Loosing the message board look

[dcpaq2]

To whom it may concern,

All of these Vbulletin add ons are nice, But why is it though that anyone who comes along and makes an add on for vb always makes them look just like the original Vbulletin message board ?

I feel like I am basically creating another forum and just attaching files to the post and someone adding a thumbnail feature and tweaking the admin control panel with a few extra things.

Can't we get these add ons to look different and not so much like a forum?

An example would be something more like how yahoo groups does theirs?

At least it doesnt look like a forum.

It would be nice to just get away from the "forum" look for the add ons for such things as files and photos.

See my attached photo on what yahoo groups photo gallery looks like. I would have uploaded a snapshot of the files section but the admin has the file sizes set so rediculosly low its not even funny. 216kb was too big.

Doug

[kall]

The whole idea of 'taking on the look of the forums' is intentional, and a feature that many people base their decision on.

If you don't want it to look like the default vbulletin, you make your own style not look like the default vbulletin.

As for your example...how is that any different to http://www.nzboards.com/photos/browseimages.php?c=511 (Aside from my link giving information about each photo, which can easily be turned off)?

As kall said, that's part of the whole point of vBadvanced. It's designed to look more like the forum so that more parts of your site can be uniform and less confusing to your users. If you don't want it to look like your forums then you can always edit the templates and change whatever you would like.

[dcpaq2]

As for your example...how is that any different to http://www.nzboards.com/photos/browseimages.php?c=511 (Aside from my link giving information about each photo, which can easily be turned off)?

The actual gallery part im fine with. Its the categorys and sub categories that look like forums.

Id like to get the categories and sub's not to "tree" down, or show the subcategories underneath one another, that way you only see the "folders" of what is currently on the level your viewing until you click on one of the folders then you see what is inside of that folder. Id like it to behave just like you would click on folders with folders inside one another like on your computer.

Currently they look like forums and theres too much wasted space to the right of each category please see my attached photos.

Let me sit back and re think how to explain what Im actually trying to ask you guys about this. Maybe im not explaining clearly what im actually wanting here. Maybe what im wanting to do can be done and I just dont know how to do it, and you guys dont understand what im after. Ill repost another reply a little later.

Doug

[robert_2004]

Mate, it's taken me a while to get it to work - and i'm still working on it (though i have stopped after completing "part 1" of my initial plan).
for reference - http://www.MelbourneUnderage.com/photos/
I'm about to push it to anotehr stage, by either completely redoing the cat_bits, and add an additional cat_bit_level, as when you go to the sub-category "clubbing 2005" the layout is completely wrong - and if i change THAT, then it will change the layout when you enter to look at a category with photos.

Ontop of that - i need to chuck my CMPS menu on the left, and alter the layout a bit more.

It takes a bit of "kick in the nuts" and "hit and miss", and some advanced html knowledge to remember exactly what you are moving, and where the end of a table is - sort of thing.

But the system is made quite well in one instance, where you can change the gallery to look like what ever you want (like mine) and still spend less than 1 hour upgrading the gallery to a new version (i just haven't been bothered updating mine yet.)

Hope that helps