Upgrades Coming

[Gary]

A new version of the forum software is scheduled to be released this week. It has many new features including a built in social network which will work out well for all the regional clubs. It also has a built in photo feature that is part of your fully customizable profile page (you can get creative there). That feature will replace the dormant vbPicGallery (garage). I will open vBPicGallery up so members can download any photos they may have there.

I'm not sure what we will do with the existing photo gallery. It has grown to a point where it is very difficult to manage. After the upgrade, I may "archive" that one and start fresh.

It will be at least the weekend before I attempt the upgrade and I'll give notice to all before I start.

[newman27]

Gary,

The new features sound great! Any chance the "Parts Review" and "Members Map" will be coming back? I know you've mentioned these before but I just can't recall the status.

Thanks!

Matt

[Gary]

I'll check to see if the members map was fixed and updated for the new version. There were several bugs in it.

I can bring the parts Review back at any time. It didn't seem like there was much activity with it so i kind of put it on the back burner.

[Sparky73]

It also has a built in photo feature that is part of your fully customizable profile page (you can get creative there). That feature will replace the dormant vbPicGallery (garage). I will open vBPicGallery up so members can download any photos they may have there.

I'm not sure what we will do with the existing photo gallery. It has grown to a point where it is very difficult to manage. After the upgrade, I may "archive" that one and start fresh.

Thank God! I think that new photo album/personal page will be a very helpful upgrade. I know I posted a thread a while back about changing it, and you said there will be an upgrade soon. Can't wait! Any chance there is an option where members photos can have a few keywords attached so searching for certain 'pictures' will be easier to find?

I like the idea of making the old gallery into an archive. This will help with keeping 'updated photos' with the active members.. as well as still being able to refer to older pictures.. since there are a lot of helpful ones.

I know we overloaded the old server, and with not really knowing HOW big the new one is, are we going to be able to upload larger pictures into threads and/or the photo gallery? I know with threads.. I've got a 7.1 MP Camera, and I've got to reduce the size dramatically in order for them to work. Maybe we could set up some type of program to automatically reduce the size while uploading, that way things would be a lot easier for us members without any software on our computer to do that type of thing.

[tekenaar]

. . .

I know we overloaded the old server, and with not really knowing HOW big the new one is, are we going to be able to upload larger pictures into threads and/or the photo gallery? I know with threads.. I've got a 7.1 MP Camera, and I've got to reduce the size dramatically in order for them to work. Maybe we could set up some type of program to automatically reduce the size while uploading, that way things would be a lot easier for us members without any software on our computer to do that type of thing.

Most digital cameras allow not only taking pictures at different "sizes" (VGA/TV - 640x480; XVGA/PC -1024x768; etc.), but many also have in-camera editing capabilities to resize pics.

Begs the question why you are trying to upload huge 7.1Mp pics when you can just set your camera to take the images you're going to upload in 640/VGA or 1024/XVGA size in the first place?!

While I'm at it, let me just dispel a "display" myth here . . . unless you have an extreme high-end graphics monitor on your computer, i.e. very large physical size, your monitor is "technology" limited on number of pixels it can "full-screen" display anyways . . . 1024/XVGA for most of us.

So even if you wish to view much higher density pics (7.1Mp), all you'll ever see full-screen is 1024x768 pixels of it at a time (physical screen design limitation). The higher densities only help you during the printing of digital images, i.e. a 2048x1536 image will print exactly twice as large - four times area: 2x the pixels horizontally and vertically - as a 1024x768 image!