Photopost versus vbGallery

[tteal]

UPDATE: I just got off the phone with Photopost support and I take back anything negative or what could have been construed as negative. My photopost is back up and running and apparently there was a little bit of table error (aka user error on my part). Apparently I ran the upgrade script more then one time which resulted in tables corrupting.............. luckily on my part, I have the foresight to keep my own backups. The backups were used and worked great.

Bottom line. Photopost support helped me out and ensured that my product was up and running and even spent time on the phone with me. What other places are going to call you at your house on their nickel to ensure the product is up and running fine?

THANK YOU FOR THE SUPPORT!!!!!!

Best,
Tim

[b6gm6n]

Another superb feature of PP is security, (image protection) storage options, .htacesss options, the lot!

I created a style for RC3, i spent a whole lot of time on it and hoped it would look great in PP, i wasn't disapointed, check the gallery here - custom error messages, perfect integration with RC3...it just got better & better...

if you register and click here you'll see the gallery in all it's style glory!

It's also the choice for adult webmasters who need a reliable and secure dynamic gallery with all the features you need without the fuss.

-b6

[MPDev]

That's right. And with PhotoPost when you upgrade to vB3.5 you don't have to touch a thing in PhotoPost - it'll determine that you are on 3.5 and adjust itself accordingly - your galleries won't even be down during your upgrade and won't even hiccup when your upgrade is done. No need to reinstall templates or upgrade to a different version - PhotoPost takes the hassle out of upgrading (even users who went from vB2 to vB3 only had a few minor tweaks to make).

The IPS (Image Protection System) is unique to PhotoPost - you can store original sized images in a password protected area (or even outside your web directory) and force users to use PhotoPost to view any images - if you don't have permission to view an image, you won't be able to get to it. With vBgallery (or any other gallery), if you know the URL to an image, you'll be able to share that image link with anyone and bypass any security the system has in place.

Check out our Gallery page - you can select the type of view you want - normal, thumbnails only, thumbnails with titles and even group all photos together by the members who have uploaded to that category.

As you can see, it would be quite a chore to list all of the things we do that others don't; but I think you get the point without me droning on and on.

[Andreas]

And how does IPS work exactly?
AFAIK, if a File is within the Webroot, you know the URL and .htaccess does not disallow acces - you can access it.

[MPDev]

If a file if in a password protected area and you don't have a password, you can't access it, right? Same as if its out of webroot. Thats the idea behind IPS - placing files out of reach from users and forcing them to use PhotoPost to access them. Not very different from the system vB used for attachments, really; we just don't store the images in the database, we store them somewhere other than in the default location.

PhotoPost IPS works the same as our on-the-fly watermarks (another feature unqiue to PhotoPost, I might add) - we read the image file in from the file system at the script level and then serve it up to the browser.

I have an adult site where I use PhotoPost to serve up thumbnails of my member galleries (I am a photographer as well) to visitors as a way of showing them what's inside - but you cannot access the thumbnails or the images themselves without accessing the members area with a password. The thumbnails themselves are served up using the same ideas.

The "image location" is simply a script and since the script is required to view the image, the script enforces permissions.

If you haven't looked at PhotoPost in over 18 months, then you have missed alot of innovation that you won't find anywhere else (but you can be sure will be copied sooner or later).

[Andreas]

Ah, OK - that's basically what I thought. And I am not too happy with the idea of serving Images through Scripts ... pity, I hoped you might have had another solution.

[MPDev]

If you want to enforce usergroup permissions, then you will need a script of some sort to interact with your database to detemine user permissions. It's actually very effective and easy to use and doesn't place the burden on the user to install system level components.

[redspider]

Originally Posted by 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.

ok I reply to 2 pm from your company just a few minutes ago I send a copy of my lisence to show I pay for the software also send you a link to the thread thanks for any help .


update

my complain was fix by the PhotoPost team now I happy with my product .
thanks

[Just Jim]

Not to get off target here or hijack this thread but... I can't seem to find the pp featured photos hack anywhere. I just upgraded my vb and I added some skins, and well it was almost two years ago when I installed that hack, no idea where it is.

Can anyone give me a link?
Thanks
Jim

[MPDev]

The PhotoPost Featured Photos "mod" is a part of the actual product and the files are contained within the distribution. If you have a more recent version of PhotoPost, the files are in the ZIP and instructions on adding the couple lines to vB are in the PhotoPost FAQ forum.