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| Developed by | Jelsoft Enterprises |
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| Stable release | 3.7.5 (6 January 2009) +/− |
| OS | Cross Platform |
| Platform | PHP / MySQL |
| Type | Forum software |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | www.vbulletin.com |
vBulletin (abbreviated as vB) is a commercial Internet forum software produced by Jelsoft Enterprises. It is written in PHP using a MySQL database server.
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History
In 1999 James Limm and John Percival were running a Visual Basic website using Infopop's UBB.classic forum software on VB Forums. As their site grew, they noticed that their software, written in Perl using a flat-file database, could not always cope with the number of users they had. In February 2000, the two decided that it would be better to write their own solution as both were unfamiliar with the software's code and thus unable to optimize it. Initially, it was designed solely as a rewrite of UBB, in PHP using MySQL, and was meant only for their own forum. Other UBB owners expressed interest in the solution, and they offered to sell it to Infopop, but their proposal was rejected. As there was still a demand for the software, Limm and Percival created Jelsoft and released their work as a paid solution, called vBulletin 1.
After subsequent minor releases of their software, the two decided to start working on a new version that would be more than a rewrite of UBB: they wanted to turn their software into a competitive solution for forums. Rewriting the entirety of the product, vBulletin 2 commenced development. Shortly thereafter, Limm became the managing director and Percival the lead developer. To help with the scale of the project, two additional developers, Freddie Bingham and Mike Sullivan were brought on to help finish vBulletin 2. Kier Darby was brought on during the vBulletin 2.0 Beta phase to further development. The release of vBulletin 2 proved to be very successful and is what made vBulletin popular.
In December 2002, vBulletin 3 was beginning development. Percival decided to step down as lead developer and product manager, turning his roles over to Kier Darby. vBulletin 3 was under development for a lengthy period of time—nearly two years—as it went from a mere improvement on vBulletin 2 to a complete rewrite. However, version 3 was finally released in March 2004. In 2005, vBulletin 3.5 was released that addressed some of the shortcomings of 3.0 (discussed later on). vBulletin 3.6 was released as a stable version on August 3, 2006.
On July 4, 2007 Jelsoft posted a topic on their support forum stating that Jelsoft had been acquired by Internet Brands, which promised significant investment in software development.
Versions
Since the initial release of vBulletin in 2000, there have been many improvements made. Below is a list of the major revisions and some of the changes they introduced.
Latest release
The latest stable release of vBulletin is 3.7.5 which was released on January 6th, 2008.1
v3.8
On August 4, 2008 Jelsoft annouced that they will be continuing with vBulletin 3.x series. vBulletin 3.8 has the following features:2
- Social Group Discussion Topics
- Private Messaging Improvements
- Most Recently-Updated Albums
- Moving Album Pictures
- Thread Prefix Permissions
- Social Group Categories
- Social Group Avatars
vBulletin 3.8 is currently in Release Candidate 2 state and will be released as Gold on January 8th, 2009. The first public release was Beta 1 on October 9th, 2008.3 vBulletin 3.8 builds on and adds resolution to the functionality introduced in vBulletin 3.7. A full list of features can be found in Darren Gordon's (developer) blog post.
v3.7
A first look at vBulletin 3.7 was announced on November 23, 2007.4 It was officially released on April 29, 2008. 5
New features included:
- Inline spam management & prevention
- Thread tagging
- Search cloud / tag cloud
- Thread prefixes
- Reciprocal friendships between users
- Public visitor messaging on profile pages with 'conversation' feature
- User picture galleries with user comment facility
- User-created social groups with invite only and moderated membership options
- Extended member profile pages
- Customizable member profile pages with admin-controlled styling abilities
- Inline editing of custom user profile fields
- Lightbox viewer for attached images
- Viewable and comparable history maintained for post edits
- Extended re-authentication for inline moderation actions
- Notices system for navigation bar
- Multiple human-verification systems including reCAPTCHA, image verification and Q/A
- User change history
- Social bookmarking integration
v3.6
vBulletin 3.6 had some changes that were not available in previous versions. It became available for customers to download via the Members Area of the site, vBulletin.com. New features included:
- Multi-Quote
- Infraction System
- RSS Poster Robot
- Podcasting Support.
The Gold release of vBulletin 3.6.0 was released on August 3, 2006 [4].
vBulletin 3.6.7 introduced full support for the Project Tools and Blog addons along with several new hook locations.citation needed
v3.5
vBulletin 3.5 addressed some of the problems users had with version 3.0. Here are a few of the changes:
- A plugin system that allows for modifications of the software without the need to edit the program scripts. This allows a forum operator to keep their modifications (called "hacks" in the vBulletin community) and not having to re-edit scripts after upgrading.
- AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) editing of thread titles and post content.
- Inline moderation, allowing forum operators to manage threads and posts on their board without having to go through intermediary steps.
- An API system (referred to as "data managers") to let third-parties integrate more easily.
- Template history and comparison where administrators can store a specific revision of a template into the database, which can be arbitrarily compared against each another.
- MySQLi wrapper that adds support for MySQL 4.1.
- A database-stored thread marking system. Previous versions of vBulletin relied on a variable stored in the database, and also a cookie, to store information about what threads had been read and not read by the user. However, this information was volatile and did not keep; plus if you merely idled for 15 minutes (some forums have longer timeouts, 15 minutes is the default) this information would be lost.
v3.0
Initially, version 3.0 was intended to be an extension of the 2.x release that would improve performance and user experience. However, as time progressed, it proved to be a complete rewrite. Some of the key advantages over vBulletin 2 are:
- The templates and style use XHTML and CSS.
- None of the language displayed by vBulletin is hard-coded in English; there's support for multiple languages by use of phrases.
- A WYSIWYG editor for users to post in.
- Paid subscriptions that allow administrators to charge for certain features of their site.
- Multiple views for threads: linear (a flat system), threaded (display of the entire thread tree), and hybrid (a combination of both).
v2.x
vBulletin 2 is no longer under active development, except for security updates. When this version was released, it had numerous new features over vBulletin 1, which it replaced:
- Private messaging to allow users to communicate in private.
- Polls could be attached to threads.
- Nested forums of unlimited depth. This allowed forums to be children of each other without constraints.
- User avatars.
- A user control panel that allows users to control various board options.
v1.x and vBulletin Lite
Development of vBulletin 1 is no longer active; also, it is no longer a supported release.
vBulletin 1 was the initial release of vBulletin, sporting the same features as UBB.classic. The release was very popular as it was one of the first systems that was written using PHP and MySQL that had the features of UBB.
vBulletin Lite was a degraded version of the 1.x series that allowed potential customers to test their server for compatibility with vBulletin. The product was discontinued after vBulletin 2 because there were security issues and it was out of date, and Jelsoft did not want to spend resources into maintaining a non-commercial product.
Future Development
v4.0
Rumors and hints about the development of the next generation vBulletin product, vBulletin 4, have been dropped by developers and discussed endlessly by users for several years now.
On August 4th, 2008, Kier Darby, lead developer of vBulletin announced the development of vBulletin 3.8 and vBulletin 4.0.6 vBulletin 4 was described in this announcement as "an extensive rewrite of the vBulletin system. Architecturally, vBulletin 4 follows MVC (model-view-controller) object oriented principles, allowing far greater capabilities in code re-use and extendability." At the time, the requirements of vBulletin 4 were "PHP 5.2.3 and MySQL 5.0.22 or newer".
On December 15th, 2008 James Limm, Managing Director of Jelsoft, posted the vBulletin 4 Series Development Update with significant differences from the August announcement.
In August, we announced a major overhaul of the code base. Rather than targeting all of these changes in a single, long-term release, we intend to accomplish all the planned improvements over a number of versions. In order to achieve this goal, the largest vBulletin development team ever assembled is now working within an Agile development process, allowing us to deliver new features into your hands faster.
Each incremental release in the vBulletin 4 series will include improvements in features, usability and architecture. Development efforts are prioritized towards those areas that can provide real, tangible benefits to our customers, at all times with an eye toward maintaining and enhancing the performance and reliability expected of a vBulletin product.
Key features and improvements that will be included in the first vBulletin 4 release are:
- Cross-content search system providing a single interface to search across forum posts, blog entries and comments and other supported products
- Improved search performance
- A fresh design and layout making use of semantic markup and CSS styling
- An enhanced style and template system to enhance your ability to change the layout
- Controls to assist with the placement of advertising elements
- SEO features, including friendly URLs
- A centralized attachment system, allowing the sharing of attachments across products
In the lengthy discussions7 which have followed this turn of events, additional information has been discovered:
- Ray Morgan of Internet Brands (which acquired vBulletin in 2007) is Project Manager of vBulletin 4, taking over from Kier Darby
- The PHP and MySQL requirements won't be raised as high as announced in August, because the first release will be sooner than previously expected
- Jelsoft is now developing a Content Management System which will be fully integrated with vBulletin.
- vBulletin 4 is now being developed and will be released incrementally through 2009, with the first Beta expected "early Q2 of 2009".
Other products
Plugging in to the vBulletin core, Jelsoft has released two addons that provide functions to meet more specific needs.
vBulletin Blog
This allows members of a vBulletin community to create their own blogs. vBulletin Blog 1.0.5 was released to the public on April 8, 2008. It is priced at $60, which includes one year of software updates.
vBulletin Project Tools
A host of tools that will support the development of a product through production and life time, with a bug and feature tracker. vBulletin Project Tools 2.0.0 was released to the public on September 30, 2008.8 It is priced at $60, which includes one year of software updates.
Modifications
Modifications (also known as "hacks") allow you to modify the vBulletin in many ways. vBulletin's official sister site vBulletin.org gives you the ability to download thousands of modifications which are primarily written by volunteers who are vBulletin customers. The official written purpose of vBulletin.org is:
- To extend vBulletin.
- To educate members.
- To help solve problems.
- To support the entire member base professionally and equally.
- To provide a place where people can attain and share information about vBulletin.
See also
References
 |
This article or section needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of the article are generally not sufficient for a Wikipedia article. Please include more appropriate citations from reliable sources, or discuss the issue on the talk page. (December 2007) |
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=235378
External links
- vBulletin website
- vBulletin.org, site for hacks and modifications
- vBulletin at the Open Directory Project
