Thinking about switching from vBGallery to Photopost - some questions

trBotHead · September 22nd, 2008, 10:53 AM

Hi,

I'm currently running vBulletin 3.7.3 and vBGallery 2.4.3 (see gallery here). With the recent mention of vBGallery being in a non-development period and the fact that Photopost Pro has many more features (including my fav, RSS feeds), I'm now considering moving over to Photopost Pro. However, I have a few questions beforehand:

Is the migration from vBGallery to Photopost pretty painless (straight forward and easy to figure out)? I'd consider myself decent in php, but not an expert by any means.
Is there a way to turn off the Photopost profiles for members or does anyone have any better suggestions as to what to do? My concern is that having two completely separate profiles will confuse and irritate members, as I had found this out the hard way when I tried running Zoints (which has an independent member profile page) on my forums.
Does Photopost Pro typically have problems with compatibility of vBulletin skins? I'm running the ambience skin from eXtremepixels.

thanks a ton!

EDIT: Almost forgot, is Photopost Pro compatible with vBulletin 3.7.3?

Chuck S · September 22nd, 2008, 06:47 PM

1. migration should be fine we have an import script

2. No way to turn off you would need to edit scripts and point them to vb profiles

3. No major issues just one of relative image links in vbulletin which is an ongoing issue with their software for years they refuse to fix. if there prefixed their url before all urls like we do and every software should do there would never be link issues.

trBotHead · September 23rd, 2008, 10:02 AM

Thanks for the reply Chuck!

2. No way to turn off you would need to edit scripts and point them to vb profiles

How difficult would this be? Are there any directions or support on how to do this or at least a list of the scripts to edit? Looking at the gallery here, it appears that the only script I have to edit would be the one that generates the header bar below:

screen.jpg

Looking through the Photopost Gallery here, it appears to be a fairly seamless integration. How is the compatibility with vBulletin 3.7.3?

Sorry for the loads of questions Chuck, I just want to ensure that I am making the right decision.

Chuck S · September 23rd, 2008, 05:48 PM

The compatibility with vb is good on 3.73

Basically as far as profiles any of our links that go to our profile in most scripts. There is no official support on code hacking

Code:

Content visible to verified customers only.

to maybe this

Code:

Content visible to verified customers only.

trBotHead · September 24th, 2008, 08:45 AM

Around how many scripts would I have to edit though? I think it'd be much less confusing to members if I just removed the Profile link all together.

Chuck S · September 24th, 2008, 06:41 PM

I cant say how many but you would want to check most scripts as I am not sure how many scripts have the links. pp-inc.php showgallery.php member.php showphoto template etc I know have them

trBotHead · September 30th, 2008, 12:03 PM

What happens to all of the old vBGallery URLs to images that are spread throughout the Web?

EDIT: Is this the migration script:

Photopost vbGallery to Photopost Pro Import Script

Or is there another that you recommend?

Chuck S · September 30th, 2008, 01:17 PM

that is indeed the import script

your old vbgallery urls are old urls not much we can do about urls stored outside our products. They would be broken urls

trBotHead · September 30th, 2008, 01:33 PM

Quote:

your old vbgallery urls are old urls not much we can do about urls stored outside our products. They would be broken urls

I think I'm either misunderstanding you or you're misunderstanding my question..

Isn't vBGallery is your product? I purchased vBGallery through the PhotoPost site.

I recall reading somewhere here in the forums that during the migration/import of vBGallery images to Photopost, Photopost keeps the current image URL's that are registered with vBGallery and somehow references them in the Photopost database, thus not creating broken image URL's.

I just don't see this significant of a problem not being addressed.

Chuck S · September 30th, 2008, 02:00 PM

vbgallery is a product of ours but the urls are totally separate as its a different product that photopost pro.

You can convert to photopost pro but there is nothing our software can do to anything as far as urls someone has posted in some other product whether its vb or some other site to urls to images in vbgallery. Those image links would be broken. We only have control over what is stored in our database tables and our importer will import all vbgallery content to show properly in photopost pro.

trBotHead · September 30th, 2008, 02:38 PM

Am I missing something obvious here? How come there are no 301 redirects set in place for this conversion, or are you just pulling my chain?

This is a really serious problem and I am just stunned that this problem hasn't been brought up before. I know that I don't have even a tenth of as many image URL's that some big boards have here. How do they deal with 10,000+ dead URL's across the Web after converting from VBGallery to Photopost Pro?

trBotHead · September 30th, 2008, 03:15 PM

Sorry Chuck, I don't mean to be a pain in the butt, but I'm just really surprised about this.

from the PhotoPost Features page:

Quote:

For vBulletin Sites: Pro or vBGallery
If you plan to install PhotoPost on a site with an existing vBulletin forum, you can choose to download and install either of our two PhotoPost versions and switch between the two at any time, so there is no need to decide now which version is right for you. If you don't have a vBulletin forum, you will download and install the Pro version of PhotoPost.

This to me implies that switching between the two is no big deal. If what you are saying is true, then there should be warnings/"things to know" list of some sort that will at the very least inform PhotoPost customers of things they should be aware of if they want to start off with vBGallery and later switch to PhotoPost. I would have started with PhotoPost from the beginning if I knew there was going to be a problem this significant.

Chuck S · September 30th, 2008, 03:57 PM

You can switch between vbGallery and Pro all you wish and there is no issue switching between them as far as our software is concerned. I am only commenting on the links outside the program. The file structures and filenames are totally different between products so this will always be an issue when your talking outside the applications.

trBotHead · September 30th, 2008, 04:08 PM

I guess that's where my confusion lies. I'm not quite sure I understand the definition of "outside the program(s)". If the program, be it vBGallery or Photopost Pro, creates the image URL's, how can they be defined as outside of the program?

Regardless, it's sounding to me like what I'm wanting to do isn't really possible, and rather get on your bad side, maybe we can come up with a reasonable compromise (more so of me just kindly asking you to answer a question I had in another thread, hehe

)?

My main reason for wanting to switch over to Photopost Pro, was for the RSS feeds feature. However, I just found a mod for vBGallery that gives me the ability to create RSS feeds. My question though is if I can use it with my setup:

http://www.photopost.com/forum/vb-3-...nal-feeds.html

thanks!

Chuck S · September 30th, 2008, 04:52 PM

What I was saying is the program links are the program links we have no control over links placed on your site or other sites and when you change things. Example you move your forum to another directory every link you have elsewhere is broken. This is much what I was saying. If you change gallery programs links will be broken on old links placed outside the program. Your categories and photos will show fine on any imported data but if you placed a link to say a photo on some other site or on your forum that link would be dead.

You can try that mod. I am not familiar with whats posted in the mod corner since all that lies outside the support site.