Portal System for VBF

[KiwiDexter]

Yes but adding an external system like a portal index page shouldnt involve any code changes to the vBulletin software.

Correct, do a google on vbAdvance

[Paul M]

Correct, do a google on vbAdvance

Yea its already been discussed further down in the thread. (Page 1)

[RobDog888]

Correct, do a google on vbAdvance

Actually I know vBA well and it does install extra files which is no problem but it also modifies the vBulletin database which in this case is something we would want to avoid.

I know a simple portal page can be written which doesnt change any vB code or database modifications. If the admins want I can write it.

[KiwiDexter]

Actually I know vBA well and it does install extra files which is no problem but it also modifies the vBulletin database which in this case is something we would want to avoid.

I know a simple portal page can be written which doesnt change any vB code or database modifications. If the admins want I can write it.

Wasn't aware of that Rob. We're also noticing it has some problems with third party themes/skins/templates/whatever.

Vaguely remembering someone talking about a vb front page or something that apparently ships with the product, haven't seen anywhere within the ACP to switch that option on.

[penagate]

There is no 'front page' feature in the standard product at present.


Frankly, I don't see what a portal page would add to this site either. We are only a forum; we don't have feature articles like CodeGuru does. A new front page will simply duplicate the content of the current forum index.

[RobDog888]

Well that pretty much is what vBA does too. You cant have it both way; Unique content with an ease of implementation/maintenance.

[JPnyc]

They're not necessarily solvable. No, they have more to do with the size of the database and the size of the forum, then they have to do with the ads. Occasional slowdowns may be attributable to the ads but to many other factors as well. The more subforms and posts/threads you have, the slower the form renders.

The more things you add to the page that are remotely hosted, the greater the potential for slowdowns. This includes RSS feeds.

[Paul M]

Would it be more suitable to have it on its own in that case? Sort of like Codeguru's i guess. Because it seems to me that if we integrate it with the actual forum system then it will slow things down as you mentioned, but if it were separate then it shouldn't be as much of an issue.

[JPnyc]

you mean add a separate static HTML front page? What do we need it for?

[RobDog888]

The same reasons JM has vBA on those other two sites.

[JPnyc]

the other two sites have articles and blogs linked on the front page. We don't have any articles or blogs here.

[RobDog888]

We have FAQs which could be pulled in like latest additions with a single db query. This would keep the info fresh along with the latest threads or hot threads etc. No maintenance either.

[JPnyc]

there's nothing unique about that content though, it's all already visible on the forum. I can't see any reason yet for adding a portal page.

[Paul M]

Well my major idea would be for articles, not those from the FAQ (though already visible content can come later after performance issues are resolved) but from members. You might be thinking we have a codebank but this would be more of a walkthrough than a tutorial, with screenshots where necessary and every single step.

And then all the other stuff a portal should display, affiliates, link to the forums, announcements, and news on public events happening in the programming world and in VBF(like coding contest etc...).

But this would require the members to be able to login from the portal, this shouldn't be to hard i believe.

<edit>
also it should increase traffic once articles are written and the content grows. This site is already so noisy why not make it a little bit louder

[Paul M]

Here is a nice portal system that i like and can see suiting VBF. Maybe a little more customized otherwise it is still quite a simple job.

http://codecall.net/

[JPnyc]

Brad should have some opinion on this. Brad? Oh, BRAD?

[brad jones]

Brad should have some opinion on this. Brad? Oh, BRAD?

I chimed in a few times in the first few dozen posts on this thread

This site had a 'sister' site originally that had articles and such. Most of the focus, however, seemed to be here at the forums. As such, we left www.Codeguru.com/vb and www.developer.com/vb focus on the articles and let this site filter down to being primarily the forum.

I've heard the requests in this thread and am pondering some ideas. Having said that, we'd need to have a pretty good commitment to have people submit articles (freely) in order to create something in conjunction with this site. We don't get that many VB articles submitted to Codeguru, so I question whether it would happen here if we created a portal site to go with the forum.

Right now we are doing some revamping of our other sites. Once those redesigns have happened, then I believe it will be easier to address some of the requests being made here. That is because the 'revamps' include adding some functionality to our existing content systems to allow for user comments, submissions, and such in a much easier manner. The rollout of this for the other sites is still a while away, so for now it will need to be on hold here. Having said that - I hear you, and I agree that there is more we could be doing here.

Brad!

[JPnyc]

Adding vba is certainly possible, I just question whether or not we have sufficient content to warrant it. Where's it going to come from?

[RobDog888]

Most could come from whats already in the db (along with top/popular codebank entries/faqs), rss feeds, a few ads and then the articles.

[KiwiDexter]

For a good example of portal usage head on over to www.sitepoint.com and see what those guys are doing. They sort of have the forums as secondary to their development blogs, books, articles, and tutorials. They link up latest discussions etc from the forums.

I like Rob's ideas in the post above.

[Kasracer]

Honestly, what you should really do is unify everything. Make a large, mega developer site

In all seriousness, CodeGuru's UI is in need of a re-vamp. Why not re-do CodeGuru's UI and develop it in such a way where, if wanted, you could plug VBForums.com right into it. Share logins with both sites and both sites can have the same portal but different forum behind it (integrating the forums would be even better).

Of course this would be a huge project but I would love to see VBForums and CodeGuru work together. I would love even more to see CodeGuru's outdated UI get re-designed.

[brad jones]

Honestly, what you should really do is unify everything. Make a large, mega developer site

This might sound good, but often (most of the time) mega-sites don't do as well as focused sites.

[QUOTE=kasracer]
In all seriousness, CodeGuru's UI is in need of a re-vamp. Why not re-do CodeGuru's UI and develop it in such a way where, if wanted, you could plug VBForums.com right into it. Share logins with both sites and both sites can have the same portal but different forum behind it (integrating the forums would be even better).

Codeguru uses the same forums oftware as VBForums. Both use vBulletin. Codeguru also has a single sign-on between the site and forums. We can't roll VBForums into a single sign on (yet) with that site because there are numerous user names that overlap that are used by different people.

I would love even more to see CodeGuru's outdated UI get re-designed.

As to Codeguru's design - a revamp is in the plans. Feel free to send suggestions to me via the feedback forum on Codeguru or via email.

Brad!

[RobDog888]

So no "revamp" for VBF? Wouldnt it be better to upgrade us (maybe at least to 3.6.x) and maybe add nice new style. To be honest, its really drab looking and we could use something new to spark some more/continued interest

[MartinLiss]

So no "revamp" for VBF? Wouldnt it be better to upgrade us (maybe at least to 3.6.x) and maybe add nice new style. To be honest, its really drab looking and we could use something new to spark some more/continued interest

Amen.

[Kasracer]

This might sound good, but often (most of the time) mega-sites don't do as well as focused sites.

Yup, I understand. I just have a natural tendency to lean towards a large knowledge base of information rather than scattered ones.

Would it be possible to create a combined search? It would be great if I could search for something with VBForums and have it search CodeGuru as well.

As to Codeguru's design - a revamp is in the plans. Feel free to send suggestions to me via the feedback forum on Codeguru or via email.

That's awesome. I'll send you some feedback in the coming weeks

So no "revamp" for VBF? Wouldnt it be better to upgrade us (maybe at least to 3.6.x) and maybe add nice new style. To be honest, its really drab looking and we could use something new to spark some more/continued interest

IMHO, VBForums looks much newer and nicer than CodeGuru. CodeGuru's forum isn't half bad but the portal looks very old (no offence Brad!).

[RobDog888]

Well VBF's forums are the original site that vbulletin was developed on. I remember the 2.x version style and its basically the same as what we currently have.

We could have some gradients for the table headers and category headers as it would at least bring the look into the 21st century

Oh and file size/performance will be minimally impacted at most as you can make the gradients 1 pixel wide by 30 pixels tall. That will be ~100 bytes at most. That will be only 2 files downloaded as they are replicated across for a total of 200 bytes on the home page. Such a very very small price for such a improved look IMO.

[brad jones]

That's awesome. I'll send you some feedback in the coming weeks

Spec for developers is completed now. While it will likely be a couple months before they developers fit it into their schedules, if you take much time, then suggestions might not happen this round for Codeguru .

IMHO, VBForums looks much newer and nicer than CodeGuru. CodeGuru's forum isn't half bad but the portal looks very old (no offence Brad!).

None taken. The last major site update for Codeguru was 3 years ago, so yes, it is dated based on "Internet" standards

Brad!

[KiwiDexter]

Well VBF's forums are the original site that vbulletin was developed on. I remember the 2.x version style and its basically the same as what we currently have.

We could have some gradients for the table headers and category headers as it would at least bring the look into the 21st century

Oh and file size/performance will be minimally impacted at most as you can make the gradients 1 pixel wide by 30 pixels tall. That will be ~100 bytes at most. That will be only 2 files downloaded as they are replicated across for a total of 200 bytes on the home page. Such a very very small price for such a improved look IMO.

We could have festive skins, oh and a Dilbert one Just kidding Brad, well okay only about the festive idea