[Forum] Nees Help (BIG TIME) With Current Upgrade to 4.0.7

[Fenderpick]

I am the Admin of a guitar forum, Fenderpick.com

The forum has been under the hood of vBulletin since its inception 6 years ago. I recently paid for a "professional upgrade" from version 3.0.3 (that's correct!) to the current 4.0.7

So I basically never upgraded the site until about a month ago. To be honest, the site was about to go under and needed financial backing to keep the forum stable and membership intact.... let alone trying to grow new members.

Ok, so now we have this plain vanilla site that is very complicated to make the most basic changes, like color backgrounds, skins, how many people logged on for the day, etc:...

I was always a huge fan of vBulletin and thought this upgrade would turn us around and not only keep the site stable, but also add some nice plugins, bells and whistles utilizing the latest version and help from customer support, tech support (I believe we paid for this with the upgrade), and now I'm sharing some of the frustrations my members and mods and myself are facing with this upgrade.

Please.... visit the site and you'll see how it desperately needs some TLC. I'm going to ask first here for some good advice that is in true "layman's terms"... yes, if you can respond back as if I have no clue to back-end technology, and can walk me (us) through some of the basics, again in easy simple, basic english, I should be able to get these issues fixed.

I am very disappointed (seems I'm not the only one!!!) who has been frustrated with the new version. It was actually easier to make changes from my 3.0.3 to current version! So here is the site's URL so you can see what we're talking about

http://www.fenderpick.com/

We didn't pay for the upgrade to have the site looking like this. This is a disgrace, and if I had the knowledge and time to tinker and play I would... I don't. I am asking for anyone here who can offer specific advice on some basic changes as well as some issues with the forum. They include:

1. Timing out.....if you start a post and wait to long to enter it, you get logged out. I understand (I believe) that this is a safety feature, but the time is way too short. I never had that problem with the old site

2. sometimes the "reply with quote" just sits there and "spins" after you click on it

3. Change the background of the site... this should be an easy fix!! I raed something about "stylevars" - I can tell you I have NO IDEA what that is or where to even begin to find and change it. I'm certainly not tech savvy, but I can take direction and eventually figure this out -usually, but not this time. Why has vBulletin made these basic changes so difficult and complicated? More importantly, if I do not understand how to do this I will strongly suggest that vBulletin step in and fix this as we want it to look. This should be a matter of clicking a few buttons (as example) to have a white background change to a dark background...If I can show you a vBulletin site that has been done (IMO) right, it would be this one!
http://www.jdmuniverse.com/
I like the layout and all the bells, plugins, etc:.... anyone know how to do this? I want my forum to look a lot like this one! If you notice also - JDM site is 3.7.3 version.For me to continue with vBulletin I will need REAL SUPPORT and help - I'm asking for your help. Jake Bunce (who I like and was the tech who not only upgraded the forum, but launched it back in 2004). I have been bounced around and I don't have the time and starting to lose patience - and members! because of this.

So who here has the knowledge that can guide me and my moderators through this? Again, I refer to the JDM Universe site as example of a vBulletin forum DONE RIGHT.

I want this too.

Please help - I look forward to all the feedback and hands on support I can (and expect) to get.

Thank you in advance!

Dave

[bszopi]

Not sure on 1 or 2, but I will try to chime in on 3...

First, you could try using the Style Generator to make changes to the color scheme. It is located in the ACP > Styles & Templates > Style Generator

As far as StyleVars, goto ACP > Styles & Templates > Style Manager

From there, pick the style you want to change (keep the default, and create a new if you haven't already), then from the dropdown menu, select StyleVars. Here is a list of all of the stylevars used in the system. The list can be quite daunting, but using the search box to search for terms (ie, background) will hopefully narrow down what you are trying to edit. Also, check out http://stylevars.com/ when looking for specific items.

Hopefully that will get you headed in the right direction at least.

[Fenderpick]

soooooo.... that's all folks? really. bszopi, thanks for your reply. The fact i received just one response either means my questions were really lame, or, maybe no really knows any of the answers to these questions. HELLO VBULLETIN!!!!!!!!!!!

[Steve Machol]

1. You set the session timeout here:

Admin CP -> Settings -> Options -> Cookies and HTTP Header Options -> Session Timeout

Also if your users click on the 'Remember me' then this issue will not happen.

2. In my experience this is due to a template modification. Try this. Create a new style and choose no parent style. This will force it to use the default templates. Then change to this style and view your forums with it. Do you have the same problem?

If you do, empty your browser cache, close all browser windows and try again.

If you do not have this problem with the original templates, then this means the problem is with one or more of your custom templates. You need to revert your templates, then redo your changes.

3. Depending on which background, you would use either:

Admin CP -> Styles & Templates -> Style Manager -> StyleVars -> body_background or doc_background -> Background Image