Photopost versus vbGallery

[MPDev]

redspider, I'll drop you a PM because if you aren't getting heard on the PhotoPost support forums, then thats a concern for me. Classifieds has been a very successful product for us and we just updated the build last week to include 3.5 support. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to do the integration - there are only a couple of very easy steps that make it a snap.

I'll drop you a PM and see if we can resolve any questions/issues you may have.

PhotoPost has a paid support staff and in virtually every case where someone said support sucked it turned out the user was not an actual customer (or had a hacked version and was pissed they couldn't get support for a product they hadn't paid for). If redspider is a customer, he will be taken care of.

[tteal]

I purchased PP and the classifieds a while back. Just to upgrade the "security" fixes for the classifieds alone is going to cost me more money yet again and I've told PP that I'm not going to continue spending money on upgrades when there are less expensive alternatives out there.

PP is great if you want to continue spending hard earned money on upgrades. I continue to get emails about upgrading from this version to that version but it all goes back to cost. I don't mean this in a negative manner for the guy that is with PP, however, what gives here?

The model of "pay" and provide support seems to be gone. You'll pay.... pay and pay more until you get sick and tired of paying just as I've gotten sick of it. I'm currently looking for other alternatives for the PP because I upgraded to the "latest" version and lost all of the pictures in my database, although, they still exist in the folders ----- pretty amazing, huh? The upgrade wasn't so awesome nor seemless as I thought it would have been. It was 150+ megs of pictures and the only recourse I was told to do was to use previous backup. Explain that to all of my users who have put new pictures in there. No thanks.

Regards,
Tim

[MPDev]

Tim, I'm confused - all purchases include a year of free updates to the software - what do you mean "pay and pay more until you get sick and tired of paying"? How is this different than vBulletin or others?

[tteal]

Originally Posted by MPDev

Tim, I'm confused - all purchases include a year of free updates to the software - what do you mean "pay and pay more until you get sick and tired of paying"? How is this different than vBulletin or others?

You're correct, vBulletin charges you for a "yearly" fee for the software which you're correct, your model is the same as that. I have the "original" version of the classifieds which was less then a week after you finally released a "newer" upgrade and I didn't qualify for that upgrade because my maintenance I guess had gone up. That is, after someone finally got around to doing something with the classifieds ..... which seemed to be very dismal development and I guess that pp was the priority?

It isn't so much paying for the maintenance that I find frustrating, it's asking for help when I upgraded to the latest pp version to find that it ruined all of my pictures and they are gone, although the directories /data/500, etc still exist. Weird, eh? Then what was even more frustrating was being told that I just need to go to a backup.

Believe me, I'm not here to just complain and that's not my style. However, when being asked for funds and also not getting the support that I feel I should be getting result in me being a little more hesitant. I'm sure you can relate to that.

If you'd like to settle this privately, I'm game for that. Once settled and when my pp is working as it should, I'll be more then happy to get on here, and state that the "level of service" was spectacular, second to none, etc. ;-)

Regards,
Tim

[MPDev]

Classifieds has undergone alot of development since the first release - the second release incorporated every suggestion made - auction/bidding, user feedback, paypal integration, etc. PhotoPost has always been the #1 priority, but Classifieds has benefited from all of the developments for PP during the development cycle.

Now, as for your PP upgrade - lets handle this offline. I'll send you a PM and we'll get it taken care of, but like redspider's comments I'm not finding corresponding posts on our support forums to match you with any history.

Edit: I did find a correspondence from you on May 25th saying "Thank you! Upgrade went without a hitch and just wanted you to know!"; but will followup via PM so we can look at any other issues.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by b6gm6n

currently supports about 17 forum integrations, works on RC3 like a dream (styles, comments, avatars etc) lots of pre-installed styles, can work as a stand alone gallery (who needs a forum???)

Honestly, vBulletin "integration" of Photopost is a joke.
It might have changed, but when I tried it (about 1 1/2 years ago), it didn't "integrate" anything - except using the Userbase.
So it would have been an insane amount of work necessary to get it working with our Style.

Also, I didn't notice any Features vBAdvanced Gallery does not have compared to Photopost.
Which Features are that?

[tteal]

Originally Posted by MPDev

Classifieds has undergone alot of development since the first release - the second release incorporated every suggestion made - auction/bidding, user feedback, paypal integration, etc. PhotoPost has always been the #1 priority, but Classifieds has benefited from all of the developments for PP during the development cycle.

Now, as for your PP upgrade - lets handle this offline. I'll send you a PM and we'll get it taken care of, but like redspider's comments I'm not finding corresponding posts on our support forums to match you with any history.

I'm glad to hear that PP_Classifieds has taken a priority on the list of development.

I got your PM and replied. Let's handle this offline ........

Folks, please be aware that my notes are not in any way to degrade Photopost or anyone else for that matter. I will post up my experience with Photopost once this gets resolved.

Thank you,
Tim

[MPDev]

Originally Posted by KirbyDE

Honestly, vBulletin "integration" of Photopost is a joke.

I'd be happy to clue you in since you seem to have none; and, yes, an "insane" amount of work has been done to allow for use of many vBulletin elements since the release of vB3: avatars, signatures, bb codes, WYSIWYG/Enhanced input controls, a full set of templates specific to vB3, just to name a few things. And while there would be good reason to compare vBg to a year and a half old PhotoPost, there have been significant updates to PP since vB3 was released that you appear to be unaware of.

First of all, PhotoPost and vBg integrate with vB the same - both use vB's global.php to authenticate users and then take it from there in their own unique way.

As for features that PhotoPost has that vBg lacks; the list is long, but a few items would include: multi-paged indexes, announcements/category introductions, multi-category assignments for a single photo, cell phone uploads, gallery-style layout/portal style layout in addition to forum style layout, configurable placement of filmstrips (top, bottom, left, right), man I could go on and on couldn't I?

If I were to jump into a vBulletin discussion and only talk about the condition of vBulletin from 18+ months ago, I suppose I would be at the same disadvantage as you are now. Just a thought, but as a moderator whos word carrys more weight than others, maybe you should take a few minutes to be better prepared before making such inaccurate and inflammatory comments in subjects you appear to know little about.

For a comprehensive list of PhotoPost features, might I suggest you review this thread:

http://www.photopost.com/forum/showthread.php?t=109343

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by photopost.com

Can use vBulletin 2.0.3 (and all newer versions) user database
Can use existing forum login (vBulletin, UBB Threads, phpBB2, DCForums, InvisionBoard, PHPNuke)

But no words about using vBulletin Template/Style System.

So the question: Can Photopost fully integrate with vBulletin, eg. use it's Style System no matter what the Style looks like, will it use the Style the User has selected in vBuleltin, etc. without having to apply major changes?

Anyway, I didn't want to argue, I just stated what my personal experience was when I tried Photopost.

As for the Features: Except Announcements and Cell Phone Uploads, those you mentioned AFAIK are also possible with vBAdvanced Gallery?

[MPDev]

vBGallery does not allow you to upload a single file to multiple categories, nor can the index be multi-pages, nor can you choose multiple layouts:

For example: http://www.michaelpierce.com/gallery/index.php

These different layouts are simple switches and involve no custom modifications to the code. And, yes, PhotoPost uses the vBulletin style system so that when you change skins the colors on the PhotoPost side match your forums (you can even create new templates to match your custom skins). A good example of this is at: http://www.extremefitness.com/gallery/index.php - although you need to be registered to change stylesheets - I have template sets for several of the extremepixels.com styles I purchased.

http://www.viperalley.com/gallery/index.php - (another example of an indexed gallery page) another unique feature which demonstrates our "contest" feature which allows a category to be tagged as being a contest which instead of rating images people can vote on (one vote per member). When the contest is ended, the photos are sorted by those with the most votes.

Customizable photo frames (per category) and even rotating thumbnails for a slanted photo effect are additional features our customers use to give their galleries a "unique" look.

There are many differences, my point was that you were injecting arguments into this discussion using information that was more than 18 months old - how reasonable would it be for me to debate the feature sets of vBulletin if I were talking about vB2 in a vB3 discussion?