discussion Feedback needed

[John]

I've being going to upgrade the forum to the latest version of vbulletin for ages, but the main thing that has stopped me is the gallery, the current gallery won't work on 3.6.1 of vbulletin, so here are the options, please vote, I have decided to give myself a dead line of next weekend (29th, 30th etc) I may not upgrade on those dates but the dead line is for me to start to prepare to do it.

 

[Guest]

John,

I don't like the idea of a link as it will be messy having the pictures stored in a differrent database and I wouldn't say keep it at all costs but there is a lot of work in putting those pictures up so it would be nice to be able to keep it.

I realise we have to progress so a new gallery is probably the only way but is there no way you can set something up that can then transfer the images to the new gallery?

Maybe an intermediary stage of a link to the old one and the new one side by side but I dread to think of reposting all those pictures and descriptions again.

 

[wonwinglo]

What are the alternatives John ? can the albums be saved as one and stored somewhere convenient off forum ?

Its OK,just spotted the options above !

 

[John]

I don't really know of an real alternative, as it stands the gallery works, if I upgrade it doesn't, I bought the gallery then shortly after it was sold to another company, so I don't want to pay for another gallery I would rather expand on this one, I think wait and see is the option

 

[Guest]

Hello all. John I'm confused ? Easily done I know but hey ho! The question I have for you is "If you bought the gallery then is it not yours to transfer to another host area?" If this is the case is it not just a case of transferring the software program to your hosting service? Sorry to put these questions over not too well but I'm sure you get the jist of them.

cheers

Jim

 

[John]

Hello all. John I'm confused ? Easily done I know but hey ho! The question I have for you is "If you bought the gallery then is it not yours to transfer to another host area?" If this is the case is it not just a case of transferring the software program to your hosting service? Sorry to put these questions over not too well but I'm sure you get the jist of them.cheers

Jim

I bought the software for scale-models, and I bought it to use with v3.5.x but I'm now going to upgrade to 3.6.x and I can buy it but under it's new name, which I will do if its's needed, if not I will find another gallery that will suit our needs

 

[wonwinglo]

John,do it the most economical way,if need be start another gallery,it would soon gain momentum again with a fresh input of pictures,but do not go to any extra expense on this.

 

[Guest]

I don't necessarily agree Barry. I personally would be happy to contribute towards new software rather than loose all the effort I have put into posting and labelling pictures in the gallery. I put a lot of time into it and I certainly would not want to go through it all again. I would think I have put a couple of hundred pictures there, as have a few others, and I am not sure I would have the heart to do it all again.

I suspect that all the people who have posted a large number of pictures would not want to do it again either and I think the gallery could loose momentum.

 

[Guest]

I've drunk too much vodka,...iwill never unfrestand...

i just thort tho..."if it aint broke".....theres a bit at the end i cant rmember

 

[Greyhead]

John

Question 1: I use the gallery to store pictures that are then linked to my threads, if the gallery moves will these links still work?

Before you started the gallery I used “RC Groups” gallery and linked from there but they “upgraded” to a video only gallery so I had to crop, resize, upload all the Parnall Elf photos again and then change all the links in the thread; I must say it was quite an undertaking and one I wouldn’t really like to have to do again, especially with the addition of the SE5a thread.

Question 2: Is the upgraded version of vbulletin that much better?

Very often so-called upgrades seem to be just a change of colour and style and nothing of substance and if it’s going to cost money…..

I'll add my vote when I've considered your answers.

Grahame

 

[John]

Question 1: I use the gallery to store pictures that are then linked to my threads' date=' if the gallery moves will these links still work?[/quote']Yes

Question 2: Is the upgraded version of vbulletin that much better?

There are a lot more features, bug fixes etc and from testing it it seems to run a lot faster, I'm going to have to do some more testing, 3.6.0 came out then shortly after 3.6.1 was released with some more bug fixes, so I guess it won't be long before 3.6.2 is out

 

[wonwinglo]

This is a difficult one,I can see your point Richard but what other options do we have if the new software does not support the old set up ? could the pictures be carefully saved to a folder and re-instated somehow ? was just thinking of a way round it rather than John go to added expense.

Nobody ever likes loosing material,I well remember setting up a complete web site and then the company went bottoms up,lost the lot,months of work down the drain,sadly I had no decent software back then and had no facility to save it.

If anyone can think of a solution to this problem,could we cut and paste the images and information there into the existing forum away from the present gallery ? I just dont know the full answer here?

 

[Greyhead]

Just another thought; what’s wrong with the site as it is?

There's no entry on the poll for "leave well enough alone!"

The only “bug” I’ve found is that I can’t get the search facility to work properly but that's probably me and I don’t think that it’s worth loosing all the gallery for.

 

[Guest]

A shame to lose the existing contents, yet if needs must then ,,,,, Not being a computer buff I would have thought that the content could be stored to file then uploaded to the new Gallery?

 

[Guest]

Just another thought; what’s wrong with the site as it is?There's no entry on the poll for "leave well enough alone!"

The only “bug” I’ve found is that I can’t get the search facility to work properly but that's probably me and I don’t think that it’s worth loosing all the gallery for.

Another angle John, do nothing. Maybe in time a gallery will be compatible with an upgrade and we can move forward at that time.

For now I am not sure if the advantages merit the disadvantages.

 

[John]

Thanks for everyone's comment's, I will leave it as it is for now, I think the gallery is an important part of the site that's why I've been putting off the upgrade.

 

[Guest]

Howdy John,

I was going to post back when there were only five (5) replies to this thread, but I wanted to do a little research first.

If I understand correctly, if you were to upgrade this site, we will lose the photos in our albums, both personal albums and "collective" albums.

I was an administartor for a canadian chatroom for several yrs and originally they used the gallery that came with the original chat program. Then they upgraded, lost that galery and had to find a new one. For awhile, they had people send their photos to one of the other admin's for the admin to add to the new gallery....this worked for only a short while until the admin became overwhelmed.

So, the chat site owner decided to give www.frappr.com a try. This is what the chatsite uses to this day.

Personally, I am not a big advocate of FRAPPR, however, there are other sites out there that can be incorporated directly into "our forum". One such site is found here:

http://www.bravenet.com/webtools/photocenter/

The above site allows you to incorporate "bravenets" photo album into the forum by simply "copying and pasting" bravenets photo album code onto the forum webpage.

It allows for "image linking, public and private albums, visitor uploads, and offers customizable colors and an upload manager"

You might give bravenet a good looking over and even contact them for any questions you may have about compatibility.

Now on to another similar site, http://www.ourmedia.org/ I have used this site while a member of another forum, "highflyingcards" which is a cardmodel rocket forum. it allows for uploads to personal and private albums but I am not sure about its being able to be incorporated into the forum thru the use of html code.

Now I had also thought that you might consider speaking to Peter Davis over at the cardmodel forum www.cardmodels.net , they also use the same program we use and he may be of some help, or possibly, you could collaborate and "help each other" in some way. "Two heads are better than one" afterall. If you wish to contact Peter, you can send him a private message here: http://www.cardmodels.net/forum/member.php?u=3 I would just explain the situation and ask if he has run across this same predicament.

Peter is the man that recently re set up the cardmodel forum again after a "hack attack".

Anyway, I was wanting to do abit more research and since you stated that you were going to "leave it alone" for abit longer, it does "buy me some time", but I wanted you to know what I had found so far and some of my thoughts on the situation.

I hope that this has been of some help, have a good day,

Greg

 

[Greyhead]

Personally I think the “do nothing” decision is the right one for now, as Richard says in the future things may well be different. That's why I hadn't voted in the poll.

 

[Guest]

Howdy guys and Gals,

I concurr with the "do nothing" proposal. Unless there is just something really spectacular about the update, I believe (even though I would never attempt to speak for everyone), that the majority of the people are happy with the forum in its current state.

Now if there are technical issues such as space and file limitations in play with the current version, and we have or are about to reach those limitations, then I could see where something would need to be done in the near future.

have a good day,

Greg