Hey guys,

I'm curently developing a networking / resource site relating to the music industry, and am trying to decide exactly how to structure it.

I want it to be based around a vBulletin forum, but I also want to have articles, interviews, a store (which will sell ebooks, books, consultations), and newsletter.

Can I acheive this with vBulletin alone, or do I need to integrate vBulletin into a CMS like Joomla!? If I do, what is the easiest way to do this?

Hopefully some of you have bene in the same situation before and can help.

Thanks,
Greg

It might require some custom coding on your part as far as the store goes. My advice is to make a completely seperate page with all of the paypal stuff, and then make link to that store in your forum.

Make sure that the store page looks exactly like a regular VB store (use a similar, if not the same, stylesheet).

__________________
The Nerd Council
Nerd Log: Bringing you the Latest in Science and Technology
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Who Will Live and Who Will Die? Debate it now!

What does a regular VB store look like?

Well, for the articles and interviews, you could do something similar to what we have done here at AF. That is a mod which integrates fully with vB...The version that we have is paid, but there is also a free (LITE) version of it.

As to the store and newsletter...the newsletter will probably be best as a vB mod. Do realize, however, that you can send emails to all users with vB itself (out of the box). If that is sufficient, then no need to worry about a mod. For the store, I would recommend a second program...possibly something like Joomla, but maybe an eCommerce/shopping solution. This is if you are going to offer a lot of products and your users are going to use it quite a bit...I'd keep it separate from your forums and just link the two.

Also, you might want to check out www.vbulletin.org for any mods that you are looking for...there are lots and lots of them there

__________________
...some super-sweet signature