vBulletin 4 Series Development Update

**Brandon Sheley** · 08-05-2009, 01:45 PM

Alpha testers get ready!
In my July 17 announcement, I estimated that we were about four to five weeks out from the start of alpha testing, and I'm happy to report that development is still tracking to that estimate.

As of today, nearly all of the templates for Forums have been ported to the new markup, and we've passed the 75% milestone for integrating them into the application. If development continues to go as well as it has been (and barring any surprises!), we should be able to begin alpha testing Forums starting the week of August 17th. Beta testing for the Forums will follow shortly after, as will alpha and beta testing of the Suite.

More news as it unfolds...

**ohiosweetheart** · 08-05-2009, 03:17 PM

I'm ready....

**Brandon Sheley** · 08-14-2009, 09:24 PM

vBulletin 4.0 Development and Alpha Testing Update
In my last few announcements I've reported the team's progress on the last few remaining tasks, particularly porting templates to the new CSS-based markup and some additional enhancements and debugging in the new CMS.

I'm happy to report that, barring any surprises, we're still on track to start alpha testing the Forums product next week. All of its templates have had their rough conversion done, and more than 95% have been integrated. After the last few templates are integrated, we'll do a quick round of regression testing and fix whatever showstopper-level bugs we find, then alpha testing can begin.

A few weeks after alpha testing for Forums begins, we will begin alpha testing for the Suite.

Stay tuned for more announcements next week.

vBulletin 4.0 Development and Alpha Testing Update - vBulletin Community Forum

**Brandon Sheley** · 08-23-2009, 09:51 AM

In all the discussions so far related to pricing and licensing, I’ve answered that there were quite a lot of details to work out, and that I would announce everything together as soon as all the pieces were settled. While we do still have a couple of loose ends to tie up, I’m happy to report that a couple of the most important issues have been settled, and I can address some of the most urgent questions about upcoming license changes for vBulletin 4.0.

In previous posts I had recommended that everyone keep their vBulletin licenses current, and there are two important reasons to do so:

1. You will have access to the 4.0 Forum upgrade under the terms of your current license.

2. You will be able to take advantage of a pre-sale discount offer for the new vBulletin Suite that will be available to current licensed customers only.

In a few weeks we’ll be rolling out more information on the release and announcing further details of the new license terms and pricing. Meanwhile, we appreciate your patience.

Some answers to important licensing questions - vBulletin Community Forum

I hope 4.0 comes out before Feb. that's when my license expires..lol

**Mikey** · 08-24-2009, 09:35 AM

I'm good til october 2010, iirc.

**v7web** · 09-13-2009, 11:46 AM

anyone know how alpha testing is going?
It seems that getting any info from vBulletin.com, these days, is non existent.
I thought the beta version was supposed to be in progress by now.

**ohiosweetheart** · 09-13-2009, 07:29 PM

It was announced that alpha would take a few weeks once released to the testers.

**AWS** · 09-19-2009, 11:29 AM

Looks to be stuck in the alpha phase. Same old, same old if you ask me. Took 3 years for 3.0 to go gold. I had high hopes when IB cleared house and stated the way 4.0 dev cycle would go. Now it looks like more of the same tune with new faces singing.

**v7web** · 09-20-2009, 03:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AWS

Looks to be stuck in the alpha phase. Same old, same old if you ask me. Took 3 years for 3.0 to go gold. I had high hopes when IB cleared house and stated the way 4.0 dev cycle would go. Now it looks like more of the same tune with new faces singing.

Its the lack of any info or updates thats what I cant understand.
Surely a quick post as to how alpha testing is going wouldn't harm.

vBulletin.com even closed the Announcements Discussions thread so we cant even ask any questions anymore.

**SticKer** · 09-20-2009, 04:49 AM

I believe the Alpha 3 might have been released this week to the testers according to a post by Steve Machol.

Quote:

As publicly announced we are currently on Alpha 2. We expect to have Alpha 3 available to the testers this week.

vBulletin Community Forum

**ohiosweetheart** · 09-20-2009, 03:48 PM

No it hasn't been released to us yet. They will release alpha 3 and Suite alpha 1 to us this coming week hopefully.

**2dub** · 09-21-2009, 09:03 AM

Peggy, Can you tell us so far if you like and you think our users will like especially the less savvy ones who will be frightened by the change?

Also is it the huge change like the Windows 3.1 to Win 95 type change or more subtle.

I know your being held to a non-disclosure but I'm just getting more eager.

**ohiosweetheart** · 09-21-2009, 09:39 AM

No I really can't tell you alot at all. I will tell you that it is a very big change. IMO anyway.

**Brandon Sheley** · 09-21-2009, 12:22 PM

what version is out? is the alpha 3 out or whatever SticKer was talking about

**ohiosweetheart** · 09-21-2009, 01:35 PM

No we're waiting for alpha 3 along with the Suite alpha 1 this week.

**Brandon Sheley** · 09-21-2009, 05:14 PM

do you guys get to test the cms too?

**ohiosweetheart** · 09-21-2009, 05:56 PM

The cms is part of the suite yes.

The suite (forum alpha3, cms alpha1, blog and pt) was released to us about an hour ago. I won't install it til tomorrow.
Too tired now, and I'll mess it up for sure.

**Brandon Sheley** · 09-22-2009, 06:53 AM

cool, have fun with it!

does the cms pull the vb style, like how vba does

**ohiosweetheart** · 09-22-2009, 10:41 AM

from what I can see, yes

**SticKer** · 09-22-2009, 06:51 PM

What has been the time frame for testing each of the alpha release? Do they have it scheduled or do they release the next update once the reported bugs have been fixed?

**ArnyVee** · 09-23-2009, 03:05 AM

Steve Machol writes....

Quote:

Just a quick update to let you know that we have released Alpha3 of vB4 to the Alpha testers along with the first Alpha version of the vB4 Suite (which we are calling an 'alpha3' version because it contains the latest fixes to the forum functions as well.)

As most of you know the Suite contains the new CMS. Since this is a first look it understandably has some rough edges but the Alpha testers are already providing useful feedback regarding this.

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1792425

**v7web** · 09-25-2009, 01:18 AM

For all those that were privileged enough to get alpha testing, I have a question.

On first impressions, is the new vBulletin CMS as good as vBadvanced?

**smacklan** · 09-26-2009, 07:22 AM

As Peggy said, A3 and the Suite is out. A4 is soon to follow...next week I think. Things are progressing at a very good pace. You will all get to see it in action at vb.com when it goes to Beta (which shouldn't be too terribly long I wouldn't think). We can't talk in anymore specifics than that at this time...sorry!

**Brandon Sheley** · 09-26-2009, 08:39 AM

Thanks for the update John

**ohiosweetheart** · 09-26-2009, 01:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by v7web

On first impressions, is the new vBulletin CMS as good as vBadvanced?

I would answer if I could, but I can't.

**fattony69** · 09-27-2009, 05:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ohiosweetheart

I would answer if I could, but I can't.

Knock once for a yes and twice for a no

**v7web** · 09-28-2009, 05:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fattony69

Knock once for a yes and twice for a no

LOL.

Thats exactly what I was thinking fattony.

How silly it all is!
How on earth is saying whether the new cms is better or worse than vBadvanced (in your opinion) breaking terms. Its not like giving away code snippets or anything like that.

**Brandon Sheley** · 09-28-2009, 05:51 AM

I personally don't see how a brand new CMS (which the devs have admitted is rough ATM) could be even remotely close to being better then vBA which has been around for years.

**bobdebilder** · 09-28-2009, 05:54 AM

the problem is that vBadvanced is not a CMS

no matter how it is made out to be it is not a CMS

**Brandon Sheley** · 09-28-2009, 07:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobdebilder

the problem is that vBadvanced is not a CMS

no matter how it is made out to be it is not a CMS

What would you call it?

What is CMS? Content management system
That's exactly what vba does, it allows you to pull in content from all pages of the site to one point

but I'm not going to argue with anyone about this, I KNOW it's a CMS and that's what they sell it as

ps.. even vba says it's a cms (vBadvanced CMPS)
vBadvanced CMPS (Content Management & Portal System)