Non-forum pages - thinking ahead for vB's coming 4. series

http://www.vbulletin.com/vbulletin4/

In particular " ... we are also producing a new content management system to facilitate the creation, editing and publishing of non-forum pages. " I don't know the details of what is intended by "non-forum pages." If it is some sort of a web-page publisher that's interesting.

In any case, using vB 4. enhancements or other web page publishing softwares, how have people used non-forum web pages to enhance their forum? How have users responded to those pages?

 

Non-forum pages could refer to articles, blogs, links, downloads. When 4.0 ships, the CMS will contain an article content type that will allow for multi-page articles, static pages like privacy policies and so forth. It will also have a variety of widgets where you can pull in gadgets from Google, Widgetbox or other locations and place them on your CMS pages. You'll also be able to embed videos from any location easily. Another widget will let you pull data from the forums, blogs and other locations and show them in that on CMS pages. The entire package will be wrapped in a Layout Manager where you can control the content and widget areas to fit your needs.

Not only that but we hope to start working with Addon developers early on so that they create additional content types and widgets to be shared. Jelsoft's developers will also work on new content types in the future. Layouts will be sharable using simple XML files like the current product and plugin system.

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On one site that I have been working on I currently use an out of date addon called GT_CustomPages for non-forum pages. Its a pain because the content is stored as several phrases. It works but is a pain to add new content. I have decided to wait on it until 4.0 Alpha so that I can use the CMS on that site. It will give a lot more flexibility and make it really easy to add content.

 

"embed videos" :dancingiconheretheimageembedfromothersitedidn'twork

I hope if I embed video from YouTube that will hit YouTubes bandwidth, not mine. That is an awesome idea, I can broadcast events of forum interest live. Members will love posting their own video clips.

Does content management include the manipulating of the forum main page to add boxes for this and that featured content?

Any chance the pages include a wiki for the forum topic?

I hope something like the 'private forum/blog' that I described in the other thread comes onto the radar.

This all sounds very good.