vBProductMaker - FREE tool for vBulletin developers

Description

vBProductMaker intended to help vBulletin product developers and make it little easy to manage their products and corresponding components. The skill level of users using this tool can vary from novice to advanced web programmers. It is combining code editor with syntax coloring, vBulletin-aware management console and XML builder, in order to produce final XML file which can be imported into vBulletin.
vBProductMaker is using internal file type in order to store and retrieve all information related to your vBulletin product. The file type is defined as .vbu . You can save your product as .vbu file and then later load it, modify and finally export to vBulletin XML product.
As the help contains most of information one can need, I will show several screenshots below.

Features

* Indexing vBulletin script on local hard drive to help developer locating plugin hooks, template hooks, phrases, etc
* Show indexed vBulletin plugin/template hooks in editor
* Importing vBulletin XML file New!
* Syntax coloring for PHP and Templates (HTML)
* Managing product details such us ID, title, description, version, product url, version check url and state
* Managing built in as well as custom phrase groups and phrases
* Managing product dependencies from php, mysql, related product and vBulleting versions
* Managing product install and uninstall codes
* Managing product tempates
* Managing product plugins
* Managing product options building for Admin CP
* Managing product cron entries New!
* Contains help file covering program as well as some vBulletin aspects in CHM format
* Exporting project to valid, well formed XML file with directory structure, ready to publish

Changelog

v1.5.1

Initial release (beta)

v1.6.0

Added Cron management facility. Now cron code(s) will be exported among with product.
Importing XML product is finally implemented!
Readme file export is added
Directories “doc, upload” will be created during export and product will be residing in doc
templatetype attribute is fixed
Fixed minor bugs
Added validation code field in Settings

Todo

• Project concept for building file/folder structure based on internal and external files in order to export altogether
• AdminCP product navigation block manager, which will export corresponding cpnav_*.xml files
• Predefined option code input types for product settings. You will select from 'yesno', 'select:Piped', 'radio:eval' etc...
• Substituting new code in original code for plugins and templates
• Option/Validation code fields as rich code edit controls, like in plugins tab
• Adding Cron functionality (done)
• Importing XML vBulletin products (done)
• More help topics

Video Tutorial

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD_OhO497XQ[/youtube]

Requirements

Microsoft Windows with NET framework 2.0 or later

Screenshots

This is public beta version, feel free to test and report issues.

Looks good. Will give it a go

Originally Posted by woostar

Looks good. Will give it a go

any bug - report e-mail address in about box. Also testing it.
Cheers!

Great work.

If you find any missing functionality that you would like to have I'll be glad to discuss and implement.

Thx

friggin awesome!

i will play with this later

fyi, the DL link is missing in his post... you can find it here:
vBproductMaker - Short acid stories

I can see something like that being useful for viewing product XML files, but for creating, how is it easier than just exporting the product directly from the ACP?

1. You can't compare offline and online product development. I think you missed the idea of this software. You may create it from scratch and not just exporting.
2. Admin CP is simply not enough facilitated for comfortable product development from scratch.
3. Number of things are automated in the software, like creating setting phrase or exporting cron code with your product or if you want to edit your cron job description just one click will quickly take you to right place, etc...
4. There is no syntax highlighting in Admin CP.
5. Let our expert developers correct me but I think not everything is possible to develop from Admin CP.
6. Admin CP will not help you to see the hook location script of original vBulletin code on the fly below your plugin code.
7. Same for the templates
8. People not having access to vBulletin Admin CP, will be able to get familiar with vBulletin product development and create valid XML products with small efforts.

Moreover, there are features to be implemented in version 2.0 which will add even more:

- Project concept. The project may contain directory/file structures where you can add desired external files, edit in built in code editor with syntax highlighting and other editor specific features, then the file will be exported with your product. In other words you will save directory structure that you will be exporting, including images, external php codes, xml files and other.

- You will be able to create AdminCP navigation blocks easily. This will add links and export corresponding cpnav_*.xml files.

- Predefined option code input types for product settings. You will select from 'yesno', 'select:Piped', 'radio:eval' etc...

- Obviously missing keyboard shortcuts

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However, one can find something like this useful in whatever he finds it useful for And I will try to incorporate as much features as possible so there will be no possibility to compare Admin CP.

Good luck!

If I wanted to get a programmer (without vBulletin dev experience) started on a vBulletin plugin project, this software is exactly where I would send him. This is a great asset to the entire vBulletin community.

Great work acid

the biggest thing for me is that i don't have to throw my site into debug mode just to see the settings i need in the acp

I always use my test server to do tests however Brian , you can enable debug mod only for yourself.

Looks great, I'll have to give a go for the plugin that I'm writing at the moment

Looks great!

Too bad it's not MAC compatible