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-   -   vBulletin updates? (https://forums.electricmole.net/showthread.php?t=1396)

justriiingo 2009.12.09 11:19 PM

vBulletin updates?
 
Glath, do we still have free updates from vBulletin?

Just wondering if there was a possibility to embed things other than youtube videos into our posts... like vimeo videos, and soundcloud clips.

Glathannus 2009.12.11 07:30 AM

There's a couple of things you have to understand about video embedding in most messageboard systems (including vBulletin).

1.) Video-embedding hasn't exactly been an official or built-in feature. You might see it all over the web and assume it's standard, but messageboard owners have each individually had to mod their systems to get the video-embedding capability. If a vBulletin owner knows little or nothing about modding, there is free PHP code and instructions available even if the updates subscription has expired, but mods can get very messy if you apply many of them and if they were each developed without taking the other mods into account.

2.) 4.0 will be the first version of vBulletin to include video-embedding as a standard feature. They claim to support YouTube, Vimeo, Hulu, Dailymotion, Google, and Metacafe. You won't need different tags for different video sites - you will be able to paste the full URL into the tag and it will simply work. Currently vBulletin 4.0 is in beta, and is due for full release within the next month or two.

2a.) vB 4.0 is a radical overhaul which doesn't support any 3.x templates. Whatever graphics/style/etc. we want to have for making this community look different from other communities - it will have to be redesigned from scratch. We won't be able to keep the current style.

2b.) vB4.0 costs hundreds of dollars, even if we already have a lifetime 3.x license.

2c.) We should be upgrading for other features anyway - if not for the officially-supported video-embedding.

Jonny 2009.12.16 07:06 AM

2) Sounds like a nice video improvement. But worth paying for? It can be done other ways, I'm sure.

2a) Great. New design! I'm really tired of this one :-9

2b) That sucks! I said earlier I would maybe be able to support in the future, and eh, here in the future, sure I think I can produce something.

2c) These days, how are other forums and other systems (there are many advanced systems these days apart from plain web 1.0 forums) coming about? I haven't really catched up on the latest opensource like phpbb, I'm sure there are a few more there. What's really in vbulletin anyway that deserves a price???

Glathannus 2009.12.16 10:13 AM

2.) I don't think the video improvement on its own, would be worth paying for. But it's one of many new features I more than approve.

2a.) They're really amped up the CSS in vB 4.0. More/all the buttons will be based on text and gradients rather than on fixed images - which will make updating a lot more painless throughout 4.x with whatever custom template we'll have.

2b.) Better late than never.

2c.) There's been fierce competition between vBulletin and Invision Power Board in the past few years. Those are "The Big Two" right now, for serious communities. I've seen a lot of communities migrate from phpBB or Invision Power Board to vBulletin, but I (almost) never see anyone migrate from vBulletin to those other systems. The main reason anyone leaves vBulletin, has been for bandwidth or performance concerns - the owner either doesn't have a very good server, or their server is almost dedicated to something else (like emulating a corporate MMORPG server).

I still keep an eye on IPB to see what we're "missing", and mostly what I'm seeing is vB and IPB copying each other. vB copies mainly the social networking features from IPB, while IPB copies mainly the utility from vBulletin. When it comes to the innovation of original features we've been using for years (Reputation/Attachments/etc.), Invision Power Board didn't get in on that until more recently, and they charge extra for some of what always has been or recently is part of vBulletin's core package.

I'm sure the back-and-forth copying will continue between both systems (I wouldn't mind if there was a system that included all the great features from both), but it's better for a smaller community like ours to have the utility first and the social networking later - instead of the other way around. That's why we moved away from Invision, instead of undergoing the more natural progression of InvisionFree to Invision Power Board. InvisionFree was a shithole that left some of us with some bad aftertaste, and we wouldn't be able to completely shake off that feeling in a paid version of Invision. I won't dispute that phpBB would have been better than InvisionFree, but that's not really saying a lot.


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