for yourself to see what you think of it.

https://www.vbulletin.com/admindemo.php

[feldon23]

I should get a life

[Ludachris]

This is a good thread. I've been one of those webmasters with a large forum that has been hesitant to upgrade due to how customized our forum is and the lack of clear upside to vB4. We have a fairly large and active member base - one that will surely complain about the upgrade, mainly because they don't like change, but even more so if there are aspects of the new system that are confusing or not ridiculously user friendly.

I've only recently began to consider upgrading because of the new announcements about the Facebook app and the emphasis vB4 seems to have on tying social networking in. I think forums are still very important but also feel they need to better integrate into all the other modern systems people are using on a daily basis. I want to bring our site into a more modern era, not just with design, but with features and integration potential. I like that vB4 is CSS based instead of table based - that's a big improvement in terms of page load times and even SEO (Google likes fast loading pages). There are also some nice modern built-in usability features, but I still don't know if it's worth all the work that will be needed to port it all over. I'll have access to a couple add-ons that I really want that aren't built for vB3, as well as some of the newer design features, but it's still a tough decision based on all the work.

This thread is great because it's telling me that vB4 is still not everything it should be. It might give me some upside in some areas but still has issues in others. It gives me a good snapshot as to what I might be dealing with. I wish people would leave the IPB debate out of this thread though, as it really dilutes it for those of us using vB3 who are still not sold on using vB4 yet. I think it's also very telling that IB hasn't upgraded the majority of their own sites to vB4. I'll do some more reading. Thanks to all those who have contributed.

[weather101]

Incorrect, Lots of people that hated VB4 and wanted a more 'modern' forum system went to IPB or even Xenforo. This is why discussion of IPB should continue in this thread. It would inspire the developers of VB to look to see why the users have migrated to IPB or xF and try to address those concerns and possibly implement those features that people like in those forum systems.

On my forum (IPB powered) people love the multiquote system as well as how the private messaging is handled. The private messaging works more like a private forum thread. it makes following the messages much easier then using quotes all the time.

So bringing different forum systems into this thread is certainly a good idea and mabye VB5 might be able to have these.

The reason we are switching is the possible merger. We may be acquired by another site. That site has a large network that uses VB4. This would streamline operations on our site, bring us more traffic and money, however switching from IPB is going to be rough and our members enjoy those two features I mentioned above very much. I am very torn about the whole ordeal. I have no dates yet on this as well. I'm very nervous every day because of this. I am not the one that has final say, our owner does, I am just an administrator there.

I agree this is an excellent thread and I will continue to follow it! ;-) Excellent job everyone.

[Alfa1]

I am hoping that vb4.2 brings enough to the table to switch from vb3 to vb4. We will see.

Regarding switching an IPB forum to vb: have you considered connecting the vb4 network to IP.Converge? It should be fairly easy to create an IP.Converge plugin for vbulletin.

[weather101]

Thank you very much Alfa1 for the IP.Converge idea! I will keep that in mind and present it to the site owner, however, as noted above, I am not the one to make the final say-so.

[RedHotChili]

This is why discussion of IPB should continue in this thread.

I disagree.

As the thread starter I had asked you respectfully to start your own thread if you want to talk about IPB, and I see that you did. So please stick to your thread for discussions about IPB and quit trying to hijack this thread with your talk about IPB.

This thread, as the thread title implies, is only about discussing the merits of upgrading to vb4 from vb3.8.x, especially for those with heavily customized vb3 forums.

The objective here is to determine if there are enough added features that increase the user experience that makes it worthwhile to undertake the arduous task of converting over to vb4.

For me, the advanced CKEditor with the embedded video feature plus the expanded BBCode list was enough of an increase in user experience for me to commit to this upgrade.

[weather101]

No, it is still a good idea to bring the IPB stuff to the table becuase that is one of the forum systems people have switched to instead of VB4.

[RedHotChili]

No, it is still a good idea to bring the IPB stuff to the table becuase that is one of the forum systems people have switched to instead of VB4.

I think you're confused.

Do you know the difference between a thread.......and a forum that contains many threads?

This particular forum, "vBulletin Pre-sales Questions", contains many thread topics that discuss many particular issues that pertain to pre-sales.

This particular thread pertains to the issue of "added value" for those contemplating upgrading from 3.8 to 4.1.10.

Your issue is an entirely different topic that pertains to upgrading from software foreign to vBulletin.

I suggest you stick to your topic in a different thread.

[weather101]

please note my post above. lots of people switched to IPB rather then upgrade to VB4. and the reasons are every bit why there appears there was little value added to VB4.

[punchbowl]

please note my post above. lots of people switched to IPB rather then upgrade to VB4. and the reasons are every bit why there appears there was little value added to VB4.

So find or start a thread about that. This thread specifically asks about vb4 v vb3.8.

If you had a thread 'Which is better Ferrari or Porsche?' would you have to post about Lamborghini?

[Trevor Hannant]

please note my post above. lots of people switched to IPB rather then upgrade to VB4. and the reasons are every bit why there appears there was little value added to VB4.

Do you have a license for vBulletin? I can't find a record of you having one...