Not your normal vbadvanced site

[Lionel]

here (http://www.haitiwebs.com/) it is. Lots of custom modules went to it, but it's 100% vbadvanced.

[StuntFactoryX]

that is the best vbulletin site that i have ever seen w/o even getting into your creativity w/ vbadvanced.

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[Lionel]

Thanks. Even though I have lots of nice sections, I am particularly proud of my vba_links (http://www.haitiwebs.com/forums/haitisearch/) which would have not been possible without Brian invaluable support.

[djroppolo]

Could you provide a list of hacks/addons/modules etc that you have running there? Kudos on a great looking layout

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[Lionel]

It's a very long list (which I haven't have) plus they were further customized by me plus I have some customs I made.

[mhc1576]

Is the style yours or did you start from any style avalible?

[Lionel]

the base style was Kirsh, but at the end not much of Kirsh left.

[Decipher]

This is a fine example of vba + vb ability. Excellent site, I love your layout, very professional. It must have taken you a while to implement all your customizations, for which you must be very proud. Well done :)

[pecheney]

I agree. VERY nice site! Might I ask what is the flash content module you are using to preview all the site sections w/photos? Is it a flash module inside your vba or is it a flash custom block you made? Just curious! Very impressed! :)

[Lionel]

it's a custom block i made which automatically updates (writes into a xml file) whenever some preset forumids - with at least one image in thread - update (the news forums).

It uses xml so not one single extra query in database, downloads only first image thus fast page loading, then quietly retrieves the other 149 images for the other sections (15 sections, made it 10 images per section)

[pecheney]

Holy cannoli. THANKS for your quick reply. I have been looking online nonstop since I saw it. VERY impressive indeed. Any interest in making it available for purchase? It is excatly what I am looking for!! Looks like it would be quite marketable! Let me know if you are interested in selling it?! :)

[Lionel]

This took me 3 days and 3 nights to do to achieve that look. It would have to be customized on a per website basis. Then I wrote the various plugins for self updating and manual updating (in case one is needed). So I can't come up with a fair price for myself and for client. I can tell you if anyone wants it, they'll have to pay me for 3 days of work.

This is basically a set it up once and forget about it forever. So initial setup is quite tedious. After that, if customer would want to make it a few pixels wider or taller it's a start all over as each element is positioned with precision in function of the others. So imagine the pain that a couple of customers could cause :-) A 2 pixels change could cause havoc.

[Digital Jedi]

You might consider marketing modules/blocks for small fees. Then finagling the blocks to cohabitate with the rest of the page is the buyer's problem. Of particular interest is that flash module. I bet you'd be able to make a fair bit of money marketing that concept alone.

Nevertheless, fantastic job.

[Lionel]

Then finagling the blocks to cohabitate with the rest of the page is the buyer's problem.
Nevertheless, fantastic job.

Trust me, setting up the flash is not a trivial task for the average webmaster. Other modules are very easy to install. Most are plugins. Even the flash updates

[convergent]

I agree that this is a great piece of work... the real indicator is that it doesn't look like a forum/portal site. Great work!

[djroppolo]

Are you using vB Articles for your front page news? I cannot figure out what you are using to have the image next to the preview. It appears to be vB Articles or vB News, but I cannot tell for sure.

[Beller]

Wow I like it well done!

[Lionel]

Are you using vB Articles for your front page news? I cannot figure out what you are using to have the image next to the preview. It appears to be vB Articles or vB News, but I cannot tell for sure.

I am using GARS.

I do not like vbarticles or vbnews. To me those are very incomplete products and poorly integrate with vbulletin.

You should watch for my upcoming vBmagazine script with possibilities of 360 different display.

[convergent]

I am using GARS.

I do not like vbarticles or vbnews. To me those are very incomplete products and poorly integrate with vbulletin.

You should watch for my upcoming vBmagazine script with possibilities of 360 different display.

I agree with your assessment... I too am using GARS at http://pdaphonehome.com and it is well done. I took a look at vbnews but found that the developer was prone to sloppy work, and his attitude at vbulletin.org toward users of the script was anything but friendly. The developer of GARS is very professional and quick to provide support when needed. He helped me find a problem in the server settings last week that was causing a glitch in both GARS and vBadvanced.

[djroppolo]

I agree with your assessment... I too am using GARS at http://pdaphonehome.com and it is well done. I took a look at vbnews but found that the developer was prone to sloppy work, and his attitude at vbulletin.org toward users of the script was anything but friendly. The developer of GARS is very professional and quick to provide support when needed. He helped me find a problem in the server settings last week that was causing a glitch in both GARS and vBadvanced.

Well thanks to input from both of you, i've uninstalled vBarticles and installed GARS. It looks very promising..

PS - vBarticles developer is a woman. That might explain the attitude :)

[Lionel]

vBadvanced and Gars are the two best thing that ever happened to vBulletin. And with my soon to be published vBmagazine, you will have more than 300 display options.

[convergent]

vBadvanced and Gars are the two best thing that ever happened to vBulletin. And with my soon to be published vBmagazine, you will have more than 300 display options.

Question for you... I am using the GARS CMPS block from the VB Geek at http://pdaphonehome.com (center column news). On your Haiti site, you have your news showing so that the CMPS block has all the news contained in the one block. Out of the box, it does it like at my site where each of the news articles is visually a separate block. Can you give me a pointer as to where I'd change that. What I want is to change the headlines/author information to make the headlines a different style and a little larger... but keep it all within the main CMPS block... if that makes sense. So what templates is this controlled in?

[convergent]

Well thanks to input from both of you, i've uninstalled vBarticles and installed GARS. It looks very promising..

PS - vBarticles developer is a woman. That might explain the attitude :)


Yep, I gathered that by the name of the site. The site has so many bugs in it that its hard to navigate around. Then when I looked at the vbulletin.org thread on the free version of the script, I found that she was jumping all over people that were having problems... denying any problems... while people repeatedly were saying the script was full of bugs and didn't work well enough for production. Those two things together led me to dismiss it before I ever got it to work for testing. Life is too short to get into something like that.

[Lionel]

Question for you... I am using the GARS CMPS block from the VB Geek at http://pdaphonehome.com (center column news). On your Haiti site, you have your news showing so that the CMPS block has all the news contained in the one block. Out of the box, it does it like at my site where each of the news articles is visually a separate block. Can you give me a pointer as to where I'd change that. What I want is to change the headlines/author information to make the headlines a different style and a little larger... but keep it all within the main CMPS block... if that makes sense. So what templates is this controlled in?


hummm... it's been a while... I am also using the same Gars block. I probably altered the template. I *think* I might have posted it at the Gars site.

[convergent]

hummm... it's been a while... I am also using the same Gars block. I probably altered the template. I *think* I might have posted it at the Gars site.

The problem is that the header information doesn't appear to be in the GARS template unless I'm missing something... the first thing that appears in the template is the bi-line. The title and author are not in there. Thanks for checking.

[Lionel]

if you are talking about the modules titles, this is set directly in the php. You just need to edit the setting. As far as I could remember I edited the appropriate adv_portal_gars_bit template

[djroppolo]

if you are talking about the modules titles, this is set directly in the php. You just need to edit the setting. As far as I could remember I edited the appropriate adv_portal_gars_bit template

He means the fact that your header image, forum title and poster information appear to be in the same cell whereas by default with GARS, these all appear in different cells, one above the other

[convergent]

He means the fact that your header image, forum title and poster information appear to be in the same cell whereas by default with GARS, these all appear in different cells, one above the other


Correct, but they also appear that way by default with the vBa news module too. Its a matter of iterating the whole cell for each news article, or iterating the block of 5 or 10 articles in one cell. So I'd like my cell to be titled "Latest news", and then have the 5 or 10 news articles all within that one cell.

[convergent]

I finally got this to work... http://pdaphonehome.com

[djroppolo]

I finally got this to work... http://pdaphonehome.com

Yes and thanks for your help getting it to work on my site as well :)