The Official vBulletin Modifications Site.

vBulletin 3.7.5

vBulletin 3.7.5 contains a number of bug fixes, details of which can be found in the bug tracker.

The security fixes included in vBulletin the 3.7.4 PL1 release are also included in vBulletin 3.7.5.


vBulletin 3.8.0 ("Gold") to be Released on Thursday, January 8th

3.8 has progressed well through the beta and release candidates stage. We're happy to announce that the stable release of 3.8.0 will be made available to all customers with active licenses on Thursday, January 8th.

We would like to thank all customers who have taken part in the beta/release candidate process and especially those who have filed bug reports.


Upgrading from Previous Versions

3.7.5 is a maintenance release. We recommend that all customers running prior versions of vBulletin 3.7 upgrade to benefit from bug fixes and stability improvements.

Full instructions for upgrading vBulletin are available here.


PHP and MySQL Requirements

Please note that vBulletin 3.7.x requires at least PHP 4.3.3 and MySQL 4.0.16 or later.

However, we recommend that vBulletin 3.7.x is run on PHP 5.2.8 with APC (or a similar opcode cache) and MySQL 5.1.30 for best performance and stability.


End of Life for PHP 4

PHP 4 has now reached its end of life. We strongly recommend that customers update their servers to PHP 5.2.8 if they are still running PHP 4. vBulletin 3.7.x supports PHP 5 without any problems, though you may need to disable strict mode for MySQL, see here on how to enable 'force_sql_mode'.

Note: We will continue to support PHP 4 in the vBulletin 3 series.


Download vBulletin 3.7.5

As usual, vBulletin 3.7.5 is available for all customers with valid, active licenses to download from the vBulletin Members' Area.

vBulletin Members Area

Please do not use this thread for support questions.

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Some minor code updates have been applied today.

* Graphics Tab added.
* Style Tab changed - now only goes to styles forums.
* Latest Articles added to homepage.
* Articles listed at bottom of modifications list in user profile.
* Tag/Untag Modification added as (ajax) option on main modification post.
* Style Colour and Width options now in footer of page.

As a result of the changes, everyone will default to the blue style, fixed width format (950px) - you can quickly change back to the colour of your choice (and full width if desired) by using the new footer options.

vBulletin Blog 2.0.0

We're pleased to announce the first stable, supported release of Blog 2.0.x. This version is available immediately from the Members' Area to all customers with active vBulletin Blog licenses.

We'd like to thank everyone that has provided suggestions and feedback or reported a bug for the Blog. Almost all of the new features in this version were added specifically because of your requests. We are sure that you will like the improvements. Not every requested feature has been added as we have to balance time versus benefit.


Some of the new features in Blog 2 include:

• Blog Customization - users may customize their blogs in the same manner that they can customize their user profiles (introduced in 3.7).
• Group Blogs - users may allow other users to post to their blog.
• Sidebar Blocks - users may create custom blocks to display in their sidebar. These blocks can be rearranged by drag and drop.
• Custom Pages - users may create custom pages to be displayed in their blog.
• Tags - tag support has been included.
• Featured Entry Manager - multiple entries can be featured on the blog home page now.
• Private Entries - users may set specific entries to be private while leaving their blog open.
• Admin Categories - admins may define categories now.

There are many more new features and enhancements included. You can read more details in my in my blog.

Note: You must be running vBulletin 3.7.4 or later to install Blog 2.0.0


Upgrading/Installing the Blog

Upgrades and new installations of the Blog follow the same process: upload the files and import the XML. After this, you will see a message that your upgrade or install was successful. For full instructions on how to upgrade or install, please see this manual entry.

Template Changes

A large number of templates have been changed when compared with the Blog 1.0.x. It will be necessary to revert affected customized templates or otherwise carefully integrate the changes into your custom versions or new features and existing functionality will be adversely affected. A complete list of the templates you have customized whose original version has been changed by the 2.0.0 upgrade is available within your Admin Control Panel after the upgrade is complete.

Bug Reports

As with any software, bugs will appear. If you find a problem that you believe to be a bug, please don't post about it on the forums where the development team may never find your message, but instead use the dedicated bug tracker to make a report that can be tracked through to completion.

Before reporting a bug, please ensure you are able to reproduce the problem on a board using a default, uncustomized style with all plugins disabled.

About the Blog

vBulletin Blog is a fully featured blogging add-on that enables community members to create their very own online blogs within vBulletin. Giving members a place to post thoughts, ideas and musings will keep users returning to the community again and again, and advanced administration features allow forum owners and moderators to keep control and integrate Blog into vBulletin’s existing look and feel.


vBulletin Blog makes it simple for community members to create their own space within the community. Getting started is as simple as posting the first message (using the same familiar vBulletin editor). There is no lengthy setup process - blog owners are free to personalise their blog at any time by defining a title and a description that will appear at the top of every blog post.

• Find out more about the Blog
• View the Blog's' manual
• See the Blog in action on the vBulletin.com community forums

Please do not use this thread for support questions.

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vBulletin 3.8.0 Release Candidate 2

THIS IS PRE-RELEASE SOFTWARE.
IT IS UNSUPPORTED.

If you are not fully at home with backing-up and restoring your forum, dealing with bugs and regular upgrades, DO NOT INSTALL THIS VERSION

It is time for the second release candidate of 3.8. Primarily, this addresses issues that have been reported since the previous release candidate.

However, it does add one small feature: the "Use Remote YUI" option now lets you specify Yahoo! or Google as the provider. If your board is accessed using SSL, the Google-provided files will automatically be requested via SSL as well (preventing browser warnings). The Yahoo!-provided files do not have this option.

We would like to thank all customers who have taken part in the beta/RC process and especially those who have filed bug reports. Please continue to do so during the Release Candidate stage, so that we can make 3.8.0 as bug-free as possible.

Customers running older versions of vBulletin 3.8.0 should upgrade as soon as possible, to ensure that any known problems are eliminated.

There is an extensive blog post by Darren that showcases some of the new features and improvements that have been made to vBulletin 3.8.0.

In addition, the scheduled release of 3.7.5 has been pushed back until January 6th because of the holidays. See this blog post.

What does Release Candidate mean?
Release Candidate, or RC for short, means that we believe vBulletin 3.8 will be ready to be declared a "stable" and "supported" supported release once it has undergone some final testing. The only known bugs that may remain are trivial.

RCs will be released until only trivial bugs are being fixed. Once this happens, the next stage is to move on to "gold" or, as it's officially known, 3.8.0.

This is still pre-release software. If you are not fully at home with backing-up and restoring your forum, dealing with bugs and regular upgrades, do not install this version but rather wait for the final, 3.8.0 version.



Customers should bear in mind that this is a release candidate, not a certified 'stable' release so the following caveats apply:

• Pre-release software is unsupported and you install beta and RC versions at your own risk.
• Some minor bugs remain unresolved at this time, so pre-release software should not be on production sites.
• You should always back up your database fully before attempting to install pre-release software.
• If you choose to install this version, you should be aware that we plan to release new RC versions in rapid succession as bugs are fixed and holes are plugged. Do not install this RC version if you are not willing or able to keep up-to-date with new releases.
• The ImpEx import system does not support the 3.8 code yet, and will not support it until the release of 3.8.0 (stable).

Please do not use this thread for support questions.

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The vBulletin 4 project is progressing quickly and we are in a position to share some further information about what to expect in our next new major version release.

In August, we announced a major overhaul of the code base. Rather than targeting all of these changes in a single, long-term release, we intend to accomplish all the planned improvements over a number of versions. In order to achieve this goal, the largest vBulletin development team ever assembled is now working within an Agile development process, allowing us to deliver new features into your hands faster.

Each incremental release in the vBulletin 4 series will include improvements in features, usability and architecture. Development efforts are prioritized towards those areas that can provide real, tangible benefits to our customers, at all times with an eye toward maintaining and enhancing the performance and reliability expected of a vBulletin product.

The goal of the vBulletin 4 series is to develop a modern, scalable application platform that will allow your communities to thrive.

Key features and improvements that will be included in the first vBulletin 4 release are:

• Cross-content search system providing a single interface to search across forum posts, blog entries and comments and other supported products
• Improved search performance
• A fresh design and layout making use of semantic markup and CSS styling
• An enhanced style and template system to enhance your ability to change the layout
• Controls to assist with the placement of advertising elements
• SEO features, including friendly URLs
• A centralized attachment system, allowing the sharing of attachments across products

Alongside significant strides forward within the vBulletin forum product, we are also producing a new content management system to facilitate the creation, editing and publishing of non-forum pages. Further details about CMS features, and how it will integrate with vBulletin will be posted in due course.

We are working hard and plan to have vBulletin 4.0 released in beta form in early Q2 of 2009.

I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your continuing support of vBulletin. We are really excited about version 4, and we're looking forward to bringing you further updates via general announcements and periodic development blog posts focusing on individual areas.


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