Please see the announcement, for those who don't bother to look at them :) Michael.
OK - the forum database maintenance has happened and I also upgraded the forum software to version 2.3.2 (previously 2.3.0). None of the changes are particularly significant but there were a few bug fixes. 2.3.2 has been out for a couple of months now and no major reported problems so it should be fine. Let me know if anything odd starts happening (I hope not!). Cheers, Michael.
Once the forum was back up I deleted the announcement about the maintenance. Forum Announcements are always at the top of the thread list of any forum, where it says "Announcement" (which currently has just the forum guidlines). Michael.
Did you have to redo hacks such as loosing the administrator column on the main page view etc after installing the update? Does it reset the colours back to defaults? I haven't bothered implementing this patch yet at pfm as I'm to lazy to do the hacks again! Tony.
Hi Tony, I only had to redo one of the hacks, which is one that you didn't do The upgrade instructions (scattered over various threads in the vBulletin forum ) strongly suggest that you revert any "template" changes you've made to their originals. However, they also say that it's only really necessary to do that for templates which have been significantly modified between 2.3.0 and 2.3.2 and in my case, the only one affected was the template called "footer". I had that modified to add the "Archive" link at the bottom of each page. I reverted it, did the upgrade, and then reapplied my changes. The only change in the upgrade was to make the copyright year be dynamic so no big deal really. All the other templates to lose the moderator column, fix the position of the online/offline lights etc I left as they were. The forum colours remained the same, I think they're stored in the database. As for all the images, and button changes, as long as you don't re-upload the "images" folder then there's no problem. Word of warning though, there are 2 images not stored in the images folder: favicon.ico (the icon that appears next to the URL in your browser) is stored in the forum root and cp_logo.gif is stored in the ./admin and ./mod directories. That's the logo that appears when you're in the admin or mod control panel (I haven't changed it so it wasn't an issue). I was having some database issues so I ran the repair.php script supplied in the "extras" folder (you have to upload it to the admin folder though) to make sure the DB was all fine. It was fortunately. So, to summarise: 1) Close the forum. 2) Upload everything in the root, admin and mod directories but don't upload the images directory again. If you have your own favicon.ico, make sure not to overwrite it with the default one, if you do, you'll just have to put your own one back later. 3) Run the upgrade24.php and upgrade25.php scripts 4) Delete the install.php and any upgradexx.php scripts in the admin folder for safety. Michael.
I'm thinking of making an interactive site for a website I am currently making. How is easy this forum to install? What requirements will I need? Currently hosting account dosn't support PHP or ASP. However I get a domain name and hosting at uni so I could use that. Could I install the PHP software required for this forum on my existing account? I have an empty CGI-BIN or do my hosting company have to do it?
AT, to run a vBulletin forum or any of the many similar PHP based forums you will need PHP support (obviously) and support for a MySQL database. Many hosting companies provide this automatically. If your host doesn't have PHP or MySQL support you can't just install it yourself, they'll have to do it and it's unlikely they will if they don't have it by default. If you do have PHP and MySQL support then installing vBulletin is pretty painless provided you're reasonably competent with FTP and basic web hosting. I think that vBulletin even offer an installation service where they do it for you Michael.
Hi all this and any subsequent threads are testing the posting problems I was having. Note how I'm in hope of a positive resolution.
Thanks, I guess I will have to wait next week till I get a better hosting account that supports PHP. Also one last silly question is V-Bulliten freeware? I always assumed it was. It will be used for none commerical purposes.
No, vBulletin costs $85 a year for a license or you can by a never ending license for $160. There is other similar PHP based forum software which you can run for free (invisionboard is one) allthough of course you get no tech. support. Michael.
