From 3.8.x to VB4 and latest vbseo 3.5.1 (Feedback please)

Now its finally time for me to make the big move as vb 4.0.4 is out. (Was never happy with the earlier releases)

Where do you recommend I install vb4?

I currently have it at domain.com/forums/

Can I install it in root and still keep the URLs to forum thread and posts? (I use vbSeo for many years)
Or should I install it at forum folder?

Can vbseo make it look like;

/blogs/
/forums/
/content/ (CMS)

or how does VBSeo handle vb4?

As for VBSeo, I have paid for renewal but when do download page get updated? It still says my license expired 2009.

I know how to backup mysql database, but would like to make a backup of the physical files aswell, where is mysql databases usually stored under CentOS/cPanel setup?

Thanks in advance for feedback and suggestions, I do feel a little bit confused how to do this upgrade.

Originally Posted by Nicke

Where do you recommend I install vb4?

I currently have it at domain.com/forums/

I personally recommend moving it to domain root but that would depend what you currently have there.

Originally Posted by Nicke

Can I install it in root and still keep the URLs to forum thread and posts? (I use vbSeo for many years)
Or should I install it at forum folder?

Yes it can, it may take a bit of time though to pre-fix /forums/ to all of your forum URL structures but it is definitely possible (I have done this myself).

Originally Posted by Nicke

Can vbseo make it look like;

/blogs/
/forums/
/content/ (CMS)

Yes, if you install it in root you can create that structure, You can also have the CMS in / (Root) and then forums in /forums/ and blogs in /blogs/ can even go as far to have members in /members/ instead of the current /forums/members/ you would have (though this would cause re-indexing).

Originally Posted by Nicke

or how does VBSeo handle vb4?

As for VBSeo, I have paid for renewal but when do download page get updated? It still says my license expired 2009.

Please send me your transaction ID # and forum URL in a PM and I will update this for you.

Originally Posted by Nicke

I know how to backup mysql database, but would like to make a backup of the physical files aswell, where is mysql databases usually stored under CentOS/cPanel setup?

I am afraid I don't know but hopefully someone else can answer that for you.

Thanks Ceri.

Most important is to keep correct URL to thread and posts, for blogs and member profiles, its not important if it has to be re-indexed.

If I install vbseo and VB4.04 in root, can I still have static pages (keep some of my old content) or will vbseo/vb take over all of the root of the website? No big deal, the point is to revamp everything anyway. I just have some hotel booking pages that use PHP to retrieve hotel info, not sure that would work in CMS.

Do vbseo docs explain exactly how to setup this once I proceed?

Originally Posted by Nicke

Thanks Ceri.

Most important is to keep correct URL to thread and posts, for blogs and member profiles, its not important if it has to be re-indexed.

If I install vbseo and VB4.04 in root, can I still have static pages (keep some of my old content) or will vbseo/vb take over all of the root of the website? No big deal, the point is to revamp everything anyway. I just have some hotel booking pages that use PHP to retrieve hotel info, not sure that would work in CMS.

Do vbseo docs explain exactly how to setup this once I proceed?

Hey,

Sorry for the delay in replying. Yes it is possible to still have custom pages in the root with your forum, in-fact our homepage, and other pages at the front of this site are all custom scripts.

As a side note the CMS does actually allow you to create PHP eval and static HTML articles now which if you know what you are doing you could use to do the same as your custom pages, but its still not perfect.

There aren't any docs for that you want to do, but basically you want to go into the vbseocp -> rewrite settings -> forum URL's -> Advanced settings and then prefix all of the URL structures around the forum to /forum/

Ceri

I would highly suggest moving to root. vb4 runs best as a root install, especially if using the CMS.

You can keep all your old links working by following step 3:
Moving to forum root

My VBSeo license is registered for the website forum folder, will that be a problem when I install VB4 and VBSeo in root?

Originally Posted by Nicke

My VBSeo license is registered for the website forum folder, will that be a problem when I install VB4 and VBSeo in root?

You can open support ticket to change your forum URL.

Thats the problem, what happens in the meantime while either old forum or new forum installation have a non valid URL?

Would like to see vbseo supporting 2 URLs just for a few days while upgrading and new location taking place.

Originally Posted by Marco Mamdouh

You can open support ticket to change your forum URL.

You don't want to have 2 installs at ANY given time.

Do the upgrade where vb lies now and have everything running 100%.

request the license change (your current install will continue to work)
Perform the move (migrate via ssh (or FTP if you have to), change vboptions site url locations, alter htaccess paths if necessary)
re-save vbseocp key now that its loading in the new location.


It should take but a few minuets to do.

This has nothing to do with vbseo, but maybe someone know the answer here anyway.
I use a few conditionals in my templates, e.g.

<if condition="$foruminfo[forumid] == 2">

<if condition="$bbuserinfo[field7] != 'No' AND $show['member']">

would these work in vb4?

And how would you do the move in SSH?

would "mv forums /home/xxx/public_html" work? I am not sure how mv command work if you do that to an existing folder.

vB4 Have a different template syntax than vB3, You will need to post questions regarding templates and coding at vb.org not vbseo.com

vb4 requires just about everything custom you have done in vb3 to be removed.

I would suggest setting up a test installation and making your critical modifications function there first.

There's a neat tiny SSH cheat sheet to use here: SSH Commands and you can find more detailed ones on the net.

VB4 is now installed and everything went fine. But took a while to update counters and such, rebuilding search engine index is still in progress after 6 hours.

Just wait for license change and then I will try to move to ROOT folder. (Will have a look at that SSH Commands link)

I solved the VB4 conditionals, its nothing critical and once I found how to do I added them to my new templates.

vbSEO CP looks very nice in this latest version I have to say.

Do VBSEO conditional signatures still work? I had it under 3.8 but its disabled now.

Cheers guys!

vbseo conditional sig has not been updated to vb4 support yet.