For those thinking of switching

[TGSAion]

After using this software for a bit, and having been pleased with its performance thus far I would like to share my thoughts with people looking for some answers. Hopefully some of my commentary will help potential buyers since it comes from a fellow vbulletin admin.

Just to elaborate a bit before beginning, I've been a vbulletin user for a little over 3 years now on a relatively small forum with a consistent group of posters. It isn't a 'big board' by any means, but over time I've probably used most the features that vbulletin offers. This puts me at an advantage with that software bundle over IP.Board, so if I give kudos to a feature that is 'missing', but isn't actually missing and a user error of ignorance on my part, please chime in and correct me fully.

I know you can't really be objective on some things, and for those instances I've tried to separate them from the facts by italicizing them. Also, this is not at all a comprehensive analysis of the two softwares. Just a collection of points that stood out to me. Hopefully this kind of thing is allowed if done in a non-hostile/polite to other product way, if not then nuke away or move to the appropriate area, if there is one.


Things in Invision's Favor:

This is based on the 3.0 series of board, after my use of the IP.Suite product that comes with IP.Board/Blog/Gallery

[*]Private Messaging – Private messages are just like email in other forum applications. Back and forth with quotes randomly nested and cut off. IPB has private 'conversations' which is basically a forum thread that only invited people can see. This is by default just you and the person you messaged. You can later invite others into the conversation. A total of 6 people can be in on a private conversation. This seems very similar to what Google is working on with their 'wave' project. Very nice and easy to read. This is by far one of the coolest methods of private conversation I've used and I really dislike going back to the 'old' system when using vbulletin based boards. I can't give this enough praise.

[*]New-Admin Friendly - There is a search box in the admin panel that dynamically changes based on what words you are typing in. Clicking on each link takes you to that particular menu section. This makes working in the backend as an admin incredibly efficient when you are new to the software, and really helps with the learning curve.

[*]User Profiles – The information presented when you go to a user profile using the default theme is clean, yet abundant. Almost anything a visitor would be looking for can be quickly located on this page. This is incredibly well done. Content 'tabs' in the profile are loaded via AJAX. Clicking the' topics started' and' posts' tab in a user's profile and having it fade in is much better than clicking a link and being taken to a search result page.

[*]Admin Panel – Once you get used to it, finding things in the admin panel seems much easier and efficient than vbulletin. Things are structured in a logical, easy to use manor. It seems somewhat slower than vbulletin's admin panel but not by much.

[*]SEO Friendly URLs – IPB has them out of the box. vbulletin does not. Some argue if this helps or not, but honestly I consider these to be 'user friendly URLs' as well. When someone pastes a link elsewhere, the person clicking has a general idea what they are going to based on the text in the URL instead of thread.php?=231202

[*]User Agent Mapping – I don't think this is a feature in vbulletin. Correct me please if I am mistaken. This is incredibly useful for making a mobile friendly version of your site, even tailored specifically for particular devices. It can map specific themes (and possibly other stuff?) to individual browsers. One of my users actually discovered this first and sent me a thank-you email. I had no idea what he was talking about but after investigating, it is a great feature to have.

[*]Integration with other products – Invision actively support all of their advertised products, and make it a point to have them integrate with each other seamlessly. The blog/gallery are very well developed, and seem to still be getting improved. I've not used the others enough to comment on them. But if you need extra bells and whistles to go with your community, these will and do go nicely together with their other components. The unified admin interface is a great plus.
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Things in vbulletin's favor:

This is based on my use of vbulletin 3 series.

[*]Automated Usergroup Management - Able to have users request to join a usergroup. The user enters their control panel and clicks the usergroup they wish to join. The admin can check a usergroup request queue page and admit/deny/ignore each request. I've seen this compared to features also known as 'social groups.' This is not the same thing. If you have a private section on your boards, and want to limit who sees what, having a system where you can take admin-defined usergroups and flag them as 'joinable' helps immensely in dealing with user wanting into a private area. As it is currently I don't see a way for a user to request access to a private area of your board other than a PM. The above system would let you access a page to see a tabular list of users wanting to join the usergroup, each with a radio button beside them of admit/ignore/deny and a 'process requsts' form button at the bottom to make the changes. I hope I explained this properly; I can elaborate if it wasn't clear what I am talking about.

[*]User Management – It is easier to quickly access and change ALL things in a user's profile using vbulletin via clicking their profile link. Instead of looking up a user in the admin panel (which you can also do) IPB just lets you change lesser options if you click on a username and hit 'edit profile'. For the full list you must go into the admin panel and then look up the user. I guess this is because the 'backend' stuff wouldn't really be considered a part of a users profile, which is the more social/public aspect of their information. Regardless, a quick way to get to the backend for that particular user is a nice ability to have. If I see a disruptive person I would much prefer to just click on their name and be given the option to enter their user page as if I looked them up the admin panel.

[*]Theme & Customization –The only thing that gives vbulletin an edge is the css color selector built in to quickly replace things on the fly rather than toy with an entire CSS layout output in a form field. This is incredibly minor for me, but I believe still worth mentioning as a lot of people enjoy such functionality. At first I thought it was incredibly difficult to work with templates in IPB, but after messing with it a bit more there honestly isn't that much difference in the system.

[*]Thread Prefixes – I've not seen an option for this. I like these and am not really happy to see them missing in IP.Board. Yes they are limited to being useful in certain situations but when those situations arrive they can be invaluable.

[*]Search – Since I started working on this document, Invision seems to be steadily improving on the search feature in the last few minor version releases. Results are getting much more accurate, and I've been able to find thinks much easier now compared to previously. I still don't like the results being post based vs thread based. An option to return results as threads or posts, and letting and letting the board admin set the default would be nice. Users can then move away from it as they see fit, but would initially be presented with a result set that they are accustomed to seeing. As for now, I still am not comfortable with search results, nor are many of my users.
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And that's all I really have for now. I've really enjoyed working with something new and seeing what other options are on the market.

One thing I would like to add... and this is that the staff here is incredibly helpful. They come across as genuinely nice, polite, and have always been enjoyable to talk with. After reading through threads on here it seems that it isn't an uncommon occurrence :). That is a major plus in my opinion. If you are going to invest in a product that puts you in a relationship with a company for an extended period of time, be sure to know what kind of people you are getting involved with. In this case, I would say you're getting a solid product with good people backing it.

Sorry for writing a book, I'm really finished now.

[Matt]

Thank you for your feedback, it's really appreciated.

I'll go ahead and move this into our feedback forum so that others can chime in with their opinion.

[Booth]

[quote name='TGSAion' date='04 November 2009 - 02:42 PM' timestamp='1257345765' post='1875452']
Things in vbulletin's favor:

[*]User Management – It is easier to quickly access and change ALL things in a user's profile using vbulletin via clicking their profile link. Instead of looking up a user in the admin panel (which you can also do) IPB just lets you change lesser options if you click on a username and hit 'edit profile'. For the full list you must go into the admin panel and then look up the user. I guess this is because the 'backend' stuff wouldn't really be considered a part of a users profile, which is the more social/public aspect of their information. Regardless, a quick way to get to the backend for that particular user is a nice ability to have. If I see a disruptive person I would much prefer to just click on their name and be given the option to enter their user page as if I looked them up the admin panel.

[*]Theme & Customization –The only thing that gives vbulletin an edge is the css color selector built in to quickly replace things on the fly rather than toy with an entire CSS layout output in a form field. This is incredibly minor for me, but I believe still worth mentioning as a lot of people enjoy such functionality. At first I thought it was incredibly difficult to work with templates in IPB, but after messing with it a bit more there honestly isn't that much difference in the system.

These two things would be fantastic if implemented in IPB3. The colour picker, for someone like myself would make it much easier to convert my old VB them to IPB3. At the moment I'm sticking with the default skin as I keep messing it up when I try to edit the CSS directly.

[.Ian]

Excellent post - can't argue about any of that.

All you VB points are those that I too miss in IPB (total pain having to go into a CP and remember the users display name that you wish to edit!)

Worth adding on search that with IPB you can use sphinx, which even with V4 VB refuse to add - makes a big difference to larger forums, but would rather it be topics by default.

Also in IPB's favour is display names - something that VB does not have.

[AlexJ]

[quote name='TGSAion' date='04 November 2009 - 02:42 PM' timestamp='1257345765' post='1875452']

[*]Automated Usergroup Management - Able to have users request to join a usergroup. The user enters their control panel and clicks the usergroup they wish to join. The admin can check a usergroup request queue page and admit/deny/ignore each request. I've seen this compared to features also known as 'social groups.' This is not the same thing. If you have a private section on your boards, and want to limit who sees what, having a system where you can take admin-defined usergroups and flag them as 'joinable' helps immensely in dealing with user wanting into a private area. As it is currently I don't see a way for a user to request access to a private area of your board other than a PM. The above system would let you access a page to see a tabular list of users wanting to join the usergroup, each with a radio button beside them of admit/ignore/deny and a 'process requsts' form button at the bottom to make the changes. I hope I explained this properly; I can elaborate if it wasn't clear what I am talking about.

[*]User Management – It is easier to quickly access and change ALL things in a user's profile using vbulletin via clicking their profile link. Instead of looking up a user in the admin panel (which you can also do) IPB just lets you change lesser options if you click on a username and hit 'edit profile'. For the full list you must go into the admin panel and then look up the user. I guess this is because the 'backend' stuff wouldn't really be considered a part of a users profile, which is the more social/public aspect of their information. Regardless, a quick way to get to the backend for that particular user is a nice ability to have. If I see a disruptive person I would much prefer to just click on their name and be given the option to enter their user page as if I looked them up the admin panel.


Both of them where in phpbb3 also. We used it a lot since we also have private forums depending on group and 99% of the gaming forums have private section. Now its nightmare for admin to move each user from ACP. I would personally like to see those features in core IPB itself without any hooks or mod's.

[Alex K.]

Great post. :thumbsup:

Just to add on to this:
[quote name='TGSAion' date='04 November 2009 - 06:42 AM' timestamp='1257345765' post='1875452']A total of 6 people can be in on a private conversation.

The limit of 6 is just the default; there's no hardcoded limit. The limit is determined by usergroup in the ACP.

[Terry - AKA Dumbledore]

Never mind.

[Jυra]

vB forums that use automated usergroup management have many members who do not correctly change usergroups in addition to the period in time that a member has to wait wondering why they haven't changed usergroups.

Most forums don't use thread prefixes.

[TCWT]

IPB need to change the search as many have suggested.

[OpenWare]

Another area that vB has the advantage:
Per Forum, Usergroup Overrides
Basically, as with IPB's usergroups, you can configure a number of options/permissions for that usergroup, and they apply globally. On vBulletin however, you can override all of these permissions/options on a per-forum level for every usergroup, and they will apply to users in those groups, only for those forums.

[Guest FKABS]

great post, excellent points

[quote name='Jυra' date='06 November 2009 - 01:06 PM' timestamp='1257534406' post='1876443']
Most forums don't use thread prefixes.

not true
we use them on our forum, and most vBulletin forums I visit use them too (most are webmaster forums, but more then 90% use prefixes)

[bradl]

+1 to accessing all aspects of the user account via edit profile.

[JaProMa]

[quote name='TGSAion' date='04 November 2009 - 02:42 PM' timestamp='1257345765' post='1875452']

[*]Automated Usergroup Management - Able to have users request to join a usergroup. The user enters their control panel and clicks the usergroup they wish to join. The admin can check a usergroup request queue page and admit/deny/ignore each request. I've seen this compared to features also known as 'social groups.' This is not the same thing. If you have a private section on your boards, and want to limit who sees what, having a system where you can take admin-defined usergroups and flag them as 'joinable' helps immensely in dealing with user wanting into a private area. As it is currently I don't see a way for a user to request access to a private area of your board other than a PM. The above system would let you access a page to see a tabular list of users wanting to join the usergroup, each with a radio button beside them of admit/ignore/deny and a 'process requsts' form button at the bottom to make the changes. I hope I explained this properly; I can elaborate if it wasn't clear what I am talking about.



I've had ideas for a modification like that. I'll try to write one in the next few days... It should be interesting.

[Darky999]

TGSAion, very informative post.



This is brilliant, and I can see how handy this would be. I am currently running a gaming site on 2.1.7 (ugh :P), and often times we create private beta test discussion forums that we use special permission masks for. In order to allow someone into the forum, you have to go to ACP, and give them the permission mask. To remove all users from the forum once the beta period has expired, you have to go back into ACP, list all users for that permission mask, and remove that mask one member at a time. It's a royal pain in the butt.

Even easier would be what you posted above about Usergroup management, and perhaps even easier would be the same system on a per-forum basis (not as a replacement of the usergroup management, but as an addition to it). Users can request to join a private forum, admins can then click on a "manage forum" button right on the front-end to manage who has access to that forum. They can then just "mass remove" everyone easily. Of course the limitation of this would be the forum has to at least be visible in the category for people to know they can join it, but of course that is up to the site owner's discretion how covert they want the private forum to be or not. If they really want to be covert, they can use the usergroup management option instead.

I also agree with making ALL of a user's "backend" options available via the front-end. Arguably, there should be no individual member management at all in ACP, only global settings for member groups. I'm a big, big fan of putting all controls into the context of where they're most relevant, or at the very least, duplicating them there (e.g. forum settings in the forum view as well as ACP, member settings in member profile view, etc.)

Automated Usergroup Management - Able to have users request to join a usergroup. The user enters their control panel and clicks the usergroup they wish to join. The admin can check a usergroup request queue page and admit/deny/ignore each request. I've seen this compared to features also known as 'social groups.' This is not the same thing. If you have a private section on your boards, and want to limit who sees what, having a system where you can take admin-defined usergroups and flag them as 'joinable' helps immensely in dealing with user wanting into a private area. As it is currently I don't see a way for a user to request access to a private area of your board other than a PM. The above system would let you access a page to see a tabular list of users wanting to join the usergroup, each with a radio button beside them of admit/ignore/deny and a 'process requsts' form button at the bottom to make the changes. I hope I explained this properly; I can elaborate if it wasn't clear what I am talking about.

[Morrigan]

[quote name='TGSAion' date='04 November 2009 - 07:42 AM' timestamp='1257345765' post='1875452']

[*]Automated Usergroup Management - Able to have users request to join a usergroup. The user enters their control panel and clicks the usergroup they wish to join. The admin can check a usergroup request queue page and admit/deny/ignore each request. I've seen this compared to features also known as 'social groups.' This is not the same thing. If you have a private section on your boards, and want to limit who sees what, having a system where you can take admin-defined usergroups and flag them as 'joinable' helps immensely in dealing with user wanting into a private area. As it is currently I don't see a way for a user to request access to a private area of your board other than a PM. The above system would let you access a page to see a tabular list of users wanting to join the usergroup, each with a radio button beside them of admit/ignore/deny and a 'process requsts' form button at the bottom to make the changes. I hope I explained this properly; I can elaborate if it wasn't clear what I am talking about.
I think this is something I can see being useful but at the same time it can get quite messy. So I say... Maybe? add it.

[quote name='TGSAion' date='04 November 2009 - 07:42 AM' timestamp='1257345765' post='1875452']

[*]User Management – It is easier to quickly access and change ALL things in a user's profile using vbulletin via clicking their profile link. Instead of looking up a user in the admin panel (which you can also do) IPB just lets you change lesser options if you click on a username and hit 'edit profile'. For the full list you must go into the admin panel and then look up the user. I guess this is because the 'backend' stuff wouldn't really be considered a part of a users profile, which is the more social/public aspect of their information. Regardless, a quick way to get to the backend for that particular user is a nice ability to have. If I see a disruptive person I would much prefer to just click on their name and be given the option to enter their user page as if I looked them up the admin panel.
NO!!! There are some things that you should be able to edit while on the forum and others that need to be edited only in the admin panel. Something maybe that should be implemented is a link to edit in the admin panel only if "Remove Admin Link" is not enabled. At first I wanted this as well but then I figured out that I much prefer it how it is now.


[quote name='TGSAion' date='04 November 2009 - 07:42 AM' timestamp='1257345765' post='1875452']

[*]Theme & Customization –The only thing that gives vbulletin an edge is the css color selector built in to quickly replace things on the fly rather than toy with an entire CSS layout output in a form field. This is incredibly minor for me, but I believe still worth mentioning as a lot of people enjoy such functionality. At first I thought it was incredibly difficult to work with templates in IPB, but after messing with it a bit more there honestly isn't that much difference in the system.


[quote name='TGSAion' date='04 November 2009 - 07:42 AM' timestamp='1257345765' post='1875452']

[*]Thread Prefixes – I've not seen an option for this. I like these and am not really happy to see them missing in IP.Board. Yes they are limited to being useful in certain situations but when those situations arrive they can be invaluable.


Just a few thoughts on the reasons why VBulletin is better. :D