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

[mferguson]

Actually I tried to use your Contact Us link since I knew I could reach you that way. Unfortunately when I went to your home page and clicked on Contact Us link in the "If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us." section (when you aren't logged in) I received a "404 - Not found error". I just checked and am still seeing the same thing.

Regardless, my apologies for not identifying the best person to contact directly and creating an issue with your users.

Sincerely,

Mark

[SonicGT]

I love the garage plugin and it has become one of those mods my users love.
Right now I'm just using the free version which gets me by fine. The one major thing keeping me from the plus version is the pricing

I have a couple questions
1. I noticed branding free option listed, is that an additional cost for plus, or just included as part of the cost?

2. I am moving to vb4 very soon. will the free and/or plus be available for 4.0

[oly51]

Originally Posted by SonicGT

I love the garage plugin and it has become one of those mods my users love.
Right now I'm just using the free version which gets me by fine. The one major thing keeping me from the plus version is the pricing

I have a couple questions
1. I noticed branding free option listed, is that an additional cost for plus, or just included as part of the cost?

2. I am moving to vb4 very soon. will the free and/or plus be available for 4.0

They have a 15% off sale going on now. see here.

[mferguson]

Originally Posted by SonicGT

I have a couple questions
1. I noticed branding free option listed, is that an additional cost for plus, or just included as part of the cost?

Branding free is an additional one time fee on top of the regular license.

Originally Posted by SonicGT

2. I am moving to vb4 very soon. will the free and/or plus be available for 4.0

[/quote]

Its our plan to support both free and Plus on vB4. While I don't have a time line I can share right now I fully expect versions to be available in the 1st quarter of 2010.

Thanks and happy holidays!

Mark

[McAtze]

Whats about translations? Especially a german translation ..

THX

[Kolbi]

Originally Posted by McAtze

Whats about translations? Especially a german translation ..

THX

German:
Also ich habe die DTO Garage Version selber ?bersetzt. Dieses kostenlose Version ist halt leider auch hardgecodet, d.h. Templates m?ssen auch ?bersetzt werden und nicht nur Phrasen.

Bei der DTO Garage Plus Version sind nun nur (fast nur) Phrasen vorhanden und man kann diese "ganz easy" (wenn man Englisch kann) selber ?bersetzen. Du kannst ja mal auf meiner Seite: www.2-wheel-planet.de dir meine Garage anschauen.

English:
To have a German Garage version you have to translate it for your own.
Actually DTO Garage is not fully phrased so you have to translate templates, too.
Currently DTO Garage Plus is fully phrased and easilier to translate. But Mark told us that the free version will be fully phrased soon.

[mferguson]

Kolbi - Thanks for the follow up while I was away from my computer over the holidays.

Yes. Since German is not a native language for us and I only know a few words we only provide the means to perform the translation yourself. Currently Garage Plus is fully phrased and I hope to be able to offer a new version of the free version sometime soon that will be fully phrased, contain several new features, etc.

Thanks!

Mark

[sydude]

This looks like a very good mod that I would be interested in using, but for me $95 is way too much for what you're getting. No try for me.

[mferguson]

No problem. For many it is too expensive and we understand. That said our goal has always been to provide outstanding support, actual product documentation on all aspects of product use (admin and end user), and active product development. With this in mind we don't feel that we can offer a product at a lower price and still provide these things. Regardless feel free to make use of the free version and, if at some point you see the value in upgrading, we'll be happy to support you.

Best regards,

Mark

[SonicGT]

I've upgraded my site to 4.x and just disabled garage, I'm hoping that once you guys release a compatible version I can just re-enable it and all the data doesn't get lost for my users. Also if I were to upgrade to pro I'm assuming it all just ports over and no data loss as well