New Features included in vBGarage 4.0.0
 

Big thanks to Magnus for providing a great hack!


The updated vBgarage is a pretty serious rewite of the php code. The only mod
to the templates was to change an occurance of width="175" to width="100".

Change List

• added length limit to text fields
• added striping of html and php code from user text input fields
• (strip tags code from php.net and vBulletin)
• file upload type, size, and validity checks by php
• static thumbnail images as resized compressed jpegs (width=100 and height=proportionate)
• Optional Images and thumbnails in filesystem or DB
• images stored in encoded file names to prevent attemts to write illegal or special characters to FS
• GD optimization
• memory optimization
• performance improvement displaying thumbnails
• security additions
• added vbgconfig file (set FS or DB mode and images path if using FS mode)
• new ACP setting to stop full image display to guests
• new phrases for new setting
• installer includes all new additions to DB if starting from scratch
• includes updater in installer script for after vB upgrades
  (found the reason this has been necessary and corrected it in the installer and updater)
• includes upgrade from older versions script
• includes converter script to move images from DB to FS and remove images from DB after conversion to FS mode
• Optional watermarking of full size images
• Position watermark on top center or bottom center of full size images

Files Included

• vbgarage.php
• vbgconfig.php
• install_vbgarage.php
• convert_vbgarage.php
• vbg_test.txt
• vbgarage_upgrade.php
• vbgarage_readme.txt

Two sites are using this version live and we have tried real hard to stomp any bugs. One site is in FS mode and the other in DB mode.

The installer update, upgrade, and convert utility scripts can be run safely multiple times. The Install option for a fresh install can only be run once.

When running vBGarage 4.0.0 in file system mode, if anything goes wrong, the image is just skipped on the file system side and only database information stored or retrived. This results in no errors being thrown and the only negetive effect being images don't appear. If this occurs, users can report the problem, you can fix it, and they can delete blank images and upload new ones.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Oh and I forgot to add, the release is being delayed so we can attempt to add multiple cars/garages before doing so.

Any timeframe on when you think it might be ready?

Thanks again!

-Jason

Well, I have to get the code for multiple cars/garages from magnus to assess that. We had a miscommunication in email it seems transfering the files.

The code is ready and being used live on two sites as is. However without the multiple cars/garage code, I have no idea as to how it will affect upgrades if we released the current code expecting to post a later upgrade adding the multiple cars/garages.

So to be safe I'm holding off. I expect that magnus will be able to get that to me by Monday the latest and I will post my expectations for the addition and release at that time.

If we can clearly see this release is safe to add multiple cars/garages to as an upgrade, this current code may be released with an upgrade to follow soon after.

There's alot to consider. Thank you for your patience.

YAY, another coder for vbgarage, but a question I must ask, will a new version ever get released with actual end users modifications? :nervous: Maybe you can get the job done right! :) I just sent you a lot of cool features that would be cool in the new release :)

[high]* noppid feels the vise tighten!
[/high]

Well, to be honest, there really is nothing in the new release for the end users, yet. We expect to put in multiple cars/garages, if possible, before the release though. All of the current mods are to the benefit of the admin/site or performance and security.

I took a look at your suggestions. The idea of a blank image for users that have not posted a photo is a good idea.

As far as additional input fields and template mods for display of garages, I'm not sure where we will go. Additional input fields mean more database fields. That's not a big deal, but what ones to add is a big question when it comes to benefitting everyone. Then there is the premise of having copied someones private branch of the code. They customized to be different for a reason. So this is not an easy decision when trying to change the garage itself from the base offering.

Magnus has offered up his version of multiple garages. That will be to the benefit of the users. However I think the templating will continue to be offered as is the way magnus designed it with only enhancement where necessary in them if that comes up. The backend is the meat of what I'm taking on.

Having said that, there is no reason you can't have what you want. You could create a hack to add what you propose. Then you could have a thread for those of you interested in that code to support it.

We have all the tools we need provided by vbulletin.org now for such projects to be possible and succeed.

I think the DB tables should change (probably images put to one tables by itself, many to many relation with vbgarage_user table ), so it may be better to hold off an initial release without multiple cars till it gets incoporated.

If you need help on this multi-garage thingy let me know, and I will try as best I can to help, since I also got this multi-thingy thing going :)

The thing is, I could go for a release and get away with it at this point. I have the new code I've written in use and I'm 100% commited to it. Whatever I see for multiple cars/garages, I have to do whatever it takes to move in an upgarding direction with backward compatability.

The thing is, I don't want to spoon feed the folks looking for this new version. Let's get it all done the first time out and concentrate on support afterwards.

Will upgrading change the page urls of the current vb garage pages?

Do you think about a version with files attach in a attachfiles repertory ?

This version offers the option to store attached photos in the file system. Is that what you mean?

As far as I can tell, no URLs have changed.