Does anyone know if there is somewhere you can download vb for free so I can run it on my server at home - I still have no net connection. I'm trying to skin some vb templates but of course, not having the source code available is making things difficult. I'm not trying to rip anyone off here - Just run a copy of VB internally so I can do some tests on it. I don't even know if this is allowed, but I'd rather not buy it until I've had a bit of a chance to play with it (Like I say - this is only for my home linux box which isn't connected to the net). Cheers Ol
There is no where you can get VB Free for downloadm, installation and use of Vb are as easy as you use your any Administrator page of any CMS, or phpBB.
I'm not sure what you mean... I'm trying to do template tests so testing on another platform like phpbb isn't really all that useful to me. Is VB template driven or is the front end of the site all built from a single index.php file?
OK, so on the index page of a vb site, how many template includes are called? I'm assuming at least a main content include, and one for the header, nav and footer... Basically I want to try to build a fully XHTML compatable VB skin that doesn't use tables. Sorry for all the questions - I've never worked with vb before
You'd need to be running vBulletin in order to make the templates. It works in a really odd way. Pretty well all the templates, CSS, and a fair bit of the php are stored in the MySql database. I think the idea is that you only mess with the database and not with the php files so upgrading is easier. I'd be guessing at the number of templates on the index page, but it's broken up quite a bit. Maybe 10 templates - one for the layout, one for the post information, one for the header, one for nav etc. Each template is accessible from the database and is presented as text in the control panel. A new skin would be made within vBulletin and exported and imported as XML.
Wow, that does sound complicated.... Thanks for the info though - Makes things easier in terms of working out how to do it.... So when someone buys a VB skin, they are actually buying an XML file then just using the VB backend to import it? Is it like WordPress in as much as you can have a repository of skins to use and just choose them in the back end? Again, thanks for the help
In the main config screen there are 67 different template bits, and roughly half of those also contain more sections that can be changed, my rough guesstimate is 250 though some will be one liners whilst others multi line monsters. Yeah you would buy/sell an xml file. Yes it is like WP in the way you can have multiple skins which you can change (or like here members can change if you enable that feature) My experience has only been with version 3.0x, it may be different in 3.5
Wow, that's a lot of files... There goes the free templete option out of the window Thanks for the help guys - Watch this space.
I'd also recommend holding off a little until vB 3.5 is released: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=1 There may yet be changes that you wouldn't be able to account for modifying a 3.0.7
3.0.7 Looks really complicated.... It would be much easier just to have the raw source files.... Historically, does the templating system change with major updates? Is it really going to be a waste of my time working on 3.0.7?
Looks like they have been busy modifying the templates for 3.5 as well as whatever else they like to change. http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=146525 (post 2) All of these forums seem to be a moving target.
The good thing about vB 3.5 is a big part of the changes involves being able to make modifications to the code, without having to redo them at every security upgrade.