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!

[dismas]

Originally Posted by footose

That being said, I do have hosting and development costs to pay for. If it becomes are huge complaint, I will attempt to figure something else out.

While I realize that, I also can see where some admins would be upset by advertising. If they have vendors that advertise with them, they may see this as stealing the vendors revenue. Perhaps a branding free sort of option is necessary.

I do hope you get these issues worked out and such. I'd hate to unveil this for my users only to find out that you have to close up shop in 6 months and that leaves me, and all the other admins, scrambling for a different solution. This is the reason why I haven't gone with vBgarage. It hasn't been updated, as far as I know, and I don't know when it will stop working with vB. Probably when vB4 comes out.

Speaking of which, what about updates to vB? I don't mean for you to look into a crystal ball as to how vB4 will work but if you could give us some idea of what you have planned as far as those who update to vB4 vs those who hold on to the vB3 series a while longer, I'd appreciate it. As it is, I haven't updated one of my forums past 3.6 because some of the mods that we use are essential but have not been updated to work with 3.7.

Finally, I want vHoist to work. I want you to keep vHoist up and going for a long time to come. And I've been looking for something like this. But I obviously still have my reservations.

Oh, and I'll be needing a version for snowmobiles, ATVs and dirt bikes.

[TimberFloorAu]

Excuse me , why does it load in one site, then take you to another site ??????

[footose]

While I realize that, I also can see where some admins would be upset by advertising. If they have vendors that advertise with them, they may see this as stealing the vendors revenue. Perhaps a branding free sort of option is necessary.

This very well could be an option in the future if it comes down to it. Right now, I tried to supply the most non-obtrusive way to handle this type of advertising. I know it's kind of a pain and could compromise some advertising issues. I plan to revisit the whole advertising scheme at some point.

I do hope you get these issues worked out and such. I'd hate to unveil this for my users only to find out that you have to close up shop in 6 months and that leaves me, and all the other admins, scrambling for a different solution. This is the reason why I haven't gone with vBgarage. It hasn't been updated, as far as I know, and I don't know when it will stop working with vB. Probably when vB4 comes out.

I've had similar reservations regarding vBgarage, which is actually how this whole idea came about in the first place. I started to modify vbGarage heavily, to the point where it was no longer vbgarage. I had several requests from users asking for the plugin and I started coding it as such. I came to realize that the need for this type of plugin was really larger then I expected and didn't want to get into the situation where I stopped supporting it and left my users "hanging".

I can't sit here and tell you that I can guarantee to offer 6 months, 1 years, 5 years or X years of support on this product, because no one can offer that on a free plugin.

That being said, take this into consideration.

I have been running http://www.GenerationDub.com for the last 7 years. (starting as GenerationIV.com) It's never made me any serious money, not enough to quit my job, not enough to buy a car. I usually operate at a loss. People always ask me why I do it, and I say "For the community". Granted, the costs of running a sub 250,000 Pageview site is less then that of running vHoist which could potentially enter the millions, however, until one of these sites can provide me an income I still need to work my hardest at my day job. I'm already typing this from my office and I should be getting back to work! I will support vHoist for as long as people will use it, and in the absolute least fashion, I will keep it for as long as www.GenerationDub.com is active, which I would never get rid of as it's my baby

I also don't want to give away my entire "business plan" on http://www.vHoist.com, but there is potential to bring this to the next level, where vHoist will have enough users to not only be a plugin site, but also a stand alone site. I'm hoping to eventually take on the other "big" car hosting websites, and then offer this plugin WITHOUT advertising to the people that started supporting it from the get-go.

Speaking of which, what about updates to vB? I don't mean for you to look into a crystal ball as to how vB4 will work but if you could give us some idea of what you have planned as far as those who update to vB4 vs those who hold on to the vB3 series a while longer, I'd appreciate it. As it is, I haven't updated one of my forums past 3.6 because some of the mods that we use are essential but have not been updated to work with 3.7.

I have coded this in such a way that I can support multiple versions of sites, not just vBulletin. One of the "good" things about this plugin is that it doesn't actually modify any part of your site. As long as there is a way to access userid's and usernames [and really, we only need those because I figured people wouldn't want "Fred" from your site displaying as "Fred123" that they registered on vHoist.com], and a way to display information on the site using templates, then I don't see a problem with me coding in the future for vb4, or any other version. If you know anything about coding, take a look at the php file and see that there isn't much "front end" coding that is taking place.

I decided to code it for vbulletin, because this is what I use for my website. I understand that phpbb users would probably be more accepting towards the advertising because of the nature of "free software" - but again - I wanted it for my own site mostly. I'm trying to keep the ad's as unobtrusive as possible.

Finally, I want vHoist to work. I want you to keep vHoist up and going for a long time to come. And I've been looking for something like this. But I obviously still have my reservations.

Oh, and I'll be needing a version for snowmobiles, ATVs and dirt bikes.

I want it to work too I've actually spent 6 - 9 months developing this, and over a year in the idea phase (original concept and coding of a stand alone plugin included in that time frame).

I hope I answered most of your questions properly. If you have any more, let me know and I'll do my best to answer them. As for the ATV's, Snowmobiles and Bikes... this really isn't a problem since the way I designed it, any "object" can really be added. That being said, my current knowledge of these things is very limited, so I started with what I know best... Cars. Specifically Volkswagen's, and moved on from there. I'd be more then happy to start adding makes and models for these types of vehicles as well, but I would need to compile a list somewhere so that I can support it properly.

Excuse me , why does it load in one site, then take you to another site ??????

Hey there, sorry I may have not explained the plugin fully enough and I apologize, sometimes I get 'excited' and maybe babel on about certain features that don't really explain the software fully.

Basically vHoist is a "cloud" application; where the data is stored on a separate server away from your own. The idea process behind this can be found in the brief description above or on http://www.vhoist.com/faq.aspx . I've tried to "limit" how much this actually makes a user log into vHoist.com so that the entire site looks like it is being pulled from your site, however, there are limitations to this for things such as 'commenting' and 'rating' - as the user needs to be logged into vHoist.com to take advantage of those 2 features.

The great thing about cookies and sessions though, is that once the user is logged into vHoist, the rating and comment systems will never ask your user to "leave" your site, and will work all in union.

[Rckcrwlr]

Is there any way to have custom info gathered??? I want to use something like this for RC Vehicles so most of the categories are irrelevant to the hobby.

Nice program though...

[footose]

^^ The plan is to add the ability to make "custom fields" so you can modify and add whatever you want. It's too early at this point to make this a priority feature as there are other issues that still need to be delt with for the cars and such...

I can add you to my mailing list for anything regarding the nature of customization to keep you up to date, if you fire me a PM with your email address.

[Rckcrwlr]

PM sent...

[Haltech]

i dont know what happened, but i had to disable the hack. It began to slow my server down when clicking on threads.

[footose]

^ Strange. Not sure how it would effect anything, but good to know. I haven't seen any slowdown on my forums, but it seems you might be running a larger forum then I.

You can disable the "member ride" plug in, which is the only thing that would effect clicking on threads, otherwise there is no interactivity between this plug in and threads themselves.

[footose]

I believe I have determined a possible cause for the slow down. I will be fixing it later tonight and using a different approach to displaying people's vehicles.

[bornoffire]

I cant seem to get it to work. How do i make a category for it? Could it be the skin that's preventing it to show?