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Vbulletin 3.7 Beta 2 Release
Last Monday, Vbulletin released vbulletin 3.7 as a public beta. Beta 2 includes several bug fixes that were found by users in the first beta version which ran live on their site. This new version of vbulletin is the first version to contain major feature improvements in a few years. Among these new features are user galleries, improved user profiles, thread prefixes, and more.
I’m sure what everyone wants to know is when the gold release will be? Impossible to say as it all depends on bugs and security issues found. However, looking at the past we can make an educated guess. Vbulletin 3.6 beta went gold approximately 2 months after it’s release. We can probably see the first release candidate in around a month.
3.5 beta (Jun 9th) - 3.5 RC1 (Jul 26th) - 3.5 Gold (Sept 28th)
3.6 beta (Jun 8th) - 3.6 RC1 (Jul 7th) - 3.6 Gold (Aug 3rd)
Above are the approximate release dates of the Release Candidates, Gold releases, and Beta versions.
While some people have been bold enough to upgrade their live forum to vbulletin 3.7, it’s recommended that you upgrade only a test forum. I set up my test forum, and though I was tempted to run it live, I decided to wait for at least the first Release Candidate. The admin control panel has sections for the new features; it’d be as one expected. Gallery and Social Bookmarking options listed under vbulletin options, with the thread prefixes and navbar notices having their own section. If you choose to upgrade you should be knowlegeable in how to do so and be able to do frequent upgrades as bug fixes and security updates are found.
Vbulletin 3.7 First Look
Two days ago, vbulletin showed us a preview of the upcoming 3.7 release. This release focuses on social networking, and we see many new features. The new version will be implemented on vbulletin.com on Monday. Following that it will enter a beta release. The timeframe of the beta release depends on any bugs or issues found. My personal guess is that it will enter beta testing later next week and will be fully released late the following week.
I’m not going to cover all of the features here, but I do wish to highlight some I think will be particularly interesting to use.
The new version includes tagging, in which users can add tags to posts and threads. These tags will describe the thread - when a particular tag is selected, it will display all posts with that tag. This gives us the typical “tag cloud.”
Furthermore, users can now add pictures to picture galleries. While these albums are a great additional feature, it’s still limited. It’s not meant to be a global gallery, as users can’t add photos to group albums. I predict this will be a feature in vbulletin 4.0 or with an additional addon modification.
The most significant changes are those of the user profile. There is now a reciprocal friendship feature and commenting on user profiles. The user profile has had a major rewrite, and now has a more “myspace” look. Administrators can define additional fields that can be displayed on the right column. The user profiles are also customizable by the user - they can design it how they like. Unfortunately, this version does not allow users to drag-and-drop profile boxes or add custom ones themselves.
Another highly notable addition is the social group feature. Now users can create their own groups based on certain interests. These groups can have a group photo gallery, and also has a commenting system similar to the “facebook wall.” While this commenting system is fantastic, it still leaves a lot to be desired. It’s not a full forum for that group, though I suppose administrators could add forums for groups manually on an as-needed basis.
In addition to these features, there are additional spam prevention tools, thread prefixes, post edit history, attachment viewing lightbox, profile visitor tracking, automatic resizing of attached images, custom icons for each forum, advertisement locations definable with templates, YUI instead of AJAX, and many more features.
I’m very pleased with this release and look forward to implementing it. This release has giving vbulletin users a lot of what they asked for, even though many of those were already existing modifications. Now they have official support.
Vbulletin 3.7 Social Networking Predictions
As many of you know, Vbulletin is working on their latest major release of their product, version 3.7. This project has been in the works for a while, and this version is supposed to focus heavily on social networking.
Everything that follows in this post is purely theoretical speculation. Some of these things are based on facts, others are just what I think is practical. If I say something stated as fact after this point, it isn’t - it’s just my thoughts. Please keep that in mind. :p
Release Date
Kier, from vbulletin.com, recently said that All will be reveled very soon. How soon? Well, a user took his guess.
“My guess is this year is the beta/rc year. Stable will be out next year I would imagine.”
width=”450px” The vbulletin response? Well, surprisingly enough, there was one this time. Kier responded by saying it will be out “sooner than that.” So, in effect, we can expect the stable version of 3.7 to be out before January 1st, 2007.
Regarding the vbulletin blog addon, a license holder asked when the next version of the blog would be, then soon stated that 3.7 must be in it’s “final stages.”
Freddie Bingham’s reply was that it was.
While the final reply doesn’t help us in guessing a date, it does reinforce the fact that it’s nearly finished.
I think a reasonable estimates would be as follows:
11/18-24/2007 - Vbulletin begins running 3.7 on it’s own site
11/26-30/2007 - Vbulletin release private beta version (if it has not already)
11/9-13/2007 - Vbulletin releases a stable version of 3.7 to public buyers.
Again, these are only estimates. However, at this point I feel confident that each release will be within one week (plus or minus) the estimate I gave.
Features
When the vbulletin blog first came out, I bought it right away. I was slightly disappointed - it didn’t have many features that standard blogs have (such as tags, customizable look change, customizable blocks, etc). However, many of the things the first version of the blog was missing are promised in the next major version, which should soon follow the release of 3.7.
My fear at the moment is that vbulletin will rush their release and give us a watered-down version of 3.7 like they did with the blog.
A screenshot was (accidentally?) published several months ago. I feel confident they’ve passed this stage, but I hope it’s a lot better than what we’ve seen so far:
Based on this screenshot we can determine we should have a “about user block” which contains contact information, etc, as well “about me” section and sections for easy access to the blog and forum posts. We can also see the beginnings of a comment box that can be used for users to leave comments for each other (like with myspace).
Additional probably features I think are practical to be released are as follows:
- Potential invite friends capabilities
- “Top Friends” or “Most Recent Friends” list
- Potential song or video clip area (though this might be stretching it)
- Better displaying of custom profile fields (i.e., interests, religion, political views, etc)
- Mood feature
- Basic image gallery features. I anticipate users being able to upload about five different pictures - NOT like an image gallery.
Again, most of these are only guesses. I left out several features I would like to see simply because I don’t think we’ll see them until vbulletin 4.0.
Blogs at vbulletin.com
Well, the next step toward’s the vbulletin blog product is here - love vbulletin blogs at vbulletin.com. This is a great move on their part as far as testing goes because vbulletin users can test it out and help find bugs.
My first impression was that it was decent for a first look, but it does lack some basic features of blogs. It’s fallen short of my expectations.
Some features I’d love to see:
- User subdomains. I’d love to see users have a username.site.com or alternatively a site.com/username web address
- Custom user styles. Again, it’d be great if users could change the colors of their blog.
- Blog Layout - another great thing. If they could be able to move and arrange sections it’d help give them a more “ownership” feel.
- RSS for ALL blogs. It’s great that we have RSS for individual blogs, but I’d like it for all blogs.
View the official vbulletin blog announcement here.
According to the announcement the live blogging on vbulletin.com is only using the blog component and not yet the social networking one - which means we have more features to come!
I’m looking forward to the full release of this product.
View my live blog here at vbulletin.com
Jelsoft aquired by Internet Brands, Inc.
Jelsoft has annouced that they have been acquired by Internet Brands, Inc. View the official announcement here.
According to James, the current CEO of Jelsoft, most everything will remain unchanged. Internet Brands is apparently investing more money and staff into Jelsoft as opposed to making major changes.
It’s to early to know what this means for vbulletin users, but it’d be apparent that it’s a positive change.
vBulletin Project Tools 1.0.0 Released
From the Vbulletin.Com Website:
Jelsoft is pleased to announce that our first vBulletin add-on product, Project Tools, is now available to purchase from the online order system.
About Project Tools
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.
Project Tools is ideal for any community that shares a common goal - from developing software, keeping track of servers, writing a play, exhibiting at a trade show or building a car!
- Find out more about Project Tools and watch a video overview
- View the Project Tools manual
- See Project Tools in action on the vBulletin.com community forums
Note that to install Project Tools, you must be running vBulletin 3.6.6 or newer!
Pricing and Ordering
Project Tools is priced at $50, which includes one year of software updates. The renewal fee for an additional year of updates is $20.
Existing customers with active vBulletin licenses can purchase Project Tools immediately via the members’ area.
(Note: you will need to log in using your existing vBulletin customer number and password)
New customers can purchase Project Tools via the online order form - a vBulletin license must first be added into the order as per the directions on the first page. Go to the order form now!
Please note that by running Project Tools and vBulletin, you agree to adhere to our license agreement. Review our updated agreement (with provisions for Project Tools).
Suggestions and Questions
We have created several forums for discussion of the Project Tools:
- Project Tools Suggestions and Feedback
- Project Tools ‘How Do I’ Questions
- Project Tools Troubleshooting and Problems
You may also submit any questions you have via the support ticket system!
Thanks!
We’d like to take this opportunity to thank our beta testers for assisting in the final stages of the development of Project Tools, and everyone else who has provided feedback and suggestions via the vBulletin community forums. We hope that you enjoy Project Tools, and we thank you for your continuing support of vBulletin.