95% sure, just have a couple of ?'s

[Noctavia]

I currently run an SMF forum on my website, having switched to them from phpBB2 after the constant security issues. I am now have "issues" with SMF in relation to things I want to be able to do, and am looking into VBulletin. I have a couple of questions though if I may...

First and foremost important question, does the ImpEx work with SMF forums? I have read some thread's about SMF > VBulletin imports, but the documentation I read doesn't actually list it as one of the installed importers.

SMF has the ability to Merge one topic with another, will I have this ability with VBulletin?

SMF also has the ability to limit the height of a forum signature. For example I could set in a max height of 300 pixels, and if someone put in a signature image that was say 500 pixels high, it would provide 300 pixels of space with a scroll bar on the side. The scroll bar was only in the 300 pixel signature area... Can I do this with VBulletin? If not, is there a similar feature to limit the height some people's signatures take up?

I just LOVE how you can add in additional forum profile fields!! As a gaming related website, being able to put server and character names under each poster (instead of the "What server do you play on" thread) is a huge plus! I was wondering though, how hard it is to have the profile information appear down the left side instead of the top? Is it a simply inbuilt feature I can tick one or the other? Or does it involve theme alterations?

(( I actually have minimal theme creation experience when I made my SMF theme... well I altered the colours =p ))

How does the licensing work on sub-domains? For example I might have www.mysite.com as the main site that I want the forum for, but I also have a blog at www.blog.mysite.com, am I allowed to install the forum software on that as well on a single purchase?

[zappsan]

First and foremost important question, does the ImpEx work with SMF forums? I have read some thread's about SMF > VBulletin imports, but the documentation I read doesn't actually list it as one of the installed importers.

Impex does support, smf, just look here: http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/main/impex_tier_1

SMF has the ability to Merge one topic with another, will I have this ability with VBulletin?

Yes, you can merge threads but you also merge posts in vBulletin.

SMF also has the ability to limit the height of a forum signature. For example I could set in a max height of 300 pixels, and if someone put in a signature image that was say 500 pixels high, it would provide 300 pixels of space with a scroll bar on the side. The scroll bar was only in the 300 pixel signature area... Can I do this with VBulletin? If not, is there a similar feature to limit the height some people's signatures take up?

That's not a default feature, but there is a hack like that on vbulletin.org

I was wondering though, how hard it is to have the profile information appear down the left side instead of the top? Is it a simply inbuilt feature I can tick one or the other? Or does it involve theme alterations?

Just a setting in the adminCP.
There is also a plugin which lets your members choose between both of them.

How does the licensing work on sub-domains? For example I might have www.mysite.com as the main site that I want the forum for, but I also have a blog at www.blog.mysite.com, am I allowed to install the forum software on that as well on a single purchase?

I'm not sure what you mean and before I say something wrong about it, I'll better leave this to the staff...

[Noctavia]

Hi zappsan, thankyou for replying

I'm very pleased to see Impex supports SMF, and thankyou for the link, I did not find that particular one myself.

Merging posts isn't something that happens often, but pleased to see I will be able to. I will look into vbulletin.org regarding the signature feature, again not a common problem, but it happens. Very happy to hear I can change the layout easily, I had a bit of a play with the demo version but didn't notice it, will have to go look harder.

One other question if I may, regarding tables and lay out. SMF allows BB Code tables which I have used in the past to have text beside images etc. They also have left, center and right aligned options. I haven't found any information about this with vBulletin, but if I was to enable HTML for one or two users (namely me and one other person), would that fix that problem?

**Edit : Another question **

I currently use SSI includes (I think that's what they are called) on my website front page to show things like latest members, the 5 last forum replies etc. Will I be able to do the same thing with vBulletin?

[Jordan Pardy]

I think you can with some sort of modification, probably. I don't really know, I'd wait until the staff comes, but I don't even understand what you mean? You want to have stats on the latest members and whatnot on the front page of your website?

[feldon23]

vBulletin makes the last 10 posts available via RSS or JavaScript. You have a lot of control over the RSS.

Left, Right, Center, you'll want to look at bbCodes. You can add your own bbCodes. I added one that lets users put things in a table. It's very limited. It just allows a user to have a sig that has 2 or more columns. And it's easy to modify the postbit template so that sigs are within an invisible DIV of a fixed height so if they put an image that's too large, it gets cropped.

[Noctavia]

What I am asking in relation to SSI includes, is currently my SMF forum allows me to include statistics from my forum on any other shtml page. My current front page uses things like #include virtual="./ssi.php?ssi_function=recentTopics" - this allows me to show the latest 5 topics replied to at the top of my front page.

I also use at the bottom of my menu's, #include virtual="./ssi.php?ssi_function=latestMember" - to have a message that says, "Please welcome XXX as our latest member"

I want to continue this trend and am wondering if vBulletin has these features or something similar.

[Colin F]

All you can include by default with vBulletin is the latest 10 topics, per forum or globally.

[Noctavia]

Ok, thankyou. And that is on an external shtml page yes? Are there any other pieces of information I can use?

[Colin F]

This is available as a XML, RSS or JavaScript feed.
More information is available in the manual: http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/v...group_external

[Noctavia]

Ok, looks like I'll have to read up on how to use that... never used either of those three before.

[Alteran Ancient]

I think it might be possible to look around vB.org for other external lists like Members. I'm not sre, because I've never looked myself, but there is always something in vB.org

[Noctavia]

Hi Alteran Ancient, thankyou for pointing me to there. I think I have found a mod that will do just what I want *claps*

The other option is for me to look into a straight portal type system, I see a lot of those when I come across other vBulletin sites.

I've pretty much made up my mind that I will go with vBulletin after finding I can do everything I want (and more) with it. Thankyou everyone