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  #1  
Old 12-10-2004, 01:32 PM
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John Scheffel John Scheffel is offline
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What's New in vBulletin 3.0

There are lots new features in version 3. I am starting this thread to document some of the more important ones so people can try them out. If you find any cool new features, post them in the Discussion of vBulletin 3.0 thread. Also if you find things you liked better in version 2, post it to that thread as well. This thread is closed so it can be a quick reference to the new features. I will add to it as we go.

Three Editing Modes Including WYSIWYG
In User CP, Edit Options, you can now choose from 3 different editing modes.
  • Basic Editor - simple text entry box
  • Standard Editor - text entry box with buttons to add formatting
    • Guided Mode - clicking format buttons opens dialogs to assist you.
    • Enhanced Mode - clicking format buttons adds tags to text edit window. Use Close Current Tag to close them.
  • Enhanced Interface - WYSIWYG Editor which displays the post as it will appear. A little sluggish, but very handy.
The default is the Standard Editor, but there is supposedly a way we can force all the users to the Enhanced Interface if we want to.


Enhanced Search

The search options have been greatly enhanced. You can now search any group of forums by Ctrl-clicking from a list, or you can click a category or forum and search all the sub-forums. You can also save your prefered default option settings using the "Save Search Preferences" drop down and Go button. For example, you could make your default for "Show Results As: Posts" if you prefer it.

Unfortunately there is still no standard Day Search, so we will have to try to add the hack from version 2 for that.

Quick Reply

At the bottom of each thread is a box for entering a quick reply. This can be turned on/off from the vBulletin admin settings.

Threaded View Options

Version 3 now supports true threaded discussions. You can change the view of the thread using the "Display Modes" drop down while viewing a thread. The imported v2 threads don't seem to have been updated to be threaded, even if Quote was used and the post titles match.

Clicking User Name Displays Options

You might wonder what happened to the user info buttons on the post (profile, email, www, etc...). You can now click on the user name to get a list of these options and more.

Instant Message Icon In Posts

If you have entered ID(s) in the "Instant Messaging" section of your profile, your posts will include icon(s) that people can click to send you an instant message.

Attachment Management

You can now include multiple attachments with a single post, and change attachments from the Edit Post form (eliminates the need for one of our v2 hacks).

Preview Changes Now Standard

When you edit a post there is now a standard Preview Changes button, which eliminates the need for the v2 hack that we added to provide this button.

Preview First Post By Hover

If you hover your mouse cursor over a thread title, it will display a tooltip box with the beginning of the first post. Only seems to work with threads created in v3.

Quick Style Change

The bottom of every window includes a drop down to quickly change the Style (colors, icons, etc. also now referred to by the trendy name "skin"). Note that all the non-default styles in this test forum were imported from version 2 and may not work well. We will probably want to delete these and add new vb 3 styles.

Show/Hide Categories

The categories headings on the home page now include an arrow on the right side which can be used to show/hide the forums under that category. The setting is remembered when you exit.

Sub Forum Display

There is a global setting that will display a list of sub forum links under the forum titles. Not really relevant since we don't have subforums yet.
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  #2  
Old 12-13-2004, 04:09 PM
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John Scheffel John Scheffel is offline
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Re: What's New in vBulletin 3.0

Forum Subscription Is Now Useful

In version 2, subscribing a forum didn't do anything except add it to a list that you could view. Version 3 gives you the option to receive a daily or weekly E-mail update listing the activity in the forum. Forum subscription doesn't have a "Instant Notification by Email" option (like subscribing a Thread does), but getting a daily notice is probably good enough. I'm not sure how it determines when the Email is sent.

If you want to try this out, you need to click the Forum Tools drop down at the top of a forum you are viewing, then select Subsribe To This Forum. You will then be prompted with Email options.

To subscribe a thread, use the Thread Tools drop down.
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  #3  
Old 12-13-2004, 04:12 PM
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John Scheffel John Scheffel is offline
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Re: What's New in vBulletin 3.0

New Day Search Hacks

One of the hacks we added to version 2 is still not a standard feature in version 3, the "Day Search" feature. I did some snooping around the vBulletin forums, and discovered that the hack for version 2 does not work in version 3. The good news is that I discovered some even better hacks.

In version 3, it is possible to modify the PHP code for the standard Advanced Search form so that you can leave the keyword and user name fields blank, and it will search for the most recent posts based on the Find Posts From setting. Combined with the new search controls, this provides a lot of flexibility to search for all the recent posts in a particular forum, sort them in different orders, and even show the results as posts rather than threads. I have added this hack to our forum.

I also found a really nice hack which allows adding buttons into the navigation bar at the top each page for doing a quick check for the most recent posts. I was able to build on this and add buttons to get all the posts for different time periods. To try it out, click the New Posts drop down at the top of any page.

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  #4  
Old 12-14-2004, 10:14 AM
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John Scheffel John Scheffel is offline
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Re: What's New in vBulletin 3.0

In the Discussion of vBulletin 3.0 thread, Wolfgang pointed out the following new features.

The 'shrink'ed status of the large "Additional Options" area when writing a post is stored by a cookie. So I will not see that again and again. That's good!

WOW we now have scrollable code windows.

Code:
 sources code sections, if the source code line is much toooooooooooooooooooooooooooo long , tooo long, too long :-) will we also get rid of unwanted smiles for words like k-action ?..... YES..
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  #5  
Old 12-14-2004, 10:21 AM
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John Scheffel John Scheffel is offline
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Re: What's New in vBulletin 3.0

Thread Tools

At the top of each Thread view page is a new drop down named "Thread Tools". Here you will find some buttons which were displayed at the bottom in v2.

- Show Printable Version
- Email this Page
- Subscribe to this Thread
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  #6  
Old 12-14-2004, 10:25 AM
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John Scheffel John Scheffel is offline
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Re: What's New in vBulletin 3.0

Email, PM, and Profile Buttons

You might wonder where these buttons went. In v2 every post had them at the bottom. You can now click on the user name link (for example John Scheffel above) on each post to get a menu of these and other user related options.

Report this post to a moderator

There is also a new "Report Bad Post" icon at the top of each post. This replaces the "Report this post to a moderator" link which appeared at the bottom of each post in v2. Thanks go to Wolfgang for pointing this out.
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  #7  
Old 12-14-2004, 03:15 PM
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John Scheffel John Scheffel is offline
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Re: What's New in vBulletin 3.0

Member Info Position When Viewing Threads

As noted by Wolfgang in the Discussion of vBulletin 3.0 thread, the member info in v3 is placed above the posts instead of to the left as it was in v2. He prefers the to have the member left and asked if there is a way to get it back. I searched the vBulletin forums and found a hack that allows each user to select the member info position they prefer. If you want the member info on the left (as it was in v2) instead of the top, do the following.
  1. Click User CP at the top of any window.
  2. Click Edit Options in the left frame
  3. Scroll down to Thread Display options
  4. Change the Member Info Position In Post setting to Left
  5. Scroll down and click Save Changes
I left the default as Top since that is the new v3 default.
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Last edited by John Scheffel; 12-20-2004 at 08:30 AM. Reason: Clarify "v2 style" vs "v2 layout"
  #8  
Old 01-06-2005, 10:33 AM
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Re: What's New in vBulletin 3.0

How To Create A "New Posts" Favorite Or Bookmark

In response to a question posted by Wolfgang in the Discussion of vBulletin 3.0. If you want to create a Web Browser Favorite or Bookmark goes directly to the page you get from the New Posts drop down, you can use one of the following URLs. The first will show all the new posts since your last visit. The second will show all new posts in the last day (24 hours). You can change the number 1 to any number of days to view the posts in the last x days.

Code:
 
http://www.cocreateusers.org/forum/search.php?&do=getnew 
 
http://www.cocreateusers.org/forum/search.php?&do=getdaily&days=1
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  #9  
Old 01-06-2005, 11:05 AM
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John Scheffel John Scheffel is offline
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Re: What's New in vBulletin 3.0

A Better Way to Link Other Posts and Threads

Version 3 includes two new vB tags that make it much easier to link to other posts and threads. To use them, you need to know the post or thread ID number, which you can find from the Address bar at the top of IE while viewing a thread or post.

A post id number occurs near the end of the address as p=post_number
A thread id number occurs near the end of the address as t=thread_number

You can also view the thread ID number by hovering over the thread link when viewing a forum and looking at the URL displayed at the bottom of IE. Similarly, you can determine a post ID by hovering over the Quote, Quick Reply, or post # links on any post and looking at the URL displayed at the bottom.

For details, see the vB Code Help Page.
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