What I don't like the most about this forum software is that EVERYTHING is an inconvenience.

It has taken me over a week now and my forums are still not even close to being set up the way that I want them and I have been working from 7am to 3 am in the morning!!!

I don't mind doing all of the work to set this up but what ticks me off is that for every change I make I have to come to this forum to ask a question and wait for reply on how to fix something. I have tried the support route too and all I get get back in response is "yes it can be done." When I ask a question I expect somebody to point me in the right direction or even solve the problem for me. I participate in many other forums and I always help out other posters to the fullest extent. I see none of that happening here.

It would be so simple to make a blog or instructions page that answers the most common problems but I see nothing of the sort. You could even have suggestions listed in the control panel such as field values but I don't see that either. How to set up a portal? Who knows? Permissions? hmm let me spend 4 hours figuring that out. Web gallery integration? Yes bout you have to pay another $150 for Photopost. Why not integrate with Coppermine its free and users have been requesting this since 2004!!! Multiple image uploads? Nope. Support? From one guy who is overloaded with too much work and there are usually only 2 forum users here who know what is going on. The search button? I've worn that thing out with not much success. I almost feel like UBB.threads should be paying me for doing all of this inconvenient work.

I feel your pain.
Documentation has been left behind since the 7.x series.
Hopefully it will improve when version 8 is released.

I won't be moving to version 8 from what I've seen so far.

Well, this forum is user to user support; none of us work for MindRaven... I'm sorry that you don't like that we're not always here, but we're not paid to be here to answer every question everyone asks...

We're here simply as volunteers to aid users who're having problems with the software.

I try to help at every avenue possible; supporting users for free on a forum isn't my full time gig, so designing sets of code for users after they post a request is a little above and beyond, but I do it regardless when I need to and when it won't take a huge chunk of time out of the development work I do for my own clients...

BTW, I as well as other users here do try our best to help others as users. We have been there ourselves
But I know for a fact That I have responded to some of your requests without a response.
I understand the frustration that you can't find documentation on what you are trying to change.
I have been there myself. But eventually somebody here has helped me. And I think most all of us will return the favor.
It is just that you can do so much with ubb some of us are stumped on how to respond without more details from you.

I hope you realize that most all of us that have responded to you are users helping each other.

Which in my opinion says a lot for support from a user group.

I like getting support from other users... They experience issues the same way we do. People like Giz and Ruben and the others respond as quickly as they can.

Could the documentation be better? Of course. But I probably wouldn't read the instructions, anyway. I learn by doing (and sometimes breaking).

I like that term (breaking).
Is that not the slogan from UBBDev?

Breaking Your Forums Since 1999!

Your help is more than appreciated and I'm not blaming any one individual. I did ask a question a few days back and got hardly any feedback. All I basically wanted to know was what were the best avenues to take to add on the best services to my site down the road. I got no response. For example, what is the best way to do SEO with UBB.threads? Who has the best service? How do you set up Google Ads and where do you place the javascripts? Is there a better service tan Google ads? If there was a blog or something all of the findings could be mentioned with the pros and cons. It goes on and on and on. I just wasted 2 days installing 3 diffent photo galleries to find out that none of them are going to work for me. Photopost will work but I'm not going to pay those dikks $140 to have an integrated gallery and then they nickel and dime you year after year to have access. Forget that.

What is the best way to do SEO with UBB.threads?
Sitemaps (I have a script available that integrates into the UBB, but as you said you don't like paying for addons it's likely not an avenue you'd want to go).

I'd also turn on the following options in the CP (CP -> Master Settings -> Primary Settings -> Advanced Options):
-Enable Spider-friendly URLs?
-Enable HTML Extension
-Enable zlib Compression?

Who has the best service?
For hosting? I'd say Mindraven; generally I'd also include my affiliate link, but 'eh.

How do you set up Google Ads and where do you place the javascripts?
Well, you'd set them up how you liked them ideally; feel free to steal my layout on UGN Security; I calculated all of the spaces based on Google Adsense's "heat data" some years ago; you'll need to hack the templates to set some ad's however.

Is there a better service tan Google ads?
Google Ad's work well with Kontera's targeting ad's.

If there was a blog or something all of the findings could be mentioned with the pros and cons.
Well, Rick asked several of us if we'd be interested in collaborating on a UBB.Wiki once v8 is out; I for one said I'd be more than willing to work on it.

Photopost will work but I'm not going to pay those dikks $140 to have an integrated gallery and then they nickel and dime you year after year to have access.
Well, unfortunately, we coders aren't made out of money, and we have small companies. My scripts for example follow the same path that photopost does (which follows the path of many other companies), I charge initially for the current version with a year of free updates, then if you want updates you need to pay X amount more each year to fund development costs. Granted my prices are way less than theirs at every turn lol.

Shift, is your site running? Is there an address?