Photopost versus vbGallery
 

We've looked at the sites for PhotoPost ($99) and vbGallery ($60) and are trying to decipher the sale speak and make a decision about which to buy.

Anyone want to help us decide?

vBA Gallery for me, as it is fully "integrated" (if fact is is powered by) with vBulletin

my complain got fix about photoshop forum .

Oh no! I meant to vote for vBa Gallery!

Ahh well. Yeah, vBa Gallery is my preferred option.

Support is top notch and the community is a friendly bunch. :)

vBa Gallery support is good I don't have any complain about them I have them to help me install hack in one of my forum and service was A+ they even did the extra mile for me .
vBa Gallery is easy to install I still learning English and direction was easy to follow add module is easy also I love .

Photopost is better standalone app. It has a bridge for integration vs. clean / seemless integration. Un supported other than the clients that lurk the site and a dev now and then. (its not, but seems to have a VB2 feel :nervous: )

Now, I use VBA. Less fuss. It is forum dependent, but up to date, supported, and integrates all the way. :)


[high]* Zachariah shrugs ... works for me.[/high]

The real story is this...

Photopost is by far the better gallery software on the net period.

You'll notice alot of features on photopost get copied by it's competition (who ever that may be)

currently supports about 17 forum integrations, works on RC3 like a dream (styles, comments, avatars etc) lots of pre-installed styles, can work as a stand alone gallery (who needs a forum???) ;) and has more features than you can shake a stick at... support is professional fast IMO, support staff actively help you by fixing errors, custom work, setups etc...

VBaG is good, but started as a hack really and feels like a vB hack, if you want the pro stuff you gotta go for PP really, you can make an entire site from the software itself if you wish, no need to own a forum, but i would say that if you own a vbulletin and can set that up ok, then to compliment it perfectly you must get PP, it's the discerning choice for the webwise!

The only thing missing in photopost (and this is why there's a myth surrounding it's popularity vs vbadvanced gallery) is simply this, it's the phrase > "vBphotopost" add that little 'vb' at the begging of a hack name or whatever you'll have a winner regardless if it's crap or not! :)

-b6

vBadvanced Gallery wins hands-down. Tigga/Brian does great work, and is always willing to help out as quickly as possible if you submit a support ticket.

Have licenses for both - but for pure vb integration - vba gets my vote. I think PP is most likely more powerful, more features, etc... but I doubt 90% of forum operators will notice what those other features or benefits are. I have no complaints over PP's support or the software - just think vBa was more of a cleaner and much easier snap in for vB than PP.

If you are looking at integration to other forums or systems - then go PP. If its a pure vB extension youre looking for - id go for vBa.

HTH's

I'm also looking to make a decision on this... Just to throw a third alternative into the game: vbPicGallery for vB3.5 should be out in a month or so, according to noppid, and the cost is going to be around $20. It's based on his experience in developing vbGarage for vB 3.0. Personally I don't have the possibility to wait for vbPicGallery, unfortunately, so will have to go with either vBA Gallery or PP.

That's interesting, because from reading up here and on vbulletin.com about the different galleries available for vB, you're the first person I've yet seen posting a positive experience with Photopost's support :surprised: Most people seem to share redspider's experience.

Please, anyone who has needed to use PP's support, speak up. The perceived lack of support is probably the single most negative point that I've come across about PP.

redspider, I'll drop you a PM because if you aren't getting heard on the PhotoPost support forums, then thats a concern for me. Classifieds has been a very successful product for us and we just updated the build last week to include 3.5 support. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to do the integration - there are only a couple of very easy steps that make it a snap.

I'll drop you a PM and see if we can resolve any questions/issues you may have.

PhotoPost has a paid support staff and in virtually every case where someone said support sucked it turned out the user was not an actual customer (or had a hacked version and was pissed they couldn't get support for a product they hadn't paid for). If redspider is a customer, he will be taken care of.

I purchased PP and the classifieds a while back. Just to upgrade the "security" fixes for the classifieds alone is going to cost me more money yet again and I've told PP that I'm not going to continue spending money on upgrades when there are less expensive alternatives out there.

PP is great if you want to continue spending hard earned money on upgrades. I continue to get emails about upgrading from this version to that version but it all goes back to cost. I don't mean this in a negative manner for the guy that is with PP, however, what gives here?

The model of "pay" and provide support seems to be gone. You'll pay.... pay and pay more until you get sick and tired of paying just as I've gotten sick of it. I'm currently looking for other alternatives for the PP because I upgraded to the "latest" version and lost all of the pictures in my database, although, they still exist in the folders ----- pretty amazing, huh? The upgrade wasn't so awesome nor seemless as I thought it would have been. It was 150+ megs of pictures and the only recourse I was told to do was to use previous backup. Explain that to all of my users who have put new pictures in there. No thanks.

Regards,
Tim

Tim, I'm confused - all purchases include a year of free updates to the software - what do you mean "pay and pay more until you get sick and tired of paying"? How is this different than vBulletin or others?

You're correct, vBulletin charges you for a "yearly" fee for the software which you're correct, your model is the same as that. I have the "original" version of the classifieds which was less then a week after you finally released a "newer" upgrade and I didn't qualify for that upgrade because my maintenance I guess had gone up. That is, after someone finally got around to doing something with the classifieds ..... which seemed to be very dismal development and I guess that pp was the priority?

It isn't so much paying for the maintenance that I find frustrating, it's asking for help when I upgraded to the latest pp version to find that it ruined all of my pictures and they are gone, although the directories /data/500, etc still exist. Weird, eh? Then what was even more frustrating was being told that I just need to go to a backup.

Believe me, I'm not here to just complain and that's not my style. However, when being asked for funds and also not getting the support that I feel I should be getting result in me being a little more hesitant. I'm sure you can relate to that.

If you'd like to settle this privately, I'm game for that. Once settled and when my pp is working as it should, I'll be more then happy to get on here, and state that the "level of service" was spectacular, second to none, etc. ;-)

Regards,
Tim

Classifieds has undergone alot of development since the first release - the second release incorporated every suggestion made - auction/bidding, user feedback, paypal integration, etc. PhotoPost has always been the #1 priority, but Classifieds has benefited from all of the developments for PP during the development cycle.

Now, as for your PP upgrade - lets handle this offline. I'll send you a PM and we'll get it taken care of, but like redspider's comments I'm not finding corresponding posts on our support forums to match you with any history.

Edit: I did find a correspondence from you on May 25th saying "Thank you! Upgrade went without a hitch and just wanted you to know!"; but will followup via PM so we can look at any other issues.

Honestly, vBulletin "integration" of Photopost is a joke.
It might have changed, but when I tried it (about 1 1/2 years ago), it didn't "integrate" anything - except using the Userbase.
So it would have been an insane amount of work necessary to get it working with our Style.

Also, I didn't notice any Features vBAdvanced Gallery does not have compared to Photopost.
Which Features are that?

I'm glad to hear that PP_Classifieds has taken a priority on the list of development.

I got your PM and replied. Let's handle this offline ........

Folks, please be aware that my notes are not in any way to degrade Photopost or anyone else for that matter. I will post up my experience with Photopost once this gets resolved.

Thank you,
Tim

I'd be happy to clue you in since you seem to have none; and, yes, an "insane" amount of work has been done to allow for use of many vBulletin elements since the release of vB3: avatars, signatures, bb codes, WYSIWYG/Enhanced input controls, a full set of templates specific to vB3, just to name a few things. And while there would be good reason to compare vBg to a year and a half old PhotoPost, there have been significant updates to PP since vB3 was released that you appear to be unaware of.

First of all, PhotoPost and vBg integrate with vB the same - both use vB's global.php to authenticate users and then take it from there in their own unique way.

As for features that PhotoPost has that vBg lacks; the list is long, but a few items would include: multi-paged indexes, announcements/category introductions, multi-category assignments for a single photo, cell phone uploads, gallery-style layout/portal style layout in addition to forum style layout, configurable placement of filmstrips (top, bottom, left, right), man I could go on and on couldn't I?

If I were to jump into a vBulletin discussion and only talk about the condition of vBulletin from 18+ months ago, I suppose I would be at the same disadvantage as you are now. Just a thought, but as a moderator whos word carrys more weight than others, maybe you should take a few minutes to be better prepared before making such inaccurate and inflammatory comments in subjects you appear to know little about.

For a comprehensive list of PhotoPost features, might I suggest you review this thread:

http://www.photopost.com/forum/showthread.php?t=109343

But no words about using vBulletin Template/Style System.

So the question: Can Photopost fully integrate with vBulletin, eg. use it's Style System no matter what the Style looks like, will it use the Style the User has selected in vBuleltin, etc. without having to apply major changes?

Anyway, I didn't want to argue, I just stated what my personal experience was when I tried Photopost.

As for the Features: Except Announcements and Cell Phone Uploads, those you mentioned AFAIK are also possible with vBAdvanced Gallery?

vBGallery does not allow you to upload a single file to multiple categories, nor can the index be multi-pages, nor can you choose multiple layouts:

For example: http://www.michaelpierce.com/gallery/index.php

These different layouts are simple switches and involve no custom modifications to the code. And, yes, PhotoPost uses the vBulletin style system so that when you change skins the colors on the PhotoPost side match your forums (you can even create new templates to match your custom skins). A good example of this is at: http://www.extremefitness.com/gallery/index.php - although you need to be registered to change stylesheets - I have template sets for several of the extremepixels.com styles I purchased.

http://www.viperalley.com/gallery/index.php - (another example of an indexed gallery page) another unique feature which demonstrates our "contest" feature which allows a category to be tagged as being a contest which instead of rating images people can vote on (one vote per member). When the contest is ended, the photos are sorted by those with the most votes.

Customizable photo frames (per category) and even rotating thumbnails for a slanted photo effect are additional features our customers use to give their galleries a "unique" look.

There are many differences, my point was that you were injecting arguments into this discussion using information that was more than 18 months old - how reasonable would it be for me to debate the feature sets of vBulletin if I were talking about vB2 in a vB3 discussion?

UPDATE: I just got off the phone with Photopost support and I take back anything negative or what could have been construed as negative. My photopost is back up and running and apparently there was a little bit of table error (aka user error on my part). Apparently I ran the upgrade script more then one time which resulted in tables corrupting.............. luckily on my part, I have the foresight to keep my own backups. The backups were used and worked great.

Bottom line. Photopost support helped me out and ensured that my product was up and running and even spent time on the phone with me. What other places are going to call you at your house on their nickel to ensure the product is up and running fine?

THANK YOU FOR THE SUPPORT!!!!!!

Best,
Tim

Another superb feature of PP is security, (image protection) storage options, .htacesss options, the lot!

I created a style for RC3, i spent a whole lot of time on it and hoped it would look great in PP, i wasn't disapointed, check the gallery here - custom error messages, perfect integration with RC3...it just got better & better...

if you register and click here you'll see the gallery in all it's style glory!

It's also the choice for adult webmasters who need a reliable and secure dynamic gallery with all the features you need without the fuss.

-b6

That's right. And with PhotoPost when you upgrade to vB3.5 you don't have to touch a thing in PhotoPost - it'll determine that you are on 3.5 and adjust itself accordingly - your galleries won't even be down during your upgrade and won't even hiccup when your upgrade is done. No need to reinstall templates or upgrade to a different version - PhotoPost takes the hassle out of upgrading (even users who went from vB2 to vB3 only had a few minor tweaks to make).

The IPS (Image Protection System) is unique to PhotoPost - you can store original sized images in a password protected area (or even outside your web directory) and force users to use PhotoPost to view any images - if you don't have permission to view an image, you won't be able to get to it. With vBgallery (or any other gallery), if you know the URL to an image, you'll be able to share that image link with anyone and bypass any security the system has in place.

Check out our Gallery page - you can select the type of view you want - normal, thumbnails only, thumbnails with titles and even group all photos together by the members who have uploaded to that category.

As you can see, it would be quite a chore to list all of the things we do that others don't; but I think you get the point without me droning on and on.

And how does IPS work exactly?
AFAIK, if a File is within the Webroot, you know the URL and .htaccess does not disallow acces - you can access it.

If a file if in a password protected area and you don't have a password, you can't access it, right? Same as if its out of webroot. Thats the idea behind IPS - placing files out of reach from users and forcing them to use PhotoPost to access them. Not very different from the system vB used for attachments, really; we just don't store the images in the database, we store them somewhere other than in the default location.

PhotoPost IPS works the same as our on-the-fly watermarks (another feature unqiue to PhotoPost, I might add) - we read the image file in from the file system at the script level and then serve it up to the browser.

I have an adult site where I use PhotoPost to serve up thumbnails of my member galleries (I am a photographer as well) to visitors as a way of showing them what's inside - but you cannot access the thumbnails or the images themselves without accessing the members area with a password. The thumbnails themselves are served up using the same ideas.

The "image location" is simply a script and since the script is required to view the image, the script enforces permissions.

If you haven't looked at PhotoPost in over 18 months, then you have missed alot of innovation that you won't find anywhere else (but you can be sure will be copied sooner or later).

Ah, OK - that's basically what I thought. And I am not too happy with the idea of serving Images through Scripts ... pity, I hoped you might have had another solution.

If you want to enforce usergroup permissions, then you will need a script of some sort to interact with your database to detemine user permissions. It's actually very effective and easy to use and doesn't place the burden on the user to install system level components.

ok I reply to 2 pm from your company just a few minutes ago I send a copy of my lisence to show I pay for the software also send you a link to the thread thanks for any help .


update

my complain was fix by the PhotoPost team now I happy with my product .
thanks

Not to get off target here or hijack this thread but... I can't seem to find the pp featured photos hack anywhere. I just upgraded my vb and I added some skins, and well it was almost two years ago when I installed that hack, no idea where it is.

Can anyone give me a link?
Thanks
Jim

The PhotoPost Featured Photos "mod" is a part of the actual product and the files are contained within the distribution. If you have a more recent version of PhotoPost, the files are in the ZIP and instructions on adding the couple lines to vB are in the PhotoPost FAQ forum.

Lol,
I'm on 4.67 so I guess I don't have the zip file.

Hey stranger. My upgrade to the new classifieds worked flawless. :mad:

Thanks everyone. vbGallery purchased!

Glad to hear it, Tim; once we had the tables straightened out it was easy! ;)

I used photopost at first, and I haven't used the new version which is suppose to intergrate much better. Becuase they charge 60 dollars to renew your membership access even though you spent 99 on the software.

And frankly, I never liked it, and wasn't happy. It worked, but it did not blend well with vbulletin and was very difficult to configure.

When I discovered there was a vbgallery, and saw the price, I was very excited. I have only been using it since last Sunday, but I am very happy with it, and already have it well customized.

Actually, to clarify, renewal is $39 and up until a few days ago there was a special for $15.

I own and still use VBGallery, but despite was has been said here, the support is very inconsistent. If you look in the vBGallery forums, you'll see that a lot of the mods created by the program author himself have ongoing support issues that have been unresolved for months. I don't own PhotoPost, so I can't comment on their support, but I am not happy with the way things are run at vBGallery. It can be very hit-or-miss and the ball is dropped quite a bit. Somtimes he will do everything to help you, and then you won't hear a thing from him for 3 weeks straight no matter how much you plead.

-V

Why yes, yes it was $15 and I appreciated that :banana:

I use both Photopost and vBAGallery but my preference is for Photopost, for which I have two licences. I have never had any complaints with the support for Photopost in the three years I've been using it, I have always received swift responses to core problems and have also had help with customisation issues, in fact both the developer and support have been into my server and sorted problems out for me, which is more than I could hope for. I also really like the fact that my Photopost integration with vBulletin is not only very effective (smileys, avatars, bbcodes, post counts, etc.) yet requires no hacking of the vB scripts whatsoever, with only a very small edit to the vB index file required for the featured photos display on the forum homepage.

I'm running vB PicGallery and its VERY good. The $20 cost is laughable compared to what you get and Noppid is supporting the product well. I wont be using anything else!

I also run PP Classifieds and whilst its a good product I think the support people assume they are only dealing with pro's and seem to get annoyed pretty easy. I have always had issue's resolved eventually (with most delays being due to timezones, so I guess they cant be blamed for that). I'll be honest in that a lot of issue's have been my own doing, but it makes me question the user friendliness of the software? I know its simple, but often the simple thing cant be found and there's no access to FAQ's or clear explanations.

I will undoubtedly be in a situation where my sub will run out and if I have an issue I'll have to pay to get back in their forums to resolve it. If there is a better alternative I guess I'll be considering.