Migrating Photography Community - is vBulletin the right solution?

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  • intelgio
    New Member
    • Jan 2009
    • 8

    Migrating Photography Community - is vBulletin the right solution?

    From what I have seen of vBulletin I have to say that I am impressed! I already have a Photography Community site that I have put together using Joomla and Community Builder. It has really started to grow over the past few months and if I change platforms, now is the time to do it! I have hit the wall where I will have to start putting money into the site in order to take it to the next level using Joomla Mods, but I would like to see if there is a better solution.

    Here is what I currently have at the site that I would like to make sure I can continue...

    - Forums
    - Newsletter Subscrptions
    - Gallery*
    - Hot or Not mod used for photo contests
    - News section (with ability to imbed youtube vids)
    - polls
    - User Profiles (ability to customize fields...)

    Here are the additional features I am seeking
    - User Blogs
    - User Groups (Created by Users and Admin)
    - Calendar for users and User Groups

    - are there mods for integrating Amazon Store and Cafepress?


    *Gallery - This is the most important section of the site. I would like to maintain the community gallery where visitors can browse the pictures submitted by users with links to the user profiles. Ability to comment/rate photos (if users could opt in or out of this, that would be great!) Any information or link to the features to the gallery mod for vBulletin would be great!

    Finally if there are additional costs to any features or plugins, I'd like to know.

    If there are tools for syncing users from on platform to another, that would be a MAJOR plus!

    Thanks!
  • goyo
    Senior Member
    • Dec 2002
    • 304
    • 3.8.11

    #2
    What Joomla gallery are you currently using ?

    You could leave Joomla for news and gallery and use vBulletin for the rest of the features (throw out CB)...Joomla and vB has pretty good user bridges.

    Originally posted by intelgio
    From what I have seen of vBulletin I have to say that I am impressed! I already have a Photography Community site that I have put together using Joomla and Community Builder. It has really started to grow over the past few months and if I change platforms, now is the time to do it! I have hit the wall where I will have to start putting money into the site in order to take it to the next level using Joomla Mods, but I would like to see if there is a better solution.

    Here is what I currently have at the site that I would like to make sure I can continue...

    - Forums
    - Newsletter Subscrptions
    - Gallery*
    - Hot or Not mod used for photo contests
    - News section (with ability to imbed youtube vids)
    - polls
    - User Profiles (ability to customize fields...)

    Here are the additional features I am seeking
    - User Blogs
    - User Groups (Created by Users and Admin)
    - Calendar for users and User Groups

    - are there mods for integrating Amazon Store and Cafepress?


    *Gallery - This is the most important section of the site. I would like to maintain the community gallery where visitors can browse the pictures submitted by users with links to the user profiles. Ability to comment/rate photos (if users could opt in or out of this, that would be great!) Any information or link to the features to the gallery mod for vBulletin would be great!

    Finally if there are additional costs to any features or plugins, I'd like to know.

    If there are tools for syncing users from on platform to another, that would be a MAJOR plus!

    Thanks!

    Comment

    • intelgio
      New Member
      • Jan 2009
      • 8

      #3
      Thanks for the quick reply I am using PonyGallery ML... Joomla version 1.0.15 Stable.

      Originally posted by goyo
      What Joomla gallery are you currently using ?

      You could leave Joomla for news and gallery and use vBulletin for the rest of the features (throw out CB)...Joomla and vB has pretty good user bridges.

      Comment

      • goyo
        Senior Member
        • Dec 2002
        • 304
        • 3.8.11

        #4
        Originally posted by intelgio
        Thanks for the quick reply I am using PonyGallery ML... Joomla version 1.0.15 Stable.
        Be warned I'm not a developer just a simple user.

        I saw a modification for Amazon store...not for Cafepress...

        vBulletin don't has a gallery solution yet (the built in album features is not enough for you). There are several 3rd party galleries that you can integrate with vB most of them commercials.

        The better ones:
        Photoplog - Commercial
        Photopotost and vBGallery (vBGallery used to be the best but the development basically stalled/slowww) - Commercial
        Ultimate Media Gallery - Commercial and free version
        As far as I know there's also a free integration to 4images gallery.

        vBulletin don't has a CMS solution yet (but it's already in the works) there are several 3rd party CMS's but the free ones nowhere near to Joomla...it really depends what you expect from a CMS/News section that's why I've recommended the Joomla bridge.

        Joomla vB bridges:
        BBpixel - Commercial (definately the best bridge with the poorest support)
        Elearningforce - Commercial
        JFusion - Free (Only for Joomla 1.5.x...integrates with several other scripts)
        aMember - Commercial (integrates with several other scripts)

        The larger 3rd party fully or partly integratable CMS's/Blogs:
        Vivvo - Commercial
        Contentteller - Commercial and Free
        vBadvanced - Free
        Subdreamer - Commercial
        vBCMS - Commercial
        Wordpress bridge - Free
        There are at least 30 others...

        Drupal vB bridges:
        vBDrupal - Free
        Drupaltin - Free
        Drupal vB - Free
        Last edited by goyo; Wed 28 Jan '09, 6:52am. Reason: typo..

        Comment

        • intelgio
          New Member
          • Jan 2009
          • 8

          #5
          This is excellent information! Looks like I have some homework to do

          Developer or not, thank you very much for all of your help here.

          Cheers!

          Comment

          • Alfa1
            Senior Member
            • Dec 2005
            • 4165
            • 3.8.x

            #6
            Vbulletin has separate systems for:
            - attachments (can be browsed through an addon) (basic functionality)
            - profile albums (very basic functionality)

            It does not have a gallery. The advanced galleries that are currently available (photopost and photoplog) are greatly outdated. I suggest you check them out.
            Photoplog seems to be deserted and has not received any real updates since 2007.
            Photopost 8 is coming and may be what you are looking for. Integration with vbulletin is limited to login. They are considering to add more vb integration functionality if people voice their demand for this. See: http://www.photopost.com/forum/gener...-features.html

            If you would choose for vbulletin + a gallery addon, that would leave you with 3 separate image systems. This already causes issues on my site and my site has little to do with images.

            Also the attachment manager has its issues. Its confusing and is not fit to manage a large number of attachments.
            I buy 420 forums

            Comment

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