Who designed vBulletin 5?

Back when vBulletin 4 was being developed, we had that third party designer who was supposedly responsible for the look and feel of the software. I think they were called 'Sophie Xie' or something, you know, the UI designer back in the days of Ray Morgan and co.

But who designed vBulletin 5's layout, graphics, etc? Who decided that it should lack almost all possible colours and rely entirely on Javascript to function? Are they an external designer who Internet Brands hired and who did a terrible job (and whose name should be made public if only to warn future clients)? Did Internet Brands hire a whole design team to come up with the awful style and user interface in this version? Did a team of programmers design the look themselves despite not knowing anything about art or graphics design or usability or whatever else?

Do we actually know that?

 

^^^THIS IS THE MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION^^^

For a software that ain't worth $3 bucks.

 

This, and with the production of vBulletin 5 still in beta, a lot of forum software creators should be running scared. Especially if they also implement a tagging feature for members. Of course, they'll have some problems currently because the software is still new. If they take their time and listen to their members, then the software will be even better.

 

Meh, security is generally fine with most paid scripts now. Haven't seen many of them go too long without fixing any security issues found. Heck, even the free ones seem to have improved since the phpBB 2 era.

Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if hackers stopped bothering with attacking forums now. The amount of large companies and government agencies hacked makes me think some of the people who would have made running a forum hell seem to dead set on going after the supposed 1% or whatever.

 

I think they totally redesigned vbulletin 5 connect from the UI standpoint, it's a shame it's all built on legacy code, even some vb2 code is still in vb5...

 

maybe

 

Why don't you backup your claims instead of using a sarcastic smiley?

Which forum do you feel is the best if it isn't vBulletin and why?

 

who doesn't like sarcasm!

 

I think vB 4.2 is current the best out there but 5 has a very long way to go to be as usable as 4.2, IMHO.

 

If I was a complete noob to buying forum software, I would search for demonstrations of vBulletin 5 in action other than just the demo that vBulletin provides.

Do you know of any good vBulletin 5 sites? I'd like to take a look at them then compare it to forum softwares that I think are better (xenforo, ipb, vbulletin 3.8).

 

I don't think I've seen any major sites that have upgraded to vBulletin 5 yet. Last I heard a lot of people are waiting for the URLS to be fixed - or have an option for what URLS your forum uses - in terms of their new system, or the old ones you've been using. Then also, the performance issues, which they said are being worked on. Personally, myself I'm happy with vB4, and when vB5 is up to par with vB4 - in terms of the performance, or if it improves, and a tagging feature is released, then I'll upgrade. But other than that, I'm waiting because vB4 mods will not work with vB5.

This.

 

Why would he say it's the best off the demo alone? I had trouble with the demo. It was very sluggish.

 

Well, I can't speak for @Cerberus as I only speak for myself. And the demo was very sluggish to me as well. I hope they get their ass in gear and fix those issues. Because, vBulletin 5 should remain in Beta until they fix all the current problems. If not, the gold release will have a ton of angry customers.