Vbulletin Admin Panel

I was trying to convince my friend to join me on the IPB side when they were buying their license earlier this week but they went brought their license. But they wanted Vbulletin.

I myself started getting interest in Vbulletin this week(VB5 looks amazing) so I figured since he is makign his new forum, I'd be an admin on his site and this give me some insight on whether i wanted to buy a license for Vbulletin in the future.

So he got his license and everything and we were doing some research on 3rd party skins and we go to install it.

The installation was annoying....Whenever i installed IPB and XF it was quite fast and simple with no confusion.

So we get to the admin panel and I am helping him set everything up and that admin panel(I already knew was ugly) just really pissed me off.

Idk how anyone can be critical of IPBs admin panel. It's unattractive and the way that the columns and stuff are simply annoyed me.

I hear there is a way to customize the admin panel? You can buy skins for it. Is this on VB.org or somewhere else?

Is there like a global search function ala XF and IPb to just type what you are looking for?

I think annoyed me most and probably solidified that while I will be an admin on his site(whenever it is up and ready), i will not be buying my own license is the fact that installing a Skin was so complicated.

ON XF it was fairly simple and IPB it is a breeeze. But i do not like the admin panel even though their Skins for VB are some of the best i have ever seen for a forum.

But yes

1. Can you customize the look of the admin panel/

2. Is there a way to get rid of the bars and columns aka change the layout?

3. IS there a global search function?

I will be sure to link the site here once it is up and ready

 

1: Yes, I believe so http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=212
2: I'm not entirely sure, but if you check vbulletin's.org skin selection for your version, you might be able to find something.
3: There's a global search function in the admin panel, and on site.

 

Importing skins to vBulletin series is supposed to be a breeze.

Either you or him did it wrong. I dunno, but someone did it wrong.

I know customizing skins on vB4 is a pain in the @$$, but vB3 is easy as butter.

 

Well the installation wasn't that hard, just harder than IPB and XF.

I think with IPB all i had to do was upload the xmls via admin panel and i was done.
Xenforo is pretty simple and of course it is easy to customize XF so I am struggling with VB.
As you said it is a pita.

 

All I usually do is, upload then files to the images folder then import the XML. Nothing to advanced.

 

Like I said. Like I said....