Yet Another Member Garage Program

[Gary]

Those of you who have been around for a while will remember a couple of past attempts at having a members "garage" where you could have a page to feature your Opel(s) complete with details and photos. Those programs failed either because they required a lot of customizing or the author failed to support upgrade as the forum program evolved.

Well, there is a new program on the market that seems to have everything I was looking for in it. A screen capture of a demo site is attached. It works with your profile page and you can upload pics next to a description to each section. (Exterior, interior, engine, etc.)

I am running a poll to gauge interest as this is not a free program and it also requires an annual license renewal.

What are your thoughts?

[markandson]

How much $ are we talking about?

[Gary]

Originally Posted by markandson How much $ are we talking about?

It's $95 for the program not sure on the renewal but I'd guess it's around $30.00.
For a comparison, the chat room costs $125 per year.

[markandson]

In your opinion does this program give us greater flexibility and ease of use compared to the current "member album" section of our site.

[just4fun]

Voting yes. I wasn't around for the past features, but being new to the site it would be fun to have a nice laid out format where I can see what other people have done to their Opels.

[stevyz]

i vote yes

[Phoenix]

Looks like a very nice program. I'd love to have i as an addition to the site.

[Gary]

Originally Posted by markandson In your opinion does this program give us greater flexibility and ease of use compared to the current "member album" section of our site.

You will have one page per car where all the info (photos and descriptions) for that car will be posted. All garages are indexed and searchable so you can look for a specific model. The member albums are mainly for photos only.

[Gary Sullivan]

Seems like a great idea Gary

[heimue]

Originally Posted by Gary It's $95 for the program not sure on the renewal but I'd guess it's around $30.00. For a comparison, the chat room costs $125 per year.

Does the chat room get used much?

Dieter

[oldopelguy]

What is you impression of how much more storage space the program would take, with people adding new photos of their cars and all? I hesitate to endorse something that would require more server space on top of what we're already using, that's going to create a long term expense on top of the program and licensing fees.

Now, if the idea is to replace the existing photo gallery, then I'm all on-board. Roll out the new program, get the bugs worked out, the send out an e-mail notice to every member letting them know they have 3, 6, 12, whatever months to move their pictures over or they get deleted. Gets old photos no one cares about purged, which would be a good thing, and might end up freeing up some data storage space.

Does the new program only sort by member or by projects within the member's "garage? What I mean is does a member have to set up an overlying data set on what car(s) are in their garage, with model and year details, then they are allowed to post pictures into the sub folder associated with each specific car(s)?

For example, I would have to start out with a listing of which cars I have or have had in my Opel garage, say a couple of Kadetts, one green and one brown, and a red GT. Before I enter any pictures I have to define the model years and body styles of those three cars, including colors for exterior and interior, and engine size, transmission, etc... Then, when I have those all selected I get a folder to upload pictures into specifically for that one car with sub folders for front of the car, driver's side, rear, top, interior, dash, etc... Any of those pictures I have go into their specific location, or better yet get labeled and/or tagged via a drop down menu.

So, if I want to upload a picture of the front of the red GT I go to my garage, select my red GT, then when uploading the picture tag it as a front of the car shot via drop down menu. Shows up in the garage with the rest of the photos just like they do now, almost transparent to me, but allows for full searchability among albums.

Then, once sorted, I would have the ability to look for all driver's side photos of red GT's 70-72 with one simple search. Or all shots of green Kadett sedans. The functionality we've been looking for but without keywords.

[2 Fast 4 U]

Originally Posted by oldopelguy .......I hesitate to endorse something that would require more server space on top of what we're already using......

If the HTML code would be on, on every thread there would be a lot more space free to use for the new application, and its more easier to follow the story line if the photos were in the "picture" than having to click on a attatchment every time

[Gary]

Originally Posted by oldopelguy What is you impression of how much more storage space the program would take, with people adding new photos of their cars and all? I hesitate to endorse something that would require more server space on top of what we're already using, that's going to create a long term expense on top of the program and licensing fees. Not sure how much resources it will use. I will be uploading a "one car" demo of it to see. Now, if the idea is to replace the existing photo gallery, then I'm all on-board. Roll out the new program, get the bugs worked out, the send out an e-mail notice to every member letting them know they have 3, 6, 12, whatever months to move their pictures over or they get deleted. Gets old photos no one cares about purged, which would be a good thing, and might end up freeing up some data storage space. The existing photo gallery is a huge resource hog. 14,500 photos using 1.5 gig of space. General use would be phased out and the photos removed. It may end up only being used for events. The forum program now (a recent addition) has it's own photo section which it tied to members profiles. Does the new program only sort by member or by projects within the member's "garage? What I mean is does a member have to set up an overlying data set on what car(s) are in their garage, with model and year details, then they are allowed to post pictures into the sub folder associated with each specific car(s)? For example, I would have to start out with a listing of which cars I have or have had in my Opel garage, say a couple of Kadetts, one green and one brown, and a red GT. Before I enter any pictures I have to define the model years and body styles of those three cars, including colors for exterior and interior, and engine size, transmission, etc... Then, when I have those all selected I get a folder to upload pictures into specifically for that one car with sub folders for front of the car, driver's side, rear, top, interior, dash, etc... Any of those pictures I have go into their specific location, or better yet get labeled and/or tagged via a drop down menu. Each car would have it's own page with info and up to 22 photos of that car only. So, if I want to upload a picture of the front of the red GT I go to my garage, select my red GT, then when uploading the picture tag it as a front of the car shot via drop down menu. Shows up in the garage with the rest of the photos just like they do now, almost transparent to me, but allows for full searchability among albums. Then, once sorted, I would have the ability to look for all driver's side photos of red GT's 70-72 with one simple search. Or all shots of green Kadett sedans. The functionality we've been looking for but without keywords. The search would be by username or an advanced search of any data field.

The answers above in bold are what I know of this program today.

[Gary]

Originally Posted by 2 Fast 4 U If the HTML code would be on, on every thread there would be a lot more space free to use for the new application, and its more easier to follow the story line if the photos were in the "picture" than having to click on a attachment every time

Allowing HTML code to be added in would create a huge security problem.

[sawdust]

that hurts

[Gary]

Originally Posted by sawdust that hurts

22 Per car.

[kwilford]

Gary,

I don't have too much of an opinion about a new Members' Garage, but I AM a fan of our existing photo gallery. I know that we probably have too many duplicated and unimportant photos (wow, 14,500 photos, that must be the world's largest collection of Opel photos!) but it might be challenging to reduce that to 22 photos per car per member. We only have a couple or three hundred members who have more than a dozen photos in their galleries. Fifty posters make up almost one third of the photos. The majority of the +/- 700 members who post photos have fewer than 10 photos posted.

I just had a look, and I have posted 367 photos, that have been viewed 111,769 times. By the way, you win with 1002 photos and 450,635 views, and there are four other members with either more photos or more views than my gallery.

Most of my photos are from the three Opel gatherings I have been to (OMC 2003 and 2005, and Tacoma 2004) but about 100 of them are photos I have posted of the restoration process of my GT. I guess if we maintain the Event Galleries, and maybe add some special galleries for projects, then the Garage could replace most of the photos currently in members galleries. But it would be a shame to lose the Events and the special project galleries.

JM2CW

[Aardvaark]

I'll be blunt. I'm big a fan of the existing members albums too. Since I'm guilty of being one of the biggest users in spending many hours uploading road tests, and catalogue pages for every one's reference use, I'll say right now that if they are eliminated, they won't be replaced. I don't care if someone moves them to a different area however.
I also think it would be a shame to eliminate peoples album project photos and the past event photos and would hope that anything done along the lines of a "members garage" leaves the existing Albums untouched. Or the material is moved to another location, not eliminated. Jmo.
Guess I really don't see what the members garage would bring to the site that the albums don't already provide.

[greenopelgt]

I knew I should have waited for those in the know to chime in before I jumped on the bandwagon?

[Redskinsjbs]

My vote would be NO. I still haven't figured out how to use the photo album thing yet, but eventually I'll get there and eventually I think that I'll find it as useful as many other members have.

I'll donate a Hard Drive or two if we want to save all of the old Photo files in case of any sort of changes. I have a bunch, being the son of a network guy and all.

[sawdust]

Originally Posted by Redskinsjbs ......... being the son of a network guy and all.

Sounds like a song coming up.

I voted No, also.

[neuropel]

Despite the fact that there are photos on this site of nearly anything and everything Opel-related, I find our photo gallery all but useless because it's not searchable. Unless I know WHO posted the picture I'm looking for, it's like finding a needle in a haystack. My initial thoughts - I like the idea of keeping the existing photo gallery for events and begin building a searchable database.

[Redskinsjbs]

Originally Posted by neuropel Despite the fact that there are photos on this site of nearly anything and everything Opel-related, I find our photo gallery all but useless because it's not searchable. Unless I know WHO posted the picture I'm looking for, it's like finding a needle in a haystack. My initial thoughts - I like the idea of keeping the existing photo gallery for events and begin building a searchable database.

...I found that google has come in handy for this. Use a site search from google and it is a bit easier.

[Aardvaark]

Originally Posted by neuropel Despite the fact that there are photos on this site of nearly anything and everything Opel-related, I find our photo gallery all but useless because it's not searchable. Unless I know WHO posted the picture I'm looking for, it's like finding a needle in a haystack. My initial thoughts - I like the idea of keeping the existing photo gallery for events and begin building a searchable database.

When ever I haven't been able to locate a pic I was looking for, I've
simply asked on the general topic forum and someone would pretty quickly
tell me where it was after I described what I wanted. Just another suggestion.

[neuropel]

Here's an example - back when I was trying to get the paint scheme for my Manta, it would have been great to be able to get all the photos of a Manta GT/E on this site. I came here first because I'm sure there are lots of them, but I ended up using Google. For that matter, it would be good to be able to view all the Manta photos on here, or perhaps all the Red GTs, etc.
As it stands currently, even if a member puts a descriptor on the photo, you can't include the photo gallery in searches. I constantly find interesting photos when I come to the site by virtue of the random photos that appear on the home page, so that certainly was a welcome addition.
There's no easy solution to organizing the photos on this site.