
- •Table of Contents
- •Preface
- •What This Book Covers
- •Conventions
- •Reader Feedback
- •Customer Support
- •Downloading the Example Code for the Book
- •Errata
- •Questions
- •What is vBulletin?
- •Why Have a Discussion Board?
- •Benefits of a Discussion Board
- •Why vBulletin?
- •History
- •Development
- •The vBulletin Advantage
- •Versatile
- •Performance
- •Customizable
- •Easy to Maintain
- •Other Features
- •vBulletin Licensing Options
- •Leased License
- •Owned License
- •Choosing a License
- •Example vBulletin Sites
- •Summary
- •Requirements
- •Disk Space
- •Bandwidth
- •System Resources
- •Shared Hosting
- •Semi-Dedicated Hosting
- •Dedicated Hosting
- •Other Options
- •Installing vBulletin
- •Tools
- •Downloading the Installation Files
- •File Extraction
- •Upload Preparation
- •Creating the Database
- •Command-Line Database Creation
- •cPanel Database Creation
- •File Editing
- •Uploading the vBulletin Files
- •Running the vBulletin Installation Script
- •Troubleshooting
- •Database Access Issues
- •Images/Styling Not Showing
- •PHP Errors
- •The vBulletin Control Panel
- •Importing Data into vBulletin
- •Downloading the ImpEx Script
- •Compatibility
- •Preparing for Upload
- •Editing the Configuration File
- •Upload the ImpEx Script
- •Running the ImpEx Script
- •Default Usergroups
- •Securing vBulletin
- •Help & Support
- •Summary
- •The vBulletin User Experience
- •How to Get to the Board?
- •What the End Users See
- •Site Logo
- •Forum Title, Login Box, and Navbar
- •Welcome Banner
- •Main Body of the Forum
- •What's Going On
- •Footer
- •Touring the Main Forum—Unregistered Users
- •No "New Threads" for Unregistered Users
- •Registering on a vBulletin Board
- •Touring the Forum—Members
- •New Threads
- •Replying
- •Editing a Message
- •Private Messages
- •BB Code
- •User Tools
- •Display Modes
- •Navbar Changes for Members
- •The vBulletin Administrator Experience
- •Forum and Thread Tools
- •The AdminCP
- •Control Panel Home
- •Latest Version Information
- •vBulletin Options
- •Forum Management
- •Editing and Adding Forums
- •Editing Existing Forums
- •Moderation Options
- •Forum Styling
- •Access Control Options
- •Forum Posting Options
- •Enable/Disable Features
- •Branding
- •Changing the Logo
- •Undoing the Change
- •Summary
- •Types of Customization
- •CSS Modifications
- •Changing the Table Title Text
- •Viewing Changes
- •Undoing the Changes
- •Phrase Modifications
- •Searching for Phrases
- •Making Changes
- •Viewing the Changes
- •Undoing Changes
- •Template Modifications
- •Accessing Templates
- •Exploring a Template
- •Template Structure
- •Adding a FORUMHOME Sidebar
- •Two Changes
- •PHP Code Modifications
- •PayPal Modification
- •File Modification
- •Hacks
- •Pros and Cons of Hacking a vBulletin Board
- •Finding a Hack
- •Installing a Hack
- •Backing Up a Hack
- •Commercial Hacks
- •Summary
- •Setting Up a Forum
- •Creating the Forum
- •Forum Permissions
- •Viewing Permissions
- •Opening the Forum
- •Super Administrators
- •Creating a Super Administrator
- •Other Changes to the config.php File
- •Admin Log Viewing Permission
- •Admin Log Pruning Permission
- •Query Running Permission
- •Undeletable and Unalterable Users
- •Maintaining the Database
- •Backing Up the Database
- •Repairing and Optimizing the Database
- •Some Maintenance Issues
- •Smilies
- •Editing a Smilie
- •Adding a New Smilie
- •Uploading a Smilie
- •Creating Your Own Smilies
- •Avatars
- •Adding Avatars
- •Storing Avatars
- •Summary
- •When to Upgrade
- •Preparing for Upgrade
- •Migrating Changes
- •File Compare Utilities
- •Uploading the Files
- •Running the Upgrade Script
- •Testing the Upgrade
- •Unveiling the Upgrade
- •Summary
- •Styling vBulletin
- •Template Lifecycles
- •Lifecycle 1—Constant Change
- •Lifecycle 2—Working Behind the Scenes
- •Editing the Default Style
- •Changing Image Paths
- •Other Editable Elements
- •Some Tips about Editing Styles
- •Adding a New Style
- •Editing the Style
- •Saving the Style
- •Downloading the Style
- •Making the New Style into the Default
- •Distributing a Style
- •Installing a New Style
- •Summary
- •Hacking vBulletin
- •Making the Changes
- •Locating the Template
- •Hacking the pm_newpm Template
- •Testing the Hack
- •Hack Distribution
- •Tips for Hack Distribution
- •Plugins and Products
- •Getting Plugins and Products
- •Adding a Product
- •Adding a Plugin
- •What If Things Go Wrong?
- •Summary
- •Default Usergroup Settings
- •(COPPA) Users Awaiting Moderation
- •Administrators
- •Moderators
- •Registered Users
- •Super Moderators
- •Unregistered / Not Logged In
- •Users Awaiting Email Confirmation
- •Banned Users
- •Default vBulletin Database Tables
- •Moving Servers in Six Easy Steps
- •Cookie Check
- •Back up Database
- •Download the vBulletin Files
- •Transfer to New Server
- •Database Restoration
- •Back Online
- •Graphics
- •Global Post Text Find and Replace
- •Programming Standards
- •Braces
- •Indenting
- •Give Operators Space
- •String Quoting
- •Return Values
- •SQL Queries
- •Naming Conventions for Functions
- •Summary
- •vBulletin Directory Structure
- •Notes
- •Official vBulletin Sites
- •Main vBulletin Hack Site
- •vBulletin Styles and Templates
- •vBulletin Add-Ons
- •Index

Chapter 3
These names are of course placeholders, and you are expected to change them (although you do see the occasional forum using these names!)
Editing and Adding Forums
Once the board is set up, you need to give people a place to go to so that the talking (or typing!) can happen. The placeholder forum is there just to show you where the forums appear on the page—the developers expect you to create your own!
To create discussion areas, you have two options open to you:
•Edit existing forums
•Add new forums
You can make these changes in the AdminCP. In the left-hand menu, click on Forums and Moderators and then click on Forum Manager.
Clicking here brings up the Forum Manager screen in the right-hand pane. This screen allows you to work with the forums and categories of your discussion board.
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A Tour of vBulletin
The controls here allow you to make a number of changes to the categories and forums displayed. You can go straight to viewing the contents of the forum, edit it, delete it, add a child forum (that is a forum that appears beneath a forum), add a moderator, and add announcements, as well as viewing the permissions.
Editing Existing Forums
We can edit the main category, and give it a more meaningful name and description by using these tools.
Editing the forum gives the administrator power over six areas.
Firstly, they can change the name and description of the forum, and give it a more meaningful title and description. Another interesting and useful feature is Forum Link. If you enter a URL there, anyone clicking the forum link will be redirected to that URL. The Display Order setting controls the order forums are displayed in, wherever they are shown (including the Admin CP). If you set this to 0, then a forum will not show up anywhere to the end user. It can, however, still be accessed if the user types in the direct URL to the forum.
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Chapter 3
Make sure that you click on Update Display Order if you have changed any of them. You also have control over the default view age for the threads (although users can change this manually), as well as changing the parent forum of the forum (which essentially moves it from one spot to another in your board).
Moderation Options
Below that are the moderator options for the forum. You can set these on a forum-by-forum basis, so you have total control over how each forum is moderated and how the content posted is handled.
There are a number of settings that you can control. You can:
•Enter an email address to be notified when a new thread or post is made
•Require that threads and posts are validated before a post is displayed publicly
•Moderate all attachments before displaying
•Allow members to report posts to moderators and administrators
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A Tour of vBulletin
Forum Styling
vBulletin has an option that allows you to give the forum a style different from the default. You can also let users override your choice of style.
In Chapter 7 you will see how to create new styles for your vBulletin installation that will customize the way that it looks.
Access Control Options
You may want to control who has access to certain parts of the discussion board. This is easily done in vBulletin, as there is an option that allows you to set a password for access to particular forums. This is useful for creating private forums or for restricting access to certain members.
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