In my discussions on another thread, it’s becoming clear that it will be very difficult to use EE to integrate with vBulletin. If we can, for a moment, ignore the huge userbase of vBulletin users and thriving community, maybe I can address the features of vBulletin that EE Forums lack and see what the likelihood is that pmachine will have interest in addresses those differences in a timely manner?
I won’t remember them all at once, so I’ll post here as a come across the differences.
1.) The first major issue is email notifications. vBulletin I can globally set “Auto-Subscribe” for threads posted to, and also for threads viewed, and users can turn those features off individually if they so desire (but most won’t.) Then a user gets an email whenever someone posts to a subscribed thread, but only one email unless they go back to the forum and view the thread again; it doesn’t email on every post when subscribed.
Further, EE has a link in the notification that allows a person to unsubscribe, yet that link is far to easy to click. I’d rather not have that link in the email and instead have that link on the forum thread itself, or at least put that unsubscribe link at the very bottom of the email with UNSUBSCRIBE in big letters next to it.
Plus, the email should have the most recent reply, not the text that started the thread.
Additionally, and this is something vBulletin does not do, I’d like to include only the first three lines of the response so that people would need to return to the forum to read the entire reply (assuming most replies are longer than 3 lines.)
Also, offering an option for HTML notifications that have a link to view the forum thread online (this is same as existing functionality), plus a button that would use JavaScript to “touch” the thread in case a user wants to get notified of subsequent posts even though they don’t want to click through to the forum and wait for the browser to load. An alternate could be to have a trinary suscription for threads: 1.) Not subscribed, 2.) Subscribed w/Next Post Notifications, and 3.) Subscribed w/ALL Post Notifications.
Ideally you would provide tempate capability for emails so I could configure it myself.
2.) The reply to a topic edit box needs to display that last 15 or so posts in reverse chronological order so a user can see what they are replying to in case they don’t quote and/or delete info from the quote
3.) Smileys are really important for posting and replying to topics. The admin should be able to add their own, and users should be able to add their own too, assuming the admin allows it.
4.) vBulletin 3.5 has Event-based Plugins that allow lots of customization w/o hacking the code. This is critical. It would also be nice if EE would support vBulletin-style Plugins so they could leverage all the Plugins people create for vBulletin.
5.) Subforums (does EE forums support subforums?)
That’s all I can think of for the moment. So the question to pmachine is: “What’s the likelyhood you’d consider doing these things in the near term?”
Email notification templates: Control Panel -> Admin -> Email Templates -> User notification of forum posts.
There is a link under the reply to post that lets you see the forum thread - Thread Preview - I’m using it now.
Admins can add smileys - see emoticons.php in system/modules/emoticons - and the images/smileys directory. There is a feature request for a control panel for these.
EE has Forum categories - forums. Subforums are already a requested feature. (it is better to support current threads than adding new ones, when they exist… )
There is a link under the reply to post that lets you see the forum thread - Thread Preview - I’m using it now.
Ah, wasn’t obvious. Can you set the default to be open? (not sure why anyone would want it closed since there’s only one thing and it’s on the bottom…)
I haven’t seen a configuration option for that - nor have I tried to play with the templates. But it’s all templated so it should be not too hard to modify for someone familiar with JS or however it’s being done.
I haven’t seen a configuration option for that - nor have I tried to play with the templates. But it’s all templated so it should be not too hard to modify for someone familiar with JS or however it’s being done.
Wouldn’t mods like that make it harder to upgrade?
Templated mods are safe if you follow the instructions to copy the default template to your_own_custom_folder and modify the custom folder. That’s for the forums and member templates. The main template engine is all databased. Regardless they are all safe from upgrades if done properly.
Templated mods are safe if you follow the instructions to copy the default template to your_own_custom_folder and modify the custom folder. That’s for the forums and member templates. The main template engine is all databased. Regardless they are all safe from upgrades if done properly.
I haven’t seen a configuration option for that - nor have I tried to play with the templates. But it’s all templated so it should be not too hard to modify for someone familiar with JS or however it’s being done.
Wouldn’t mods like that make it harder to upgrade?
A handful of issues come to mind…
1) vBulletin vs. EE Forums. EE Forums, for a v1.x release, is VERY good, remarkably stable, secure, and integrates wonderfully with EE, which is a great selling point.
However, EE Forums is not as robust and loaded with features are vBulletin. I’ve set up and manage both. For most users, EE Forums works very well and doesn’t require much ‘user training’ for readers to get the basics and use the forums. That said, more experienced forum users have been exposed to more bells and whistles, and desire/require many of those extras, not YET in EE Forums. If you’re setting up just a Forum site, vBulletin is superb and is loaded with features. Blending vBulletin with an excellent CMS, such as EE, is more of a challenge. EE Forum is an instant setup and blends perfectly. I run both. EE Forums requires somewhat less ‘management’ than vBulletin, partly because of all the latter’s options.
2) Upgrading/Templates/Modifications. Generally, basic upgrades of EE are rather straightforward (when I follow instructions). However, the number of files to upload, swap around, tweak, mod, double-check, etc., becomes cumbersome as the site matures. Keeping an up-to-date ChangeLog.txt is mandatory. Templates are just part of that process.
That said, the ‘process’ of upgrading, updating files is becoming more painful as uploaded files have to be dropped in just the right directory location, while not overwriting certain other files (mods, Templates, etc.). I’d like to see EE come up with an ‘Upgrade Application’ with a ‘check list’ that moves new files to their appropriate location.
We could upload the entire new version, then run the application which would show a check list of recommended files to change. Anything like that to help out a growing problem would be appreciated.
3) More Templates. As a developer and manager of sites, more Templates and Themes are needed. More for EE, more for Forums, more for Gallery, more for Login/Register, more Themes for Control Panel, etc. “More” doesn’t mean a couple dozen. pMachine alone should have a couple of dozen basic Templates/Themes for each. The developer community could develop and market a few dozen more. This is one area where EE’s famed flexibility and ‘you-can-build-anything’ feature set lets us do just that; to the point where the current crop of EE Themes and Templates is in short supply. More, more, more.
As far as 2) the upgrade: I’m not sure what the problem you’re having here is. I just upload the entire directory using SmartFTP and it only overwrites the files that are there and leaves other files untouched. Now, I KNOW that Transmit deletes the entire directory then uploads - so if you’re using Transmit, your explanation makes sense - it’s a big pain in the ... I used CyberDuck on the Mac because it never deleted anything unless I told it to. The only thing to be aware of here is not EE specific, but a general FTP program - you have to make sure everything *really* gets overwritten. Deleting a directory first ensures that, so you can certainly do that with non-template type directories. But I’ve not had a problem using overwrites on folders that I know have customizations (like themes, languages, modules, plugins).
3) As far as three, well, this has come up again and again on the forums and so I don’t think that debating it here is prudent. You can see the past arguments through searching the forums. =)
LisaJill: Just curious, from your perspect is there anything EE does wrong, or could do better?
Anyway, thanks for all the comments from users as they were helpful, but the real reason I was posting this was to get an official position from pmachine on their plans and schedule for improving the forum and incorporating features that would make it competitive. Hearing from users is great, but no users can speak to pmachines plans with any authority. I basically want to know how interested they are in making their forums world-class, or if they are happy with what they’ve got.
Absolutely. I have quite a list of things that I’d like to see improved. I have requested plugins, modules, I’ve made feature requests and posted gripes on my site. My support of pMachine is not do to zealotry or thinking it’s perfect - but is because I think it’s damned good and because it constantly gets better.
I do, however, believe that EE has a ton of features that people just don’t know about or use because they don’t read the docs or randomly click things in the control panel. One of those things is the numerous email notification templates - which you hit on. They’re there. So far, 9 out of 10 sites *I* have registered for that use EE use the stock notification templates - I find it very frustrating and it confuses the heck out of my filters.
As far as the forums, please remember these were only released a few weeks ago (or a month or something) - and they are a first release. I’m sure that they’ll be improved but if pMachine put EVERYTHING in the first build, then we’d never see it - it’d take too long.
Absolutely. I have quite a list of things that I’d like to see improved. I have requested plugins, modules, I’ve made feature requests and posted gripes on my site. My support of pMachine is not do to zealotry or thinking it’s perfect - but is because I think it’s damned good and because it constantly gets better.
I do, however, believe that EE has a ton of features that people just don’t know about or use because they don’t read the docs or randomly click things in the control panel. One of those things is the numerous email notification templates - which you hit on. They’re there. So far, 9 out of 10 sites *I* have registered for that use EE use the stock notification templates - I find it very frustrating and it confuses the heck out of my filters.
As far as the forums, please remember these were only released a few weeks ago (or a month or something) - and they are a first release. I’m sure that they’ll be improved but if pMachine put EVERYTHING in the first build, then we’d never see it - it’d take too long.
Thanks. I just made the comment because, for every question I asked, and that other’s asked, you’d come to EE’s defense and I never saw you go “yeah, that does suck” in the short time I’ve been here.
Maybe one problem is that pmachine doesn’t make it easy to find some of the info, at least early on in evaluating. I found the docs thanks to another user, but couldn’t find them on my own. That said, let me ask you how I would do something in EE. Let’s assume I wanted to create a site about cars. Let’s call it cars.com (sorry to whoever owns that domain.) I want to have a MySQL database with info about cars, and then I want to have URLs that look like this:
Now if I were writing a website in ASP (which I’ve done many times before) or even in PHP (which I’ve never done but I know is similar in concept to ASP), I would create five pages: make.asp, car.asp, overview.asp, specs.asp, and gallery.asp. I would think pass in parameters like so:
Maybe one problem is that pmachine doesn’t make it easy to find some of the info, at least early on in evaluating. I found the docs thanks to another user, but couldn’t find them on my own. That said, let me ask you how I would do something in EE. Let’s assume I wanted to create a site about cars. Let’s call it cars.com (sorry to whoever owns that domain.) I want to have a MySQL database with info about cars, and then I want to have URLs that look like this:
Now if I were writing a website in ASP (which I’ve done many times before) or even in PHP (which I’ve never done but I know is similar in concept to ASP), I would create five pages: make.asp, car.asp, overview.asp, specs.asp, and gallery.asp. I would think pass in parameters like so:
Thanks, that looks good, but I still don’t see how I would use them.
Sue - 23 August 2005 10:53 AM
You’d have a template group called make and a template called chrysler, ford, toyota, etc.
Now that scares me. I don’t want to have to create a new template, I just want to add another record to my database table for each make and each car.
I used cars because it was a simple example of a hierarchy that everyone can understand. Instead, envision products from vendors, and new products appear every day, and other products are discontinued. New vendors appear every day too, and there are thousands if not tens of thousands of those vendors. Clearly it’s not managable to have to create a new template for each vendor and each product; ultimately I want to use an XML feed to receive all the product info from the vendors into my database, so having to creating new templates isn’t really viable. And I wouldn’t want to have to maintain a one-to-one coorespondence between database records, i.e. one in my product table and one in EE’s template table as that could easily get out of sync.
So it’s starting to sound like EE is good for content that needs to be written, but not for dynamically generated pages (as oppose to pages with dynamic content generation.) Am I misunderstanding? (BTW, I have numerous systems I plan to implement, this just being one of them.)
Leslie might be able to talk about that. We rarely see any sort of hints about upcoming functionality from Rick or Paul.
That’s too bad because finding out EE’s planned future is an important evaluation criteria for me (and I assume many others.)
As far as 2) the upgrade: I’m not sure what the problem you’re having here is. I just upload the entire directory using SmartFTP and it only overwrites the files that are there and leaves other files untouched. Now, I KNOW that Transmit deletes the entire directory then uploads - so if you’re using Transmit, your explanation makes sense - it’s a big pain in the ... I used CyberDuck on the Mac because it never deleted anything unless I told it to. The only thing to be aware of here is not EE specific, but a general FTP program - you have to make sure everything *really* gets overwritten. Deleting a directory first ensures that, so you can certainly do that with non-template type directories. But I’ve not had a problem using overwrites on folders that I know have customizations (like themes, languages, modules, plugins).
3) As far as three, well, this has come up again and again on the forums and so I don’t think that debating it here is prudent. You can see the past arguments through searching the forums. =)
I don’t use FTP as I have direct access to the server but the issue remains. By adding different Templates, file tweaks, etc., an upgrade to EE becomes more cumbersome and complex. It’s not an easy ‘drag and drop’ or simple FTP (for those who use it) can and does overwrite files, so careful planning and a list of files that need to be changed and files that should not be changed is a requirement. Again, there should be an easier, more accurate, nearly automatic way.
LisaJill - 23 August 2005 08:55 AM
The only thing to be aware of here is not EE specific, but a general FTP program - you have to make sure everything *really* gets overwritten. Deleting a directory first ensures that, so you can certainly do that with non-template type directories.
Remarkably, that happens from time to time and I’m sure it’s an issue with nubees, too.
It would seem that one of the major objectives of EE is to increase and expand flexibility, capability of CMS, while reducing complexity for the user. EE’s Templates and Database structure goes a long way toward that. To that end, an Upgrade/Update application that ensures appropriate files are ‘easily’ uploaded/copied from a single uploaded ‘upgrade directory’ would benefit many. The current Update (update.php) is a start because it makes the DB changes and other changes almost automatic. That application needs to be extended to include moving/copying appropriate files to appropriate directories during the upgrade/update process. The EE forums have many users with problems who haven’t upgraded to recent versions (in many cases falling multiple updates behind), probably because the file uploading process is painful.
As to #3, more Templates, I haven’t been involved in the Forum discussion (it’s not a debate for me) but there’s always a need for more Templates. Always.
All that said, I’ve installed, setup, and managed many CMS sites using mostly EE, but Drupal, Mambo, Bricolage, WordPress, MT, and others. By far, EE is the winner and I work hard to get clients to buy EE and use EE and have had success comparing EE directly against other products. Rick and crew have done marvelous work on EE. Though EE competes against some ‘less’ expensive solutions, it is modestly priced and highly capable, flexible, secure, dependable. As Mike says, “...it constantly gets better.” That’s because Rick and crew want it to improve, because users have ideas to improve both functionality and capability.
So, when an EE user suggests a way to improve specific functionality (uploads, upgrades), a good response might be something like, “Hmmmm. Good idea. Maybe it could work this way… I use this application, which reduces problems for me, but it would be great to have it automated.”
By making comments and requests and offering observations and perspectives and opinions of EE functionality (and shortcomings), we’re not trying to denigrate EE, we’re nudging along the ‘improvement process’ not being highly critical of EE, pMachine, and crew.
FTP (for those who use it) can and does overwrite files, so careful planning and a list of files that need to be changed and files that should not be changed is a requirement. Again, there should be an easier, more accurate, nearly automatic way.
Yes, FTP and cp both overwrite - that’s why you put your forum and member templates in a different folder and don’t edit the default template. The main templates are in the database so uploading files will never hurt
That way you can just overwrite anything. I overwrite anything with abandon and only have a problem when my cat tramples on my keyboard. She *always* finds the delete key. It’s really quite amazing.
Two things:
Mike - if you have an objective and you want to see ways to solve it, please make a new thread. Lets keep this one on topic =)
Ronnie - There was a long, long discussion about 8 months ago on different ways to handle the upgrades. What it came down to is that the ways suggested are not fully supported on all servers. The method used now is not only common amongst PHP applications - it doesn’t take any special server resources. I suggest you find that thread to read it. No matter what your conclusion though, *this thread* is not the right discussion medium for it. =)
Mike you could also use categories for the different makes of car. You could then turn on the category names for the url and you would just need one template ‘make’ that would then contain the tags necessary to display information from the sections you wanted. As long as the category was in the url it would only pull cars from that category. I use this method myself for the same reason you mentioned. I don’t want to have to a make a new template every time I want to add a new subsection. The main limitation with this right now is that if your category has a space in it then the url has a % character in it which is ugly.
I should mention that there is a feature request to have category names rewritten in the URL using the same conventions as the url names. So a category like this “Category Name” would look like this when used in a URL “category_name”.
Also with nested categories you can do some interesting things. You could have the make as the parent category and then the different models as sub categories. Select a sub category and EE will automatically assign the parent to the entry as well (or not as you see fit).
Thanks. I just made the comment because, for every question I asked, and that other’s asked, you’d come to EE’s defense and I never saw you go “yeah, that does suck” in the short time I’ve been here.
Let me just make a quick response to this. I’m a moderator here - my uh… part of what I do is to find ways to accomplish things within the realms of what EE can do here/now. As a moderator, I think it would look extremely bad for me to say, “yea, that does suck” ;p and so I don’t.
If I have a problem with EE, I make an FR or something to get arouond whatever the limitation is. It may be hard to find those requests due to the disgustingly high post count, but they do exist. There are some on my site, too - including a rather long winded gripe.
The only thing to be aware of here is not EE specific, but a general FTP program - you have to make sure everything *really* gets overwritten. Deleting a directory first ensures that, so you can certainly do that with non-template type directories. But I’ve not had a problem using overwrites on folders that I know have customizations (like themes, languages, modules, plugins).
