vBadvanced != article directory …?

I’m looking for an integrated solution of a message board and an article directory. Someone pointed me to take a look into vBadvanced; vBadvanced advertises that it’s CMS. But … as I check its demo, I don’t see any article directories. vBadvanced doesn’t have an article directory integrated, does it? If so, what integrated solution of a message board and an article directory is available?

 

vBadvanced is not really a CMS. It is a portal system for vBulletin. It lets you create a home page with blocks and also create custom pages, although it stores the content for those pages in templates which has some issues from a content management standpoint. The best vBulletin-based article system is TheVBGeek's GARS system, which has some support issues at present. The original developer (who was excellent) closed up shop a couple months ago and just yesterday announced that he has named someone to take over his products and development. The new developer should pick it back up and keep it going. GARS lets you "skin" your forums and threads like articles so that to a user, it looks like real content, however it lacks some content management features such as timed release, staging, etc. There are ways to work around all of that. A combination of GARS and vBadvanced can produce a pretty nice site... take a look at pdaphonehome DOT com where I've heavily integrated the two. To see just how far you can take it, with some modifications to a connector hack, take a look at the "Learn" menu option and you'll see a database app that I did with these two. Everything is stored in vBulletin threads with GARS custom fields added.

I am currently looking for a replacement for GARS and vBadvanced because of the support problem, and may go ahead and migrate even though support appears to be coming back in a few weeks. For vBulletin integrated solutions, I find the following alternatives:

SubDreamer - Commercial CMS that has full integration of vBulletin out of the box. The easiest supported CMS to implement I believe. They appear to be kind of slow rolling out new functions, but what they have is well supported.

Drupal - This is the most highly rated CMS from all the lists I've seen, but it is quite a bit complicated to learn. There are three connectors to vBulletin... vbDrupal, DrupalVB, and Drupaltin. They all seem to have their advantages and disadvantages, but I think the first one seems to be the most robust. A good comparison table is available at www DOT vbdrupal DOT org/vbulletin_drupal_integration_matrix

Joomla - Another highly rated CMS with a few connectors out there to vBulletin. The connectors for the latest version - 1.5 - seem to be a bit immature for my liking at this point, but I'm sure that will change quickly.

Vivvo - A commercial CMS with full vBulletin integration out of the box. Latest V4 looks very good, but I've seen some reports that there are some bugs... again, I'm sure that will change pretty quickly.

I'm still undecided at this point on my next step, most likely vbDrupal.

 

"kind of slow" should be rephrased as "don't give a damn about the customers, never release a significant update in 2 years". They spend more time making worthless plugins to please individual people than looking at the big picture.

 

First, thanks for this. Very very helpful.

Now, after I read your post and took a look at a few websites, I’m leaning toward vbDrupal. But two questions …

q1. If you were to set up a section that should appear to be an article directory, how would you approach? Is the manual section in vbDrupal.org created using vbDrupal or they created this not using it?

q2. If I want to add a blog mod here, does it interfere with the integration of vB and vbDrupal?

q3. Are you familiar with Links and Downloads Manager? If so, can this be used like an article directory? (Or I’m totally misunderstanding what it does …?)

 

Maybe this is what you are looking for... I was looking for what you are but I am using a different solution.

vbArticle Module - MadeByMarry.com
vbArticles is a Rating and Review module and unlike it's name can be use for reviewing anything and not just articles. By supporting upload of Photo, Audio, Video becomes ideal for any type of Reviews. In addition the including HTML editor supports unlimited photos, audios and videos in the Article's body.
MadeByMary.com - sorry, I still don't have minimum posts for live links yet

 

The problem is you don't have global search....... and some other minor bugs..
Check at madebymary dot com and more and vbulletin dot org