my two cents - Page 3

ConqSoft · December 21st, 2005, 08:19 PM

Yeah, they don't even have it available for purchase yet.

PhoenixDown21 · December 28th, 2005, 11:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuck S

vBGallery now in my opinion since I have both installed and have been playing is only tighter integration because its admincp is in the vbulletin forum admin panel.

I dont use Photopost pro but so far as I know, you cannot use phrases added in vbulletin correct?

It also seems easier (at least to me) to integrate a vbulletin forum hack into vbgallery since its running off the same base engine than it would be to do the same in Pro, would it not?

420:

I spend 2k a year alone on one of my sites, so cut the attitude. While working on a new site, I - like many others - wanted something that integrated seamlessly and didn't require a hundred work arounds required in using 10 scripts with different backend engines.

Chuck S · December 29th, 2005, 08:57 AM

Well remember we can't look at things from a hack perspective.

Integration wise VBGallery is in the vb admin and the templates and languages so yes it tops PhotoPost in that regards.

However as noted vBGallery can not hold a candle to the feature list of PhotoPost so it is up to the user to decide which is better. We are working on a feature set comparison once our new sites is up

Comprehensive Review of PhotoPost Options

ConqSoft · December 29th, 2005, 11:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuck S

However as noted vBGallery can not hold a candle to the feature list of PhotoPost so it is up to the user to decide which is better. We are working on a feature set comparison once our new sites is up

You keep mentioning this, but the features vBGallery does have, covers everything that many people need, without all the fluff of PhotoPost.

Chuck S · December 29th, 2005, 11:30 AM

Well I beleive in being honest my friend. People have asked for the truth and this is how I see it. These are the differences in the programs from an honest perspective.

You say the features are fluff yet in the past month on the vBGallery forums here they are littered with vBGallery customers looking for features in vBGallery that are standard in PhotoPost so how can it be considered fluff?

We all have our opinions and you have expressed yours and I will express mine as I am a customer as well of all Products we offer.

ConqSoft · December 29th, 2005, 11:31 AM

Links to a few those requests please?

With all the delays in having the product listed for sale (I mean, how hard can it be to add an additional item to your online store?), and other comments from the staff, we can all see the writing on the wall. vBGallery will cease to exist in the near future.

Chuck S · December 29th, 2005, 12:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ConqSoft

With all the delays in having the product listed for sale (I mean, how hard can it be to add an additional item to your online store?), and other comments from the staff, we can all see the writing on the wall. vBGallery will cease to exist in the near future.

Please I thought we where past this. I beleive it has been continually posted by Staff vBGallery will be offered for sale and it is not being discontinued. It has also been posted repeatedly that the holiday season is the busiest time of year for us. We are already offering vBGallery for sale through paypal as noted in our Before You Buy forum.

The holdup on getting it up on the site is a two fold issue. It is not quite as simply as you suggest in adding an option to a shopping cart at all.

1. The time it takes to gather and display all the appropriate information for display on the site. Example being a feature set. vBGallery did not have a true listing nowhere on its prior site of its full features. We are making a features page comparing both PhotoPost and vBGallery so user's can make an informed decision when buying.

2. The manpower time to actually change everything else like the cart and all other pages.

The site already has on the way a new redesign which has been held up because of the need to add vBGallery into the fold. Till we get the time to properly display all the info needed to properly sell the product we are accepting the paypal orders.

ConqSoft · December 29th, 2005, 12:09 PM

1. Directly from the installation readme. This would be a greate start for a feature list, and could have been quickly/easily added to your site to allow on-line sales:

Quote:

Features:
Fully integrated with vBulletin.
Unlimited* categories & sub-categories.
Unlimited* file uploads.
Automatically resizes images and creates thumbnails using the GD library or ImageMagick.
Support for multimedia and any other types of files. Also allows you to add new filetypes.
Ability to allow as many uploads at a time as you would like**, along with bulk uploading from your server.
Ability to limit how much disk space a user's uploads may consume on a per-usergroup basis.
Image manipulation options to allow you to rotate and flip images.
Set filesize, width, and height limits on uploads on a per-extension and per-category basis.
Watermarking of images.
Slide show.
Allow your users to send e-Cards to their friends.
Printer friendly version of images.
Allow users to send images to their friends.
What's New & What's Popular sections.
Allow users to comment on uploads.
Allow users to rate uploads.
User Favorites.
User Subscriptions.
User Albums where your users can create and manage their own categories.
Advanced searching features along with cached searching for faster results.
Choose what information to show with thumbnails of images (User, date, filesize, dimensions, views, replies, description, and last post).
On/off indicators to show your users which categories contain new images since their last visit.
Password protected categories.
New and/or random images on your gallery index page.
Ability to add custom fields to collect and display more information about the files being uploaded.
Ability to allow your users to select the number of images to display per page, plus other advanced sorting options.
Sticky files.
Shows the number of replies and uploads per category.
Shows the number of hits, posts, last person to reply to uploads, and etc for each upload.
Advanced sorting options in each category.
Allow users to report broken/problematic images.
Category permissions where you can set different permissions for each usergroup on a per-category basis.
Completely template based so it is very easy to change the look and feel.
Moderate images and/or posts before they will appear on a per usergroup basis.
Ability to choose moderators to moderate each category.
Options to mass edit/delete uploads.
Optimized to handle thousands and thousands of images without a performance hit.
Installer that will install all of the templates, phrases, and all database modifications.
And MUCH more!

And as for the site being littered with people requesting features that PhotoPost already has, I think some of it is related to the staff just not knowing the vBGallery product. Perfect example: True User Galleries? You were quick to respond that he could only do that with PhotoPost since vBGallery doesn't have true member albums, when it actually does.

And, vBGallery had the ability to assign any/all categories as a "Members Gallery" before PhotoPost. (PhotoPost just had one, hard-coded Member Gallery, and still may only have that.)

Chuck S · December 29th, 2005, 01:08 PM

Yes and that is only be a partial list of features hense the issue. We need to post in a features page on our site all the features so people can compare the products with all the facts. Remember I am trying to post with the facts because it is in our companies best interest to represent the facts between both products. This takes time to do right.

As stated we are selling PhotoPost vBGallery by paypal now. Once we have the time to properly address getting everything listed on our site we will.

PhotoPost has the ability to set any category as a members gallery. Probally the two most noted features without searching vBGallery forums to death here would be ability to play video inline and features photos on the forum home page. Both of which are standard features in PhotoPost that vBGallery does not have only doable by hacks if available.

It is clear to me at least some vBGallery customers want these as features as well as other things meantioned in vBGallery threads things PhotoPost already does and many do not consider it fluff.

If we do not that the time to make a full feature comparison between the products to give people all the details before purchase between the two products in my opinion we would be doing vBGallery an injustice. If anything I think us taking the time to address properly vBGallery on our site does not say it is being discontinued but says we are taking the time to do things right to present the program in its best light.

Come on don't you think we know it is in our best interest to get $59.00 versus $0

thats why we offer it for sale through paypal.

ConqSoft · December 29th, 2005, 01:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuck S

Probally the two most noted features without searching vBGallery forums to death here would be ability to play video inline and features photos on the forum home page. Both of which are standard features in PhotoPost that vBGallery does not have only doable by hacks if available.

KW802 released a mod to view video files inline long ago, and it works fine. But, I never really saw it requested that often.

How can PhotoPost show images on the Forum home page without hacking vBulletin? It has to require at least a template edit, which would also be required for vBGallery.

Chuck S · December 29th, 2005, 01:18 PM

Yes there are threads where people note they want video's inline etc as well as a features photos. There are others as well.

What I am saying in example on the featured photo's is yes you need to place a small edit in forumhome and you would need to do same with vbgallery however PhotoPost includes the inc_features.php and inc_photopost.com files whereas vBGallery only has hacks for these things. They are not standard supported features. In PhotoPost they are and there is a big difference here between support feature and using a hack. You know this.

ConqSoft · December 29th, 2005, 01:21 PM

Ok, but the hacks for both of those particular features are available, so why not just roll them into the supported package instead of just giving the response that they should switch to PhotoPost to get those features?

I assume that many of PhotoPost's features were once hacks as well?

Michael P · December 29th, 2005, 01:28 PM

And the point of this exchange is?

PhotoPost Pro does have more built-in features than PhotoPost vBGallery, which is why it's important to lay out the differences to those making an educated purchasing decision. We don't want people buying one thing only to say they meant to buy the other.

As for the release of the product on our site - there is one person who controls the timing of that and as much as Chuck or anyone else would like to be able to say "when", it's not under his control. There are many factors that go into the timing of our posting the product for sale, but to accomidate users in the short term we have made a purchase process available. At this point I am not aware of anything holding back a sale or license renewal and that should end this arguement; when we are ready to add the product into our sales pages, along with our new design, we will.

vBGallery will not cease to exist, we paid alot of money for it and plan to sell it as a product as we do ReviewPost and PhotoPost Classifieds.

sitka · December 29th, 2005, 01:41 PM

now that photopost has vbgallery i think it is LONG deserved to make other BB more integrated. you have the VB market with vbgallery. I had/have NO SUPPORT for phpbb/phpnuke. When I asked for help creating a simple photo block no one answered. I figured it out eventually on my own. So there are the bells and whistles but VB takes prescedence for photopost.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michael P

And the point of this exchange is?

PhotoPost Pro does have more built-in features than PhotoPost vBGallery, which is why it's important to lay out the differences to those making an educated purchasing decision. We don't want people buying one thing only to say they meant to buy the other.

As for the release of the product on our site - there is one person who controls the timing of that and as much as Chuck or anyone else would like to be able to say "when", it's not under his control. There are many factors that go into the timing of our posting the product for sale, but to accomidate users in the short term we have made a purchase process available. At this point I am not aware of anything holding back a sale or license renewal and that should end this arguement; when we are ready to add the product into our sales pages, along with our new design, we will.

vBGallery will not cease to exist, we paid alot of money for it and plan to sell it as a product as we do ReviewPost and PhotoPost Classifieds.

Michael P · December 29th, 2005, 02:17 PM

The marketplaces demands drive much of that - the largest percentage of users are vBulletin users, so it is natural they would get most of the attention. For myself, I use two boards: .threads and vBulletin and code for those two boards.

For something like a phpbb photo block, it would require someone who has some knowledge of phpbb and PhotoPost, which I do not have enough of to offer to help. Keep in mind we support over a dozen forums, so being proficent enough to code modifications in each one would be a challange in itself; that's why we rely on community participation for things like that.

Maybe you could offer your mod to other phpbb users?

Chuck S · December 29th, 2005, 02:19 PM

Sitka the whole reason vb support is so much stronger is percentage of customer base. It is about 40% of the PhotoPost product customer base.

We already support phpBB on a user/stylesheet class level. As far as hacks does not matter which forum a customer is using this is outside and will remain outside product support. We do though provide forums users can post in but we can not guarantee anyone will help you as they are there for customers to assist customers. Just as Michael posted is you have a mod post it and hopefull other users will follow suit.

sitka · December 29th, 2005, 03:19 PM

dont get me wrong I like photopost and the aquired vbgallery.

If you are not a vbulletin board there isn't much out there for solutions. Personally I can't wait to get rid of my phpnuke site. Just a frustration when dealing with non-vb sites. I know you can't do anything about it.

I just hope vbgallery will remain a cost effective alternative to photopost. There are people out there that are on limited budgets. I just bought a license today through paypal waiting for the license info still. I have one photopost license and two vbgallerys.

couple questions

in a year it will be 39.00 x 3 $117 to have access to the forums to even get hacks?

maybe I haven't read far enough but shouldn't security patches be free of charge? what happens if I don't want new features but want a secure gallery?

when owning more than one gallery there isn't a break?

Chuck S · December 29th, 2005, 03:28 PM

Quote:

in a year it will be 39.00 x 3 $117 to have access to the forums to even get hacks?

No getting hacks you just need to make sure your a verified customer as you are. You need to renew member's area access for each license to gain access to the current product code. This does not have anything to do with modifications.

Just like vbulletin and other paid forums you need to have member's access to access the downloadable code. Owning a Photopost license grants you to run a PhotoPost license forever on your website but you may only run a version that you have member's access to download. Each license comes with one years access. You may at your decretion renew which license you choose to renew.

sitka · December 29th, 2005, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuck S

No getting hacks you just need to make sure your a verified customer as you are. You need to renew member's area access for each license to gain access to the current product code. This does not have anything to do with modifications.

Just like vbulletin and other paid forums you need to have member's access to access the downloadable code. Owning a Photopost license grants you to run a PhotoPost license forever on your website but you may only run a version that you have member's access to download. Each license comes with one years access. You may at your decretion renew which license you choose to renew.

vb offers security patches (does photopost do that?)

Chuck S · December 29th, 2005, 04:11 PM

VB does not offer free access to any code just like us.

There put our security announcements just like we do and notify you of changed files in threads.

You must have current access to download any code from there site. I have owned vbulletin software for 5 years and I always have to renew my access if I choose to download there software.