Big news from vBulletin forum software makers: vBulletin 3.8, vBulletin 4.0 and Project Tools 2.0, Blog 2.0 add-ons
Aug 11, 2008 by Mircea Goia MyTestBox News
The makers of vBulletin, a very popular forum software, announced the upcoming of two versions of their software: vBulletin version 3.8 and 4.0 Although the team is primarily working on the version 4.0 they didn’t forget about the version 3.x.
Later this year they will release the version 3.8 which will have some more new features like (snippets from their announcements forum):
- * Private Messaging Improvements
vBulletin 3.8 will have a number of changes and improvements to make the system easier to use and manage.
Users now have the ability to change the sort order in private message folders from the existing date-newest-first default.
They have added also Quick Reply to the private message viewing page, removing the need for a visit to a separate interface.
In order to find what you are looking for more quickly and easily, there’s now an inline search system too.
Also, as an anti-spam measure, it’s now possible to limit the number of private messages any user may send in a given period of time.
* Social Group Discussion Topics
While the current ’social group messages’ system allows messages to be posted to a social group, unlike forums it does not allow messages to be divided up into discussions. Being one of the most requested features the team will implement this in the version 3.8. Social groups in 3.8 now have the ability to contain individual topics, each with reporting, inline moderation and many of the other tools one would expect from vBulletin.
* Social Group Avatars
In the new version, when users create a social group, they can upload a picture to represent the group, which will be shown both on the group page, and on the list of groups.
* Social Group Categories
To help users to find more easily a social group that they’d like to join, the administrator can now create categories to which social groups can belong.
* Most Recently-Updated Albums
Bringing users’ album pictures out of the dark recesses of their profile, vBulletin 3.8 has a system to display the most recently-updated albums from all users in a unified interface. Now everyone will know when your members upload new pictures!
* Moving Album Pictures
It’s now possible to move pictures from one album to another, rather than having to delete and reupload (that’s much more user friendly!).
* Thread Prefix Permissions
For the administrators who want to be able to limit the ability of their users to access thread prefixes and prefix sets, vBulletin 3.8 now gives you that ability.
vBulletin 3.8 will have the same system requirements and recommendations as vBulletin 3.7.
To see the features of the current version click here
vBulletin 4.0, the much expected big release
The team has focused on working on this important release (while working on 3.x too).
vBulletin 4 is an extensive rewrite of the vBulletin system, aimed at providing a superior experience both for users and administrators, while providing a much faster development cycle for vBulletin4-based features and products though code flexibility and stability.
Architecturally, vBulletin 4 follows MVC (model-view-controller) object oriented principles, allowing far greater capabilities in code re-use and extendability. It will make far more extensive use of caching and is being designed to be scalable on a level that previous vBulletin versions have not been able to achieve.
Because of the nature of the new code, the team will be working much more closely with the plug-in community to provide information and help in getting existing modifications ready for vBulletin 4, so that there is already a library of exciting and well-written plug-ins ready at launch time.
vBulletin 4 will require PHP 5.2.3 and MySQL 5.0.22 or newer versions of each. Having APC and Memcache available on your server will be a significant advantage for vBulletin 4.
Users will benefit from a new, intuitive interface designed to provide greater usability and accessibility through a clean, modern design. Administrators will also discover more power from the new semantic XHTML templates, whose layout can be restyled and edited with CSS.
We can’t wait to see the new versions as we, here at MyTestBox, want to develop a community forum and are in the process of choosing a forum software. vBulletin seem to be a good choice (among phpBB, Simple Machine Forums and Invision Power Board).
Some of the biggest online forums are powered by vBulletin among them SitePoint Webmaster forums and DigitalPoint Forums (the complete list here)
The team developed also two add-ons for this forum software: Project Tools and Blog (versions 2.0 of both add-ons are slated to be released in the coming weeks – Project Tools beta is already available for download for members). You have to have vBulletin installed in order to use them.
vBulletin Blog is a fully-featured blogging add-on that enables community members to create their very own online blogs within vBulletin. Giving members a place to post whatever they want will keep users returning to the community again and again, and advanced administration features allow forum owners and moderators to keep control and integrate Blog into vBulletin’s existing look and feel. Now you don’t need to integrate WordPress into your forum software (or the reverse). More here.
vBulletin Project Tools is a versatile add-on product that enhances vBulletin with project management functionality, empowering your community members to create projects, contribute to tasks, submit issues and view progress of projects. Seamless integration with vBulletin ensures maximum usability, and an administration suite within the vBulletin control panel allows full customization of projects, issues, tasks and user permissions. More here.
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Tags: blog, community, forum software, project tools, vbulletin
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October 11th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Well, I hope your right. My personal feeling is. IPB3 is the one to watch!
And if vBulletin don’t come out with something special in vB4. IPB3 could just be the next vBulletin 4 people want. And will buy!
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December 28th, 2008 at 3:46 am
VBulletin is full of shi@. so far they hav enot comeout with either of these so called promises. You also can’t embed a video player in a post without some horrible add on that a
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May 9th, 2009 at 12:11 am
Friends!,..
VBulletin Blog & Forum makes it simple for community members to create their own space within the community. The new Releases of VBulletin Version 1.9, its easy to add option to show favorites and last station played in the users profiles.
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