vbSlideshow vs Joomlaworks Frontpage Slideshow

[jim6763nva]

Ok, my writing skills are not the best.. I admit that, but I have to comment on these products.

Recently I decided to look into adding a slideshow to my forum that would display breaking news from an RSS feed or user posted news. I found I had a couple options. There may be others however the ones I took a look at were vbSlideshow and Joolmaworks Frontpage Slideshow.

I first took a look at vbSlideshow. It looked pretty cool although I was a little skeptical. I liked the fact that it was written based on vb code and would integrate with the admincp. It's unfortunate though that it is priced so high ($49.99) and the features are very limited compared to that of Joomlaworks FPSS. vbSlideshow claims to be in a version 3 too however, it's every buggy and extremely difficult to get it working. If you want to add new photos to your slideshow, you either have to manually create a new thread with photo attachment, (supposedly editing an existing thread will also update it however I was not able to get that to work) or run the "slideshow update" through the thread tools. In addition, each time you make an update to the slideshow's features from the admincp you must run the update again as mentioned before. To sum up vbSlideshow, it's very complicated to use and in my opinion not worth the $49.99 for the hassel that you have to go through. I have to admit I made the mistake and went with vbSlideshow at first for the simple fact that it integrated with the admincp. If a piece of software is designed well and works, don't soully base your decision of integration. Also, if you purchase vbSlideshow and don't like it, you're basically stuck with a bunch of nothing. Don't expect a refund and strangely enough VBCover does not allow you to change the domain that it's licensed to in the event that you should want to use it or try to get it to work on another site. Needless to say, I'm pretty upset (p.o.'d) about this. I went ahead and removed the software from my site anyway. Oh! one other thing is that in order for vbSlideshow your site must have IONCube and/or IONCube decoder installed because all of vbCover's products are encrypted.

I then took a look at Joomlaworks Frontpage Slideshow. Now granted it doesn't have a "control panel" that shows up in the admincp, but you can create a plugin that allows it to interface with vbulletin. FPSS is packed with features for a version 2.0 product. They also indicate that some big name companies are using FPSS on their sites and provide links to them. Installation was very easy and updating photos is even easier.
The install consisted of uploading the application files to your site, manually creating a plugin (about 4 lines of code, if that) in the plugin manager, adding a FPSS variable to a template where you want the slideshow to appear and manually modifying parameters in a config file. Each forum Id is defined in an array. This was a no brainer. Once you're done, ftp it back to your site and refresh the page that it's installed on. There is no need to run an update tool and the slideshow updates all images on the fly. Add or edit a thread, and the next time you refresh the page, the slideshow is displaying them. Along with the many wonderful features of Joomlaworks Frontpage Slideshow, it's ease of installation and maintenance, comes a very simple and affordable price tag of 22 Euros or around $30 USD depending on when you purchase it. I know some have purchased it for around $35, however I got a copy lastnight for $32.12 USD. Given the attractive presentation of their website, the excellent functional aspec of the software I would have expected to pay a bit more.

So... unless there is a better product out there that I don't know about. I strongly recommend looking at Joomlaworks Frontpage Slideshow for your site.

Thanks,
Jim

[veenuisthebest]

Thank you so much for your review about vbslideshow.. ! I was thinking of buying it but after reading this, i have changed my mind.

The fact one would like vbslideshow is that it looks too good (better than fps to me) and doesn't use any queries. But if it gives hassles for free, then it isn't worth it.

Thanks

[jim6763nva]

Originally Posted by veenuisthebest

Thank you so much for your review about vbslideshow.. ! I was thinking of buying it but after reading this, i have changed my mind.

The fact one would like vbslideshow is that it looks too good (better than fps to me) and doesn't use any queries. But if it gives hassles for free, then it isn't worth it.

Thanks

You're welcome. I'm glad I was able to help at least one person from making the same mistake I did. Here is the thread that shows how to install FPSS for vb/vba.

http://forum.joomlaworks.gr/index.php?topic=99.0

I'm looking forward to discovering all the neat things it can do. I like what I've seen where it's used on other sites.

[aztecboi2003]

Can you share the code you used to make the plugin? I have FPSS and was thinking of buying vb slideshow.

[SBlueman]

I have been using the Joomblaworks Frontpage Slideshow on my NFL forum for a year now and while it was a nightmare to install and configure (please do not ask how I did it...all I know is I kept messing around with the settings, then by luck they came up right and I never looked back) I have to say I love the feature.

I even came up with this modification that allows you to define the order of news shown in the Frontpage slideshow. This way you don't have to just have the newest thread shown first:

Define Order Of News Shown With Frontpage Slideshow

[jim6763nva]

Originally Posted by SBlueman

I have been using the Joomblaworks Frontpage Slideshow on my NFL forum for a year now and while it was a nightmare to install and configure (please do not ask how I did it...all I know is I kept messing around with the settings, then by luck they came up right and I never looked back) I have to say I love the feature.

I even came up with this modification that allows you to define the order of news shown in the Frontpage slideshow. This way you don't have to just have the newest thread shown first:

Define Order Of News Shown With Frontpage Slideshow

OMG!! How could it possibly be a nightmare to install?
It was very easy to install and I had it up and running in less than 5 mins. The hardest part I find is finding photos big enough to fit the dimensions I've set on fpss. I don't know... it may be that I'm running vb 3.7.3 and vba 3.0.1 that helped.

--------------- Added 07 Sep 2008 at 03:51 ---------------

Originally Posted by aztecboi2003

Can you share the code you used to make the plugin? I have FPSS and was thinking of buying vb slideshow.

Sure.. here is the code that I used:

 
  ob_start();
     include('fpss/mod_fpslideshow.php');
     $jwfpss = ob_get_contents();
  ob_end_clean();

It's all here on this link:
http://forum.joomlaworks.gr/index.php?topic=99.0

[SBlueman]

The reason it was hard to install was because in the beginning it was a modification Lionel put up that he "adapted" for vbulletin. His support was shoddy, he was rude with everyone and at the end he just left in a hissy fit. It left everyone scrambling to figure it out on their own. Now they have a vbulletin version of the Frontpage Slideshow that you can actually get support on without having to deal with a coder who has no idea what support is.

Let's put it this way....anything by Lionel? I remember to stay far away from.

[jim6763nva]

Originally Posted by SBlueman

The reason it was hard to install was because in the beginning it was a modification Lionel put up that he "adapted" for vbulletin. His support was shoddy, he was rude with everyone and at the end he just left in a hissy fit. It left everyone scrambling to figure it out on their own. Now they have a vbulletin version of the Frontpage Slideshow that you can actually get support on without having to deal with a coder who has no idea what support is.

Let's put it this way....anything by Lionel? I remember to stay far away from.

Oh Oh! My bad... When you said "it" was was a nightmare to install, I was thinking you meant Joomlaworks' Frontpage Slideshow.

Ok Cool... I'm glad (but i'm not glad, if you know what I mean) to hear there is a long history of this... nonsense. I'm trying real hard to be polite... but it's hard when you get taken. This is gonna leave a mark on vbCover products for sure. :down::down::down:

[UaECasher]

nice review i really liked it and needed it

[Bacon Butty]

Originally Posted by SBlueman

The reason it was hard to install was because in the beginning it was a modification Lionel put up that he "adapted" for vbulletin. His support was shoddy, he was rude with everyone and at the end he just left in a hissy fit. It left everyone scrambling to figure it out on their own. Now they have a vbulletin version of the Frontpage Slideshow that you can actually get support on without having to deal with a coder who has no idea what support is.

Let's put it this way....anything by Lionel? I remember to stay far away from.

Yeah completely agree, I had the same issue - was an absolute nightmare!

Finally managed to get it configured though. Link