vBulletin fan

[exemacoFG]

Hello everyone, I was always a vbulletin fan, I remember the old days with vbulletin 3, the amount of mods and styles I had .... but nowadays everything is very different, vbulletin 5 almost has no mods or styles , It seems an abandoned project, in vbulletin.org there is no activity or new mods, I am very sad, vbulletin was a great software.

[BirdOPrey5]

vBulletin 5 requires different PHP coding skills compared to VB3 and VB4 so many developers (including myself) found it very difficult to make the switch. Further the software lacked PHP hooks which limited what add-ons were even possible until recently. While coding for VB5 is more difficult it is not impossible, but it is unlikely the number of mods will ever rival those of previous versions.

The good news is that VB5 has some things built in including over a dozen built in themes (different styles to choose from) and responsive design by default eliminating the need for a mobile style.

[William Thomas Jr]

For mods I'd check out vbmods: https://vbmods.rocks/

And I just decked my forum out with quite a bit of the default modules. Some are custom but you can see a lot of the work of vbmods here: https://www.christforums.org



Enjoy,
William

[In Omnibus]

If you're purchasing forum software for the 3rd party add ons and modifications you're doing it wrong. Those things should never be essential to a forum. I've lost count of the number of forums that died a slow death because the themes, add ons, and modifications they insisted on using were not updated, which meant they either had to change the forum entirely or they had to stick with outdated and insecure software versions. If you can't make a forum work without any of those things the odds that it will keep people around because of those things are slim and none.

When you get down to brass tacks content is still king. The majority of forums run on the core software with the default theme, without any custom themes, add ons, or modifications.

For most of the people most of the time I recommend not modifying the core software at all. It isn't necessary and it causes more problems than it solves.

[exemacoFG]

If you're purchasing forum software for the 3rd party add ons and modifications you're doing it wrong. Those things should never be essential to a forum. I've lost count of the number of forums that died a slow death because the themes, add ons, and modifications they insisted on using were not updated, which meant they either had to change the forum entirely or they had to stick with outdated and insecure software versions. If you can't make a forum work without any of those things the odds that it will keep people around because of those things are slim and none.

When you get down to brass tacks content is still king. The majority of forums run on the core software with the default theme, without any custom themes, add ons, or modifications.

For most of the people most of the time I recommend not modifying the core software at all. It isn't necessary and it causes more problems than it solves.

Unmodified default forums are boring.

[In Omnibus]

Unmodified default forums are boring.

With all due respect I would suggest that a boring forum has a content issue, not a theme or add on or modification issue.

[exemacoFG]

With all due respect I would suggest that a boring forum has a content issue, not a theme or add on or modification issue.

The big internet forums are modified, they represent your brand image, Digitalpoint, TheAdminZone etc,
All of them are distinguished by their themes, colors, logos.

[In Omnibus]

The big internet forums are modified, they represent your brand image, Digitalpoint, TheAdminZone etc,
All of them are distinguished by their themes, colors, logos.

If those sites looked like this one people would still visit them for the content. Also, those are not big forums.

[Craig]

I have to agree about content being king. Glam and glitter will only pull you in for so long until you realize "what am I doing here?"

There are several ways to spruce up the default software without getting into the code perse. There is a lot that can be done with additional css, changing your colors and creating your own theme. All of which can be done gradually over time as you focus mostly on your content and audience.

I get discouraged that vBulletin doesn't have everything in the software package that I want. But the structure of it allows me to improvise and bring in modifications that I like and use.