IPB 3 or should I move to VB?

auto_freak · November 17th, 2008, 05:51 PM

Alright, so after buying the photopost gallery, my users have kept their loyalty to my website and has started viewing more pics per minutes. PP has been a great addition and I am happy that it so advanced and also the best gallery interface money can buy. However, I have few suggestions and inquiries.

I am very much of a IPB Fanboy but I have seen so many vb forums with photopost integrated that it makes me feel that vb is actually a better choice though it lacks many features and functions. IPB can be really well customized and I have to say that it is the actual best forum software today. It is very advanced. I am lucky enough to see and feel the IPB 3 and I have to say, vbulletin has to be scared because, IPB is coming up with something really crazy. I want your honest opinion, should I leave IPS and move to Vbulletin for the good of my community or should I stick to IPS? I have two perpetual licenses with IPS and they are worth a good amount of money.

Its expensive for me to maintain the IPB forum rather than vbulletin. VB has lots of free skins and mods that IPB doesnt have. In fact, one of my main concern is the forum integration with Joomla. Jfusion is free and they provide complete integration support with Vbulletin instead of IPB. I had to buy and ask for installation for my Joomla Integration with IPB. I had to buy photopost and integrate it all by myself with IPB. With VB it would be a piece of cake for all these integrations and on top of that Photopost has enhanced integration with Vbulletin. That alone makes me wanna move to VB.

I want to ask Photopost to take my suggestion of at least give more support for IPB as in, do the hard work of doing the enhanced integration with IPB itself. It will get you customers like me just like that. I can influence people switch to your gallery just for this. I have had to do a lot of modifications to almost make the Photopost suit my IPB Forum. Its been painful but its worth it. I know its like I am asking you guys to do the hard work for free, but eventually just like what you have with VB, you will get so many customers, its unimaginable. To be honest, Invision Gallery is not user-friendly, it is very advanced but its not even close to Photoposts Capabilities. I am not dissing anything, its the truth.

I will provide Photopost with one of my licenses in the demo board to ensure that you can integrate the upcoming IPB 3 with Photopost. I will setup the demo board and give access to you guys to do all the necessary work. But I want the enhanced capabilities. Extra Smilies, Comments like VB Quick Reply, Random or Last Uploads in the Forum Index, Header Integrated and much more.

I wont be updating to IPB 3 just after its released since you know it goes over bugs and all. Please let me know if you think VB would be a much smarter choice. I can buy VB Forum and renew the license every year with no problems. IPS Perpetual Licenses are worth a lot of money even today! I know converting to VB would take a lot of time and hard work but at the end of the day, it will be well worth it. I will be installing the Photopost Classifieds after I buy it, pretty soon, but I am holding off just to make sure whether VB would be a better choice or stick to IPB. Your suggestions will be very well appreciated.

Thanks.

Chuck S · November 18th, 2008, 10:09 AM

Thank You for your comments and time in making this thread.

Once we have a test area we can look into supporting some new Invisionboard version. I wrote over half the integrations that our program supports so it is not that big a deal.

Now I will tell you this and this is just my opinion. You speak on Invisionboard like Michael and I use to talk about UBBThreads. We where diehards on that board way back when. Personal opinion here is i have worked a little with Invisionboard and vBulletin is just way better. Invisionboard and vbulletin have a true rivalry sure as they are both English companies but honestly speaking vbulletin sales over Invisionboard are probally 40 to 1 or more. Invisionboard does not have the features and market vbulletin does. The number one forum software out there is vbulletin and I do not see that ever changing they are just way too big.

I can tell you from our standpoint and what I see maybe only a couple percent of our users are Invisionboard integrated in some form. Our most used integration is vBulletin and then a close second would be a standalone gallery. Next to that most of the other integrations trickle down.

You can stay with Invisionboard or switch thats up to you. We will support Invisionboard 3 when it is gold not in beta and work hard to support all our customers.

auto_freak · November 18th, 2008, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuck S

Thank You for your comments and time in making this thread.

Once we have a test area we can look into supporting some new Invisionboard version. I wrote over half the integrations that our program supports so it is not that big a deal.

Now I will tell you this and this is just my opinion. You speak on Invisionboard like Michael and I use to talk about UBBThreads. We where diehards on that board way back when. Personal opinion here is i have worked a little with Invisionboard and vBulletin is just way better. Invisionboard and vbulletin have a true rivalry sure as they are both English companies but honestly speaking vbulletin sales over Invisionboard are probally 40 to 1 or more. Invisionboard does not have the features and market vbulletin does. The number one forum software out there is vbulletin and I do not see that ever changing they are just way too big.

I can tell you from our standpoint and what I see maybe only a couple percent of our users are Invisionboard integrated in some form. Our most used integration is vBulletin and then a close second would be a standalone gallery. Next to that most of the other integrations trickle down.

You can stay with Invisionboard or switch thats up to you. We will support Invisionboard 3 when it is gold not in beta and work hard to support all our customers.

That post just made my day. I have put both my IPS licenses for sale...hopefully with the sales money, I will buy the vb owned license, order a custom made layout and do all the importing to the new forum.

Now my question is, using Impex, I will be importing to vbulletin if the IPS licenses are indeed sold. the question is, what do I need to do so that my photopost gallery stays intact while the import is done. Will there be any effect..do you recommend to shut down the photopost gallery..do you have step by step recommendations...if so I would really appreciate it. I did the coppermine import to photopost flawlessly with your help, I am hoping this will be done well as well. Let me know Chuck, you have been a great help all this time.

If you are interested in buying my IPS Licenses, visit the following link.

http://forums.invisionize.com/index....owtopic=139675

Chuck S · November 18th, 2008, 12:11 PM

Switching from phpbb to vbulletin

This should assist you in switching the steps needed.

auto_freak · November 18th, 2008, 12:22 PM

alright awesome! I hope it will be a smooth transition, sounds very easy to do this...I am thinking the Impex Import will take time though...its hard as far as all the recommended steps in the vb forums state..

Chuck S · November 18th, 2008, 12:23 PM

it is pretty easy all automated.

auto_freak · November 18th, 2008, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuck S

it is pretty easy all automated.

thanks for the encouragement. the only drawback my board will face is that the passwords wont be imported, which I thank vb for because they are very much of a secured forum software...my forum and gallery is really very active so I dont think the loyal members would mind resetting their passwords...

Chuck S · November 18th, 2008, 12:33 PM

Yes your users I beleive will need to reset their password.

auto_freak · November 18th, 2008, 11:23 PM

Chuck, can you let me know if I will loose any content on my photopost gallery (integrated with IPB) once I reinstall the gallery to work under an integration with VB after the IPB to VB import? Contents as in comments, pictures, thumbnails, view counts, statistics etc.

Chuck S · November 19th, 2008, 01:19 AM

Switching your integration is not going to affect your photopost only thing you need to do is make sure to run that userfix script to realign the photo and comment userid's since they would change on the import.

auto_freak · November 19th, 2008, 07:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuck S

Switching your integration is not going to affect your photopost only thing you need to do is make sure to run that userfix script to realign the photo and comment userid's since they would change on the import.

where can i find the userfix script?? in the vb panel or the photopost panel?

Chuck S · November 19th, 2008, 09:31 AM

My link I placed above explains all the necessary steps and what script is where. The userfix script is in the photopost import forum

auto_freak · November 22nd, 2008, 12:19 PM

I made the leap over to VB yesterday, so far everything is going great, the members are loving the site...thanks Chuck for the recommendations. I already installed Photopost Featured Photo Block and also the pp pro in who's online.

check the forum and gallery out at http://www.wheelsbd.com/forum and http://www.wheelsbd.com/gallery

Chuck S · November 22nd, 2008, 12:40 PM

Glad its going good enjoy your weekend.