Eric
February 29th, 2004, 01:32 PM
Many changes are in the works for CO4x4 and they all revolve around our impending bulletin board software switch. I've been making passing comments about it for the past few months so it's time I finally explained what's on the horizon. In the impending future we will be switching from UBB to vBulletin as our bulletin board software. UBB served us well, but the world of message boards has evolved and UBB unforuntately didn't evolve with it. We're awaiting the release of vBulletin 3 (vB3) which is a project that has been in the works for well over a year. So here's a summary of what is coming:
</font> As soon as vB3 is released I'll be shutting down CO4x4 while we make the transition. I don't know when but they're in the Release Candidate phase so it shouldn't be too much longer. Hopefully this will go fairly smoothly and we will be down for only a short while. Could be hours, could be days. I'll provide as much notice as I can.</font> You will not need to reregister and we won't be starting from scratch (again :rolleyes: ). All topics / posts / registered members will be imported into the new software. For the most part the change will be semi-transparent. In fact, this importer is the only reason we haven't switched already. The current Release Candidate has proven sufficiently stable for our purposes, however the import software will not be available until after vB3 has been released. And so we wait...</font> The most significant improvement is the availability of usergroups. Until now I have been unable to "reward" users who help support CO4x4 via t-shirts, stickers, donations, etc. With usergroups comes the ability to offer additional features to those who help support CO4x4. I'll provide more info on these features following the release of vB3.</font> A new frontend. Our current home page is hand-coded and thus typically falls out of date very quickly. With the switch to vB will come a new frontend which is better integrated with the forums and easier to manage from the administrative end. The result should be a more active front page where the "news" doesn't mean last years news.</font> With vB3 comes the ability to offer sub-catagories. The currently cluttered For Sale sections will be broken into more specific catagories which can be collapsed under the main catagories of For Sale-4x4 and For Sale-Other (keeps the main forum page from getting out of hand with too many forums). In addition to the expanded Classifieds section will be the following new forums:
- Buyer/seller feedback forum. Finally a place to warn/recommend other users of your experiences in the CO4x4 classifieds.
- The Fab Shop, a spinoff of General4x4 which focuses more on the competition / fabrication side of wheelin'.
- Tow rigs and trailers. Another spinoff from Gen4x4, more and more rigs are being towed to the trails these days and this forum will focus on the machines that get your trailer queen to and from the trail.
- A Tech Archive. We've had some excellent technical discussions over the past few years but they're buried somewhere in General4x4. So, we'll create an archive where we can store these "How To's" for easy reference.
- and a few more surprises smile.gif</font>
If you'd like to "test drive" the new software you can check out the latest release candidate on vBulletin's website (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum).
If you have any questions, comments, concerns, now is the time to speak up. With this transition comes the opportunity to make "convenient" changes.
graemlins/thefinger.gif graemlins/beer.gif
[ February 29, 2004, 08:09 PM: Message edited by: Eric ]
</font> As soon as vB3 is released I'll be shutting down CO4x4 while we make the transition. I don't know when but they're in the Release Candidate phase so it shouldn't be too much longer. Hopefully this will go fairly smoothly and we will be down for only a short while. Could be hours, could be days. I'll provide as much notice as I can.</font> You will not need to reregister and we won't be starting from scratch (again :rolleyes: ). All topics / posts / registered members will be imported into the new software. For the most part the change will be semi-transparent. In fact, this importer is the only reason we haven't switched already. The current Release Candidate has proven sufficiently stable for our purposes, however the import software will not be available until after vB3 has been released. And so we wait...</font> The most significant improvement is the availability of usergroups. Until now I have been unable to "reward" users who help support CO4x4 via t-shirts, stickers, donations, etc. With usergroups comes the ability to offer additional features to those who help support CO4x4. I'll provide more info on these features following the release of vB3.</font> A new frontend. Our current home page is hand-coded and thus typically falls out of date very quickly. With the switch to vB will come a new frontend which is better integrated with the forums and easier to manage from the administrative end. The result should be a more active front page where the "news" doesn't mean last years news.</font> With vB3 comes the ability to offer sub-catagories. The currently cluttered For Sale sections will be broken into more specific catagories which can be collapsed under the main catagories of For Sale-4x4 and For Sale-Other (keeps the main forum page from getting out of hand with too many forums). In addition to the expanded Classifieds section will be the following new forums:
- Buyer/seller feedback forum. Finally a place to warn/recommend other users of your experiences in the CO4x4 classifieds.
- The Fab Shop, a spinoff of General4x4 which focuses more on the competition / fabrication side of wheelin'.
- Tow rigs and trailers. Another spinoff from Gen4x4, more and more rigs are being towed to the trails these days and this forum will focus on the machines that get your trailer queen to and from the trail.
- A Tech Archive. We've had some excellent technical discussions over the past few years but they're buried somewhere in General4x4. So, we'll create an archive where we can store these "How To's" for easy reference.
- and a few more surprises smile.gif</font>
If you'd like to "test drive" the new software you can check out the latest release candidate on vBulletin's website (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum).
If you have any questions, comments, concerns, now is the time to speak up. With this transition comes the opportunity to make "convenient" changes.
graemlins/thefinger.gif graemlins/beer.gif
[ February 29, 2004, 08:09 PM: Message edited by: Eric ]