Wondering about 2 mods. Premium Member and Garage

[robhole]

Hello everyone!

This will convince me to move over for sure. I know that vBulletin is amazing but I have a couple of questions I would like to ask before I decide to purchase.

Currently, I run a car club enthousiast site for Pontiac G5's/Pursuit's. We also support Chevy Cobalts and Saturn Ions.

First of all I am running phpBB and I am aware there is a script to help convert my phpBB database over to vBulletin. Is this hard? Is there a lot of fall out of database information? Will this create all my forum topics and sections for me and maintain all of my user base?
Of course I'll back everything up before I decide to launch any kind of migration script.

Secondly, I have released two mods that members love. I'm having difficulties searching this and finding examples on the pre-sales side of things as I'm looking for two specific mods. One is Premium Membership mod and a Garage mod. Now I found something about vBGarage but having a hard time with locating information about creating a Premium Membership group and having a payment processing mod.

Currently my Premium Membership mod for phpBB automatically processes users via Paypal who pay and set change them to the Premium Membership group automatically and assign them the rank. I am sure there is a mod for vBulletin but where can I find more information regarding this?

Does anyone know if vBGarage can be assigned by group level so that only certain groups can post a garage entry/edit/view?

Finally, is there any other mods people would recommend for a car club that can be interesting to add-on to vBulletin. At this time all I can think of is a Premium Membership mod (which I'll need to convert the members over if I do decide) and a "Garage".

Here is a sample of my site http://www.G5Club.net/
My forums: http://www.G5Club.net/forum
phpBBGarage: http://www.G5Club.net/forum/garage.php

Thank you for your time!

-Rob

EDIT::::: Oh one more quick question, is it easy to edit/add-on to vBulletin. I have no problems modding phpBB manually with no install scripts.

[Chris M]

The import script will maintain your forum structures, thread structures and user information, but for more accurate information on exactly how it will function you would be better off asking someone from vBulletin.com...

The "Premium Membership" feature is actually included within vBulletin 3.x (Any vB version above 3.0.0) - Try out the vBulletin Demo board on vBulletin.com to see how this works

As for vBGarage, I am currently unaware if a version of vBGarage exists for the latest version of vBulletin, but I'm sure as it is a popular mod, it will be released...

As for modding of vBulletin, it depends entirely on how skilled you are; Most modifications are simplistic to install, some don't even require you to login to alter any files, but some complex modifications may require file edits... That being said, it's fairly easy as long as you follow the instructions given by the coder on how to install the modification...

Chris

[ssslippy]

vbgarage has been basically abandoned at this point and is copyrighted.

[Stangsta]

Originally Posted by ssslippy

vbgarage has been basically abandoned at this point and is copyrighted.

VBPicGallery has replaced VBGarage and is developed by Noppid. It is now a commercial mod and readily available. It also supports multiple garages.