What's To Come For vBulletin - Part II
 

As promised, here is a follow on to my previous post.

In this post I would like to highlight how we are proceeding with the 4.X series and what we are expecting to introduce as part of the series. Please, note that these are not ordered in terms of priorities, but provided as a target list. And of course, as denoted in my previous post, 4.1 will include the top 4 items in this list.

As previously mentioned, we are also working in a re-factoring. The first element to be re-factored is the editor. There will be a common editor across the product. This will improve usability, as users will have a common experience for posting and editing with the added bonus that it also supports WebKit. As a note, not all of our re-factoring efforts will have a visual component, however, with each release we will let you know what was re-factored.

And also as previously mentioned, we will be also working on issues. The target is that each release will have a good mix of features, enhancements and bugs. It is very important to us that just as we deal with the challenges; we also further the product and what the product offers.

I do want to make a special note on one of the features included in this list as it pertains to some question from the previous post: Custom Content Type Builder. Some of you asked about the “review” content type. The Custom Content Type Builder will have a few primitives from which we all can build new content types. In theory, and as it has been specified, you should be able to build a review content type with the tool.

Without further ado:

• Member Profile Customization
• Overhauled StyleVars
• Improved and integrated upgrade Process
• URL Mapping (CMS in root etc.)
• Improved CMS editor
• Google Auth + Twitter
• Mobile Skin (m.vbulletin.com)
• Updated style
• UTF-8 Further Development
• Revised Search
• Activity Stream
• Custom Content Type Builder
• Photo Gallery with Photo Tagging
• Sharing Tools
• Mobile API
• Custom Content Type Builder
• Updated CMS Permissions
• Improved use of Memcached and File Cache
• Member Newsletter Feature (Text + HTML)
• Header Menu Manager Customization (completed spec)
• Unified Moderation and Notifications System
• Unifying widgets and blocks
• Enable Community Moderation (vote up/down content)
• Additional Login Options (Google, Twitter, OpenID, Email Registration, etc)
• Subscription Option: Google Checkout
• Improved Asset Manager
• Updated email management/ and templates to prevent blacklisting
• PostgreSQL support (this will assist and be a part of refactoring our database structure)
• CMS Workflow (change author, draft, approved, unpub date)
• Inline Style/Theme Customization (Inline UI to edit StyleVars)
• Invite Friends Features
• Find Friend Features (via Address Book: Yahoo Mail, Gmail, AOL, etc)
• User can self-delete their profile/account
• Ad Management for Blogs and CMS (and more advanced Forum integration)
• Groups UI/UX
• Calendar UI/UX (also integrate with iCal)
• Expose Developer Documentation (dev.vbulletin.com)
• Official 3rd Party Developer API
• Review content type
• CMS Widget: Tag Cloud

As always, comments and suggestions are welcomed.