vBulletin bugs

[cassos]

I noticed several bugs, as usual with closed-source projects, because the poeple that were paid to make it aren't perfectionnist (especially for vBulletin), and never get help from poeple being actually more experienced.

I notice these bugs using Firefox on Linux, and twilight skin :
'Register' link/button shows, even though i am logged in.
'Member list' and 'Search' links/buttons show, even thought i have no permission to use such features.
'Member list' link also appears also as link next to 'User CP', 'FAQ'.
'RPG' drop down menu isn't showing, this is because template upgrade was not made for this skin _or_ because vBulletin's template system is using design technologies that are a decade old (menu cannot be customised using css because design is based on _tables_).
'1337.com awards' not showing.
'Show user profile' link showing, even though i have no permission, this is not your fault, vBulletin coders estimated that you would buy the BBS before noticing such a 'feature'/_bug_/'ineficiant UI'.
User names font in 'viewtopic' page is set too big, and some member names extend the left column even though they don't with 'xbulletin' skin, this is because poeple developping vBulletin skins do not _have to_ maintain a certain compatibility with other's work; other's can't append modifications because it is all closed-source.

Now, this is not a debate about open-source please, neither about web-developpement, this would be unrealistic in 'teh sandoX'.

If i see some more i will upgrade (this post).

[Inactive Cargo]

You'll find most of these problems aren't related to vBulletin, but the skin itself. The twilight skin is not made by Jelsoft, it is made by Extreme Pixels. vBulletin has plenty of provisions to solve those problems outlined by you in the skin, for instance, it has a proprietary if tag, so <if $show_memberslist>
<a href="memberslist.php">Members List</a></if>. That would be located in the navbar template, for instance.

Switch to X-Bulletin and your problems should go away. You have one valid point on the X-Bulletin skin whereby it will link you to the user page even though you do not have access to it. By default you can view the members list/user profiles, however Rune has disabled it for whatever reason he deemed fit. Consequently vBulletin doesn't have a provision for it, because there are a myriad of options involving links etc that would have to be enabled/disabled and would generate a considerable number of MySQL queries. Because vBulletin is designed and does run on websites with upwards of 25,000 active users (and several hundred thousand guests) in any one 15 minute block, an extra four queries per registered user would equate to 100,000 extra SQL queries. Hence this behaviour is by design and reflects typical vBulletin usage.


I noticed several bugs, as usual with closed-source projects, because the poeple that were paid to make it aren't perfectionnist (especially for vBulletin), and never get help from poeple being actually more experienced.Might I point out that vBulletin is the largest, most mature bulletin board available, and the developers are probably the most experienced. If you take a look at the source code it is meticulously constructed, elegant and hellishly fast. You might also want to take a look at how much better closed source programs are in general -vs- open source ones:

Visual Studio -vs- Open Source Variant
vBulletin -vs- php "Gratuitious security holes" BB
MacrAdobe Web Suite -vs- Open Source Variant
Adobe Photoshop -vs- GIMP
MSSQL -vs- MySQL

With regards to the last one, although I like (and use) MySQL, MSSQL is more SQL standards compliant and is the largest deployed relational database in the world.

But as I said before, it's not actually Jelsoft's fault, they provide provisions for these things and ExtremePixels hasn't used them.

[cassos]

You'll find most of these problems aren't related to vBulletin, but the skin itself. The twilight skin is not made by Jelsoft, it is made by Extreme Pixels. vBulletin has plenty of provisions to solve those problems outlined by you in the skin, for instance, it has a proprietary if tag, so <if $show_memberslist>
<a href="memberslist.php">Members List</a></if>. That would be located in the navbar template, for instance.
Well, i actually beleive well-coded softwares have the design code that is separeted from the engine; because this let the designers care about solely the design.


Switch to X-Bulletin and your problems should go away. You have one valid point on the X-Bulletin skin whereby it will link you to the user page even though you do not have access to it. By default you can view the members list/user profiles, however Rune has disabled it for whatever reason he deemed fit. Consequently vBulletin doesn't have a provision for it, because there are a myriad of options involving links etc that would have to be enabled/disabled and would generate a considerable number of MySQL queries.
I beleive this permission feature is half-developped, because 'member list' link hidden with a correct template when user does not have permission to display it.


Might I point out that vBulletin is the largest, most mature bulletin board available, and the developers are probably the most experienced. If you take a look at the source code it is meticulously constructed, elegant and hellishly fast.
meticulously constructed, elegant and hellishly fast wouldn't be how i qualify such an outrageous use of table tags, (wich were never ment to manage design, even thought this was the 'hack' to design layouts before CSS existed).

Visual Studio -vs- Open Source Variant
I don't use neither Lazarus, neither Eclipse (yet).

vBulletin -vs- php "Gratuitious security holes" BB
You might also want to take a look at how much better closed source programs are in general -vs- open source ones, including my favourite : punbb. Used on boards such as :
http://www.cobaltandcalcium.com/forum/,
a very popular board : http://www.syi.cc/,
http://www.rustyjoystick.com/forum/,
and so on, check the largest tracked boards at the bottom of punres.org index page.
Since 1.2, there was only 2 XSS exploit that went public, security patch was proposed 0 day.
Compare to microsoft, an army of developpers, and it's outrageous metafile bug that allows remote priviledge escalation within seconds; one week for an obscure patch, three weeks for an official security-fix.

Adobe Photoshop -vs- GIMP
Yes, finally you may specify your keyboard shortcuts since one the latest version of Photoshop. But can you make scripts ?
MSSQL -vs- MySQL
MSSQL, as all ms products, is Gratuitious security holes SQL engine.
MySQL has interresting alternative as SQLite. I would have proned PostgreSQL untill MySQL 5 was out.


But as I said before, it's not actually Jelsoft's fault, they provide provisions for these things and ExtremePixels hasn't used them.
That is ExtremPixels closed-source fault.
But if admins have to install the RPG section of the menu in each template, is really because the template system is _not_ clean and easy to maintain (for eg: engine code is mixed with design code in templates ...)

Finally, Open-Source is the best way to :
make a project to progress, (excluding the phpbb case)
highly developp computers economy,
equal chances of the third world,
stimulate passion of young coders like me and other.

[Inactive Cargo]

You might also want to take a look at how much better closed source programs are in general -vs- open source ones, including my favourite : punbb. Used on boards such as :
http://www.cobaltandcalcium.com/forum/,
a very popular board : http://www.syi.cc/,
http://www.rustyjoystick.com/forum/,
and so on, check the largest tracked boards at the bottom of punres.org index page.
Since 1.2, there was only 2 XSS exploit that went public, security patch was proposed 0 day.Just to put the largest punbb board into perspective compared with vBulletin:

Cobalt & Calcium
Registered users online: 54
Guests online: 18

Something Awful
Registered users online: 3,612
Guests online: 962

Just so you know for future posts, do your research first ;)

And if you want to look at how much vBulletin dominates online forums: http://rankings.big-boards.com/?filter=vBulletin,all&sort=online

[cassos]

Thank you for the piece of advice :)

However, even though i did _not_ say that punbb is the most popular BBS, i did say some forums are large and use punBB, wich is my favourite, but there are much more of them.

My point is : vBulletin urgently needs a complete template-system and design recode, I beleive many poeple that are into improving web-developpment may agree about that :)

[Inactive Cargo]

My point is : vBulletin urgently needs a complete template-system and design recode, I beleive many poeple that are into improving web-developpment may agree about that :)No it doesn't, the template system is arguably second to none in power and flexibility. First off, all of vBulletin's default output is valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional (http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vbulletin.com%2Fforum%2 F"). Secondly, with regards to web standard, the amount of work to go from this (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/) to this (http://www.extremepixels.com/forum/index.php?styleid=65) is minimal. All that needs to be edited is the CSS file and 11 of the template items (these are all minor edits, and are all related to inserting images into the header/footer, category headers, postbits and navbar).

So no, it doesn't need a complete recode, because it's fully W3C standards compliant, and 95% of it's design is customisable through CSS, with the remainder 5% not doable through CSS edits (although this should be reduced with CSS3)