Major Additions - DTO Garage - free garage features for all your members (vB 3.8.X)

Drive Thru Online ? Garage

Overview

DTO Garage is a free product allowing all members of a site to show off their car, truck, motorcycle or other powersports toy. Site owners can easily adapt the section and subsection titles to suit the attributes to the site's focus. Images are stored locally preventing broken links and over limit displays common with images linked offsite. Drive Thru Online has made upgrading to the paid version of DTO Garage Plus easy, all user data stored in DTO Garage is retained for a seamless transition.

For users, management of their vBulletin garage is conveniently handled through their user control panel. The intuitive user interface encourages even the most challenged to create a compelling Garage. Images are added via a wizard from either the users own computer or a specified URL. Thumbnails are dynamically created with high-resolution images displayed in a navigable Lytebox. Users can designate whether a garage is visible to the rest of the site members or hidden until they have time to polish the information and give it the debut it deserves. Other users can view garages using interactive pop-up menus embedded in each post or through the Garage owner's profile.

Key Features

• vBulletin Options-based customization of information collected and presented in garages
• User management of garages via User Control Panel
• Simple-to-use image uploads per garage
• Lytebox presentation of high resolution garage images
• bbCode supported in information areas
• Additional image placement in information area supported
• Dynamic presentation of garages in postbit and user profile
• Embedded full featured searchable and indexed Help
• Fully documented
• Fully supported

Language Translation
As of version 1.1.3 DTO Garage has not been fully phrased and only supports English. With a future release it is our intent to offer a fully phrased version to support language translation of the product. When the fully phrased version is available we will provide documentation and tools to speed translations of the product for use on your site. We will also encourage those who have performed a translation to contribute it for distribution to other members. Any contributed languages will be included with this thread and credit given to the author. Site owners are free to translate the product either in its current state or future releases as they see fit given that the note found in the following Upgrade section is followed when upgrading. While Drive Thru Online will provide information to translators regarding the context of wording we can not provide support to facilitate the actual translation itself.

Compatibility

• Fully compatible with vBulletin 3.6.8 through vBulletin 3.8.x
• PHP 5.X or later (compiled with GD support) and MySQL 5.X or later is required.

Upgrading from a previous version of DTO Garage

1. Prior to installation/upgrade we recommend that you perform a back up of your site's database and files.
2. After unzipping the attached package open readme.html in your browser.
3. Click on the ?Documentation & installation instructions? to view the complete documentation for Garage.
4. Note: If you have customized the DTO Garage templates in a previous release it is recommended that you make a copy of your changes, revert to the version of templates included with the new release and migrate your changes into the new version's templates. Failure to do this may cause the product to operate improperly and/or support new features that may have been added to the product.
5. If you use a custom style for your site you may have to modify the garage templates. For more information refer to this how-to written to address the most common modifications required.

Installation & Configuration for vB 3.6.x through vb 3.8.x

1. Prior to installation/upgrade we recommend that you perform a back up of your site's database and files.
2. After unzipping the attached package open readme.html in your browser.
3. Click on the ?Documentation & installation instructions? to view the complete documentation for Garage.
   
   Alternatively, you can also access documentation by visiting our web site under the Support tab.

Copyright & Licensing

• DTO Garage is copyright protected by Drive Thru Online, Inc.
• You are free to download and install this plugin on any vBulletin forum for which you hold a valid vB license.
• Unauthorized distribution of any code and/or documentation, whole or in part, included here is strictly prohibited.
• In addition, the supplied copyright notice must be maintained.

Other Drive Thru Online Products

• DTO Garage and Garage Plus vBadvanced Modules ? free vBadvanced modules for Garage and Garage Plus
• DTO Garage Plus ? paid version with vBSEO sitemap generator add-ons, usergroup permissions, and advanced search features. Click here for a comparison of Garage and Garage Plus.
• DTO Clubs, ShowCase, and Vendor Tools - paid products designed to grow your membership and create revenue from your site

Support

We will provide support in this thread on an as-needed basis to members that have marked this modification as Installed. Additional support resources can be found on our site under the Support tab.

Release and Version History
1.1.3 - October 7, 2009
New feature and bug fix release

New Features

• Changed orientation of images in garage display from vertical to horizontal orientation for cleaner display.
• Modified index page to provide paged display of most recently added garages.
• Added error handling for upload of unsupported image formats when adding a picture to a garage.

Fixes

• Added caching of garage-related templates for use in private message postbit display.

1.1.2 - August 21, 2009
New feature and bug fix release

Note: This release did not include updated documentation to reflect the new features below. As this is an interim release we will be updating documentation with the next 1.2.0 release of Garage and Garage Plus.

New Features

• Garage index page - index page accessible from breadcrumb when viewing a members garage. Displays a random selection of up to 25 member garages.
• Navbar menu - Added "My Garage" link when user is logged in
• Navbar menu - Added "Garages" to take user to garage index page
• With a garage index page member garages are no longer display in a new browser window (the only exception is if you preview your own garage when managing it).

Fixes

• Users currently not logged in are prevented from managing or adding a garage.
• When using quick reply the Garage link is shown in the user's postbit given that the user has a visible garage configured.

1.1.1 - July 6, 2009
Fix release

• Correct alignment of Garage/Garage Plus navbar pop-up menu.
• SQL error when rendering Garage postbit links for guest users - no longer attempts to render a link for Guest users.
• Corrected issue for sites using database table prefixes where a SQL error was generated when attempting to insert an image into a garage.

1.1.0 - June 19, 2009
Initial release

[pjcnlv]

It would be very cool if a very small set of thumbnails say 45x30 could be included per vehicle in the garage in the postbit. The area would be very small but the images still enticing to garner clicks.

[mferguson]

Originally Posted by pjcnlv

It would be very cool if a very small set of thumbnails say 45x30 could be included per vehicle in the garage in the postbit. The area would be very small but the images still enticing to garner clicks.

With DTO Garage there would only be one image displayed so it would probably be doable. For Garage Plus it would really depend on how many garages per usergroup were allowed. Since there isn't an upper limit on what is support this could cause layout problems. Thoughts on how this might be displayed and where in the postbit versus postbit_legacy?

Also, in Garage Plus the navbar menu includes browse and search options which make all garages a bit more prominent to all those visiting the site.

Thanks!

Mark

[pjcnlv]

Originally Posted by mferguson

With DTO Garage there would only be one image displayed so it would probably be doable. For Garage Plus it would really depend on how many garages per usergroup were allowed. Since there isn't an upper limit on what is support this could cause layout problems. Thoughts on how this might be displayed and where in the postbit versus postbit_legacy?

Also, in Garage Plus the navbar menu includes browse and search options which make all garages a bit more prominent to all those visiting the site.

Thanks!

Mark

This mod fits my usergroup. I am purchasing the + version now and will see how better that fits.

[pjcnlv]

Hey, I get a free install! Cool!

Are you still camping?

[mferguson]

Originally Posted by pjcnlv

Hey, I get a free install! Cool!

Are you still camping?

I've been back about a week from my trip and have been working on all DTO stuff since

Thanks for purchasing DTO Garage Plus! Just sent you a follow up on the installation ticket with some additional questions.

Best regards,

Mark

[hugh_]

I get a blank page when I try to add an image from the edit vehicle page. How can I fix it?

[mferguson]

Originally Posted by hugh_

I get a blank page when I try to add an image from the edit vehicle page. How can I fix it?

Can you provide a step by step on how you encounter this issue? If you are just clicking on an Add Image link and immediately getting a white page do you have the vBulletin Option Use 'vBMenu' DHTML Popup Menus? set to Yes? This option is found under Style & Language Settings.

Thanks!

Mark

[pjcnlv]

How soon can we see a widget that allows us to present random "Garage Images" on our sites to our choosing? Something similar to "All Albums"?

[Kolbi]

Originally Posted by pjcnlv

How soon can we see a widget that allows us to present random "Garage Images" on our sites to our choosing? Something similar to "All Albums"?

You are right, that would be a nice feature.

[tr03bor]

Hey,

This is messing my head up on my custom style, where does the mod, modify?