Integration with vBulletin - vHoist : Garage / Car Showroom

About:

vHoist is a new Virtual Garage plugin that allows your users to share the rides with the rest of your forum!

Our plugin fully integrates into your forum software providing seamless integration without the limits of other plugins with similar features, such as extra SQL querys added to your site.


vHoist Has:

- Multiple Garages for each user

- No Added SQL Query's

- Users Cars listed under their post info

- Full seamless integration into your forum

- Users can share their garages over multiple websites without the need to modify their profiles for each site.

- Anyone that "parks" their car on your website, will provide a backlink to your site for every other site they are on.

- Unlimited Pictures and Rides

- Many new features coming weekly! Facebook plugin, phpbb plugin both in development.

- Will be supporting MOTORCYCLES, ATV's, Boats and much much more!

Sites that are already using vHoist.com:

http://www.GenerationDub.com
http://psaclub.net/forums.php

Install Instructions

1) Download the zip file.

2) Upload vHoist.php into the root directory of your website.

3) Install the product "product_vhoist.xml" (Allow overwrite if you're upgrading) into vBulletin.
[ Plugins & Products ] -> [ Manage Products ] -> Add/Import Product.

4) Visit www.vHoist.com and Register an account. *COMPLETELY FREE*

5) Once logged in, click "Downloads", and redownload the zip file to enable the administration panel. REFRESH this page after download.

6) Add your website to vHoist.com by using the "Site Adminstrator" menu to the left, located under your Member Garage.
* Your site will not be added to vHoist.com until you upload vHoist.php and correctly add your URL to our database.

7) Save the information and Paste the passkey Generated by vHoist.com into your vBulletin vHoist settings.

[ vBulletin Options ] -> [ vBulletin Options ] -> [ vHoist Settings ] -> Website Passkey

8) Adjust your settings in vBulletin for vHoist accordingly.

After you are finished the above, visit your newly installed vHoist on your website. You will see a message saying that you do not currently have any cars parked on your site. Click on "Add / Edit vHoist" and then park your car on your site!

FAQ:

How does the benefit my site?

- There is no "Overhead" added to your site like other plugins, such as vbGarage, because everything takes place on vHoist.com

- Backlinks, an important SEO feature, come from vHoist.com to your site. For example, if one member parks his / her car on multiple websites, you will automatically be back linked from potentially thousands of sites. It's already happening.. http://forums.generationdub.com/vHoi...iew&gid=100390 - This is a VERY important feature and benefit to your site.

- Your users now only have to "Update" their ride on one site, and it propogates to all other sites they have parked too. Now if they have "forgotten" that they came to forum before but parked their ride there, it will be bumped up to the top of the list when they have an update.

- If someone comments from your forum, the user will receive an email saying that someone commented from your forum, and potentially giving you another user to come back to your site! Again, ANOTHER backlink is added on the comment. Here is an example:

http://forums.generationdub.com/vHoi...iew&gid=100000

Here's what a users garage looks like parked on 2 seperate sites!

Site 1 - http://forums.generationdub.com/vHoi...iew&gid=100000

Site 2 - http://psaclub.net/vHoist.php?do=view&gid=100000

Do you get our users information?

We save the UserID, UserName and Email address of users that "Park" a car on your website, so that the user display information will properly show up on your site. This is strictly because users will occasionally have multiple usernames across many forums. Since vHoist.com allows a user to "park" their ride on your site, we need to display their username for your site properly.


For more FAQ's like this, visit: http://www.vhoist.com/FAQ.aspx

Time to install: < 5 Minutes
Template Edits: 0
File Uploads: 1
Products: 1

Has been tested on:

3.6.7
3.6.8
3.7.1
3.8.0

Believed to work on ALL versions from 3.6.0 to 3.8.0, but would like confirmation from users currently using those sites.

product / vhoist.php files - [1.0.0.1]
- Fixed Search not working
- Removed Sponsor Program
- Allowed importing for 3.5.7
- Disabled "member ride" listed under user's name until I can figure out the "slow down" issue
- problem with quotes in user names
- moved related rides to the left instead of right

product / vhoist.php files - [1.0.0.2]
- Added "Random Image" table - show 1 through 10 random garages by your users
- Created a new way to add vHoist to your forum, so you can use a selection box to pick where it goes
- Added "Latest Image" table - show 1 through 10 last edited garages by your users
- Added more extensive options menu
- Added Quick Links Menu
- Fixed "Enable / Disable" Option
- Removed "Members Rides" option under user names until futher testing

product / vhoist.php files - [1.0.0.3]
- Added sorting on title bar of search
- Added some vHoist website functionality
- View users rides from www.vhoist.com/ride/XXXXXX/ where XXX is the ride number.
- Fixed bug for not being able to remove ride

product / vhoist.php files - [1.0.0.4]
- Added User Profiles tab
- Removed this from "beta" since it's been functioning on sites for a few months now
- Added some vHoist website functionality - analytics to be added in next release
- View users profile from www.vhoist.com/id/username/ where XXX is the username on vHoist.com

Known Issues for this release:

- None reported

Other:

This is currently a working public BETA. I will be supporting this daily (well, mostly nightly EST) in this thread and via any problems submitted by email using the contact form on the site, http://www.vhoist.com


*Attention vbGarage Users*

We have been working diligantly on a conversion tool to transfer your current vBGarage users into vHoist.com. The converter is currently in Alpha testing and is not publicly avalible yet.

It is recommend that smaller sites that are using vBGarage start off with a fresh new vHoist account, however, we understand that content is hard to come by and we are working fast to bring this converter to you! If this is stopping you from installing vHoist.com, then please use our contact forum to let us know you are waiting!

....

Cheers .... and .... here goes nothing... this is my first publicly released mod, so if I did this wrong, please forgive me!

[footose]

^^ Hey man, no problems vHoist isn't the solution for everyone (yet )

I'm working hard to get everything into vHoist that everyone wants, particularly "customizability" (is that a word? lol!)

Thanks for trying it out, and if in 3, 6 or 12 months down the road you want to give it another whirl, let me know and I'll give you a hand personally!

Cheers!

Harry.

[footose]

product / vhoist.php files - [1.0.0.3]
- Added sorting on title bar of search
- Added some vHoist website functionality
- View users rides from www.vhoist.com/ride/XXXXXX/ where XXX is the ride number. ie http://www.vhoist.com/ride/100000/
- Fixed bug for not being able to remove ride

[footose]

I'm going to be away from friday till monday for superbowl.. so if anyone has ANY problems, there is a contact phone number in the members area of vHoist.com, just give me a ring if anything serious comes up.

Cheers

[Big_J]

I tried it for a few minutes, then uninstalled. I think people who value their member base will not like sending them through another site. Its not for me, but good luck with it. It looks nice and was pretty much what I wanted, but just uncomfortable with the way it works.

Thanks

[footose]

^^ Cheers, thanks for the feedback.

Like I said, it's not for everyone. The overall goal is to have this central database, not to "take users away" - but to bring more users to you, and the end result will be a large community of car / motorcycle pictures and information that can be shared across multiple communities!

Take care.

NOTE TO THE PEOPLE WHO INSTALLED THIS WEEKEND:

Sorry about the versioning issue. I forgot to change something in my configuration and the 2a file was being downloaded instead of the 1.0.0.3.

Please update if you downloaded this weekend.

[nazguluk]

Still not had chance to update, had a few member issues to deal with!

Anyway - will be trying the latest out over the next couple of days

[concepts]

This MOD is great and has sooo much potential, I look forward to seeing it evolve! installed and looking forward to my sites launch to see how the member will use it..

one thing.
I would like to see the Username and photo linked to the members VB profile on the comments
also my username does not link back to my VB profile either.
makes it difficult when someone leaves a comment and
a block on the VB profile that shows if the member has a Vhoist & link

I will be more than happy to assist with donations to help upgrade and continue this amazing project.. I see great potential with it.

[footose]

^^ Concepts: Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I will link that to their VB Profile no problem. I am working on customizing the template feature so that you guys can do whatever you want with the information, that way you don't have to relay on my "pre-built" templates if you don't want too. I think this will be another week or so before releaseing that.

In the mean time, I plan to release an XML format document so that forum admins' that have some coding knowledge will beable to shape / form vHoist any which way they want.

The other recommendations are great, and I will continue to work on it...

I have updated a few minor things tonight with vHoist, but most of the updates are server side.

Server Side Update: - Feb 10th, 2009
- Bug fix on uploading odd-sized images
- Search bug fix
- Changed size of odd-sized images on forums to a 100x100 size
- Added extra Description for "Alt" in images
- Released main vHoist.com website

I also released the "main" site of vHoist, to further assure that vHoist.com is here to stay, and that I'll be offering as much support as possible.

http://www.vHoist.com

I'm still attempting to fix a minor big with vbadvanced, but only one site has reported the error, so if you do have an error, let me know ASAP.

FOR PEOPLE THAT WANT THIS PLUGIN for other purposes other then cars

I have been working on this also, and plan to do a release soon. The people that have requested this have been added to a mailer and you will be kept up to date on new events.

Cheers, and if anyone has comments or suggestions.. good or bad..please post them here.

Harry.

[footose]

Whoops, forgot to upload the style sheets last night and it was effecting things... in case anyone was looking

[jonbaker]

where would i go to suggest items for vhoist?

i would like to see an area for 1/4 mile time slips and dyno information.

thank you.