vBa Dynamics - Looking For Beta Testers!

[ConqSoft]

So don't test it... Then you can buy it at full price when it's released.

Why even get involved in this thread if you aren't interested in testing, since that's the purpose of this thread?

[Tom_S]

Enough

[KW802]

Let's keep it steady guys/gals.

As I mentioned above all vBadvanced products are 100% viewable source and NOBODY would release a viewable source commercial project for testing with no restrictions, even in beta form, for free. For people who say they've been around for a while and don't agree with that fact then fine, there are alternative products out there for you to try and test for free.

To be blunt: If you're in the market for a blog / article / open-ended type product like Blogicles and want to get a heavily discounted license by giving your feedback while it's in beta stage then this is the perfect opportunity. If that description does not apply to you then there is no need to get into arguements over something that doesn't affect you.

[akulion]

good job
but not my cup of tea

thumbs up and encouragement and good luck wishes from me on ur project

paying to beta test? :P thats a 1st

[Scribbller]

Looks awesome, definately interested in using this as a CMS, though wont be applying for beta testing. Just a question which I am sure would be ignored what is the final price of this product expected to be? and when is public release roughly expected?

[KW802]

Originally Posted by Scribbller

Looks awesome, definately interested in using this as a CMS, though wont be applying for beta testing. Just a question which I am sure would be ignored what is the final price of this product expected to be? and when is public release roughly expected?

Why would it be ignored?

For the final price....

For those who are interested in participating in the beta test, we will be offering both license types at a discount during the beta test. A normal, single use license will be $35. A Multiple Instance License will be an additional $25 (or a total of $60 for the Multiple Instance License). As with our other products, we will be offering our normal Branding Free option as well at $39.99 (sorry, no discount for beta testers on this one). If you purchase a Multiple Instance License along with the Branding Free option, the one time fee of $39.99 for the Branding Free option will cover all instances allowing you to remove the copyright on each. Once the private beta testing is complete and vBadvanced Blogicles is publicly available then the price for each type of license will go up, with exception of the Branding Free option.

For the ETA on the next version, that's truly an unknown. With a traditional product live cycle the beta version is usually followed by RC (Release Candidate) versions before we see a Gold (the final release) version. Once people start giving feedback on the betas then that will most likely help to narrow down an estimated timeline.

[KW802]

Originally Posted by akulion

good job
but not my cup of tea

thumbs up and encouragement and good luck wishes from me on ur project

paying to beta test? :P thats a 1st

No, you're paying to receive a discounted license while it's in beta. Read my other responses above.


I sure wish I could get all the free viewable source beta software that everybody is apparently.

[Scribbller]

KW are 25 and 35 dollars prices of the final product or are those discounted prices?

[Scribbller]

A question, can you create html pages in a category? For example I have a category with the name of team and in it players and each player have his own page with html and images?

[KW802]

Originally Posted by Scribbller

KW are 25 and 35 dollars prices of the final product or are those discounted prices?

Originally Posted by Scribbller

A question, can you create html pages in a category? For example I have a category with the name of team and in it players and each player have his own page with html and images?

Scribbler, I'll have to leave both of those questions up to Brian. Re-reading that paragraph I had first assumed that they were the final prices but, you're right, after reading it again it can be interpreted as those being the temporary discount prices or what the prices will be.

[Brian]

First, let me address the paid beta testing thing (even though Kevin seems to have covered it quite well). There are very few companies that I've heard of that release their beta versions for free. I know vBulletin certainly wasn't giving away licenses during any of their last beta tests. We've used the same pricing and beta testing structure for our past products and I don't remember any complaints then, so I was a bit thrown off to see that a few people seem upset by that. I think Kevin has covered our reasons for this pretty well, though I would like to add that charging for the beta version also helps to ensure that those who are receiving the product are actually going to use it.
I can fully understand that some people may not want to pay to help test a product. That's certainly your prerogative. There are also plenty of people who like the opportunity to start using a product once it's first released and the ability to work more closely with the programmer to see that some of the features and ideas they have are included in future releases. There are also those who've applied that have said that they have been waiting for something like this forever and can't wait to start using it. We've had a great response so far though, and I think we're building a great group to participate in the test.

Originally Posted by attroll

I would be very interested in testing this out if the users could edit their time stamp so that they could change the order of there blogs if they needed to.

Is there any chance this could be added to this feature?

I can definitely see how that would be useful. I've added that to my to-do list, but since we've just started the testing and I'm not completely sure what my work load will be like yet or what other features might have to take priority, I can't say how long it might be before that's added.

Originally Posted by ManagerJosh

Brian:

Regarding the multiple instance license, I'm curious to find out how this works. For example, is the multiple instance license needed when you need more than one instance of blogicles files? Is this needed if you mod-alias/mod-rewrite for blogicle?

The Multi-Instance license is only needed when you want to run more than one copy. Ex: You want to have a separate section for blogs and articles (or whatever). Now, you could possibly run both blogs and articles in the same instance just by changing some category options and having a separate category for each. That would still be allowed with a single instance license since you're only installing one copy. If you want your blogs and articles to be totally separate and independent from each other though, then that's where the multi-instance license comes into play.
No, a multi-instance license is not required to use the mod-rewrite functions and such.

Originally Posted by mrjbs

A few questions...

1. If I am using GARS (http://www.thevbgeek.com), why should I switch to this for articles?

2. What are the differences between this and vBlogetin (http://www.vblogetin.com)?

3. I use a vBa CMPS sidebar on my whole site. I don't want to have two left columns. Can I put the Blogicles blocks on the right side?

Also, I would love to see some integration between this and Zoints Local. I have already decided on Zoints, I would love to deactivate the Zoints blog and integrate this one into it.

Unfortunatly I can't give you much of an answer for 1 & 2 since I've barely ever looked at either of those products. We do have a few testers that have been accepted that are currently using GARS and at least one using vBlogetin though, so hopefully we can get a review from some of them once they've had a chance to get a feel for vBa Blogicles.
For #3, blocks can be placed in the left, right, and center (both above and below the main content).

Originally Posted by Alfa1

So what can you do to profiles with vba blogicles?

There's really not any type of profiles with vBa Blogicles. You can, however, let your users edit their vBa Blogicles pages (when browsing their members category or viewing an entry by a user) and choose which modules are active on them, as well as their positions. There are also a few modules that are user editable and specifically geared towards this, and I'm sure more will be created by the final version.

Originally Posted by Scribbller

KW are 25 and 35 dollars prices of the final product or are those discounted prices?

$35 for the regular license and the additional $25 for the multi-instance license are the discounted prices. For those asking about the final price, we're still waiting to see what kind of interest there is and the final prices probably won't be determined for a few more weeks. We won't be talking about a drastic increase on either type of license though as we certainly want to keep the price reasonable and affordable.

Originally Posted by Scribbller

A question, can you create html pages in a category? For example I have a category with the name of team and in it players and each player have his own page with html and images?

You can't really create HTML in a category per-say, but you can enable HTML within entries (though that's strongly discouraged if you let anyone besides yourself post entries). You could definitely setup categories for different teams though and then add each player as an entry.

[tim99]

No you've got it completely wrong, just read the first message. You're buying a license, not paying to beta test.

I've been publishing software for almost 30 years so I understand your point, it just doesn't apply here.

Using your analogy of the house - if you helped build the house you would get the house at a discount.

Originally Posted by Tom_S

You got it wrong. I don't want this into an argument. I pay no one to test. Anyone who has been around as long as I have doing this knows the difference. Thanks anyway. My time is valuable. I don't debug your work so you make money off of it and a charge to me. If I help build the house I either live in it or I get paid for it. I don't rent it.

Besides. Your a member not the coder so please turn this thread back over to the rightful owner.

[Tom_S]

Let me first say I truly apologize for opening up this can of worms. I will tell you however that I have beta tested for Microsoft all the way back to OS2 if anyone even knows what that is. I didn't pay them. They paid me and not only did they pay me I received free version upgrades as long as I participated by allocating my precious time to their project where they profited.

Now as far as how they do it now...that is fine..I merely overlooked that you are doing that and opted back out stating that I don't do your work for nothing in return. There is no money back guarantee here that I read so if the project bombs out due to mysql updates or php conflicts or who knows what could cause you the team to drop the ball but the bottom line is there is a lot of people that would have given you a lot of man hours (tiny in comparison to yours) to the project and risk it going belly up.

A good way to do this? Hand pick a select group of applicants that has what it takes to help on the project and give them what a beta tester does get or did when I did it. Then you won't go wrong with a full cast team that is dedicated to the project with benefits.

Okay..Now again. I humbly apologize for opening that can of worms. That was only my opinion from my point of view and not meant to cause a riot.

[Brian]

I can respect your opinion. Different people have different prerogatives, the same as different companies do things different ways.

Originally Posted by Tom_S

There is no money back guarantee here that I read so if the project bombs out due to mysql updates or php conflicts or who knows what could cause you the team to drop the ball but the bottom line is there is a lot of people that would have given you a lot of man hours (tiny in comparison to yours) to the project and risk it going belly up.

If a case occured where the product simply would not work on somebody's server then we would offer them a full refund. In the 3 years that we've been around though I can only recall one case where the product would not work, and that was mostly due to the server settings. That customer was given a full refund.
As for us dropping the ball, in reality, that could happen with any company at any time. We're not exactly new though, and we've created a few other sucessful products in the past. What we've done with vBa Blogicles isn't exactly new coding for us either. A good majority of it is based on code that was already working and tested with our other products, though much of it was optimized. Yes, there will be problems with the software, but nothing that would make us say "forget it, we're closing up shop because of that bug".

[blankoboy]

Originally Posted by Brian

Unfortunatly I can't give you much of an answer for 1 & 2 since I've barely ever looked at either of those products.

Congrats on starting up a new product Brian! I must add though that not researching other existing Vbulletin products (GARS, VBlogetin) prior to starting development of your own or at any time seems somewhat short sighted.

vBa Blogicle - Blogs + Articles
GARS - Articles + Reviews
VBlogetin - Blogging system

Will Blogicle get a Review system added before it goes final? I don't think I could switch away from GARS to an Blog+Article mod that didn't support reviews. Good luck!

[PoetJC]

NICE! I am so excited about this one!
Just upgraded to 3.6.4 (FINALLY!) and have been considering vBlogetin - but have used vBadvanced Portal CMS since the beginning... Have been EXTREMELY satisfied with its functionality.

So a Blog/Article system from vBadvanced is AWESOME! Very exciting stuff for us vB-heads

Sending email now!

Jacquii.

[Tom_S]

Sounds good Brian. I will be keeping my peepers open on the project. It looks like a worthwhile one for sure. I simply do not have the time to help out so I will wait for the finished product.

[smackLAN]

Hey Brian...you been bored in AZ or is David working you like a dog? Nice stuff...I'll be watching this closely as I greatly admire you and your work!

[Brian]

Originally Posted by blankoboy

I must add though that not researching other existing Vbulletin products (GARS, VBlogetin) prior to starting development of your own or at any time seems somewhat short sighted.

Remember that I said *barely* looked at them. I did check the feature list of each about 2 weeks ago and tried to make sure that vBa Blogicles had any of the key features and more. There were only a few small things that I ended up adding from that. I did browse around those two products as a guest as well, but that was about the extent of my research. I'm not going to purchase a competing product or look at it's coding, so either of those products could have more features that I'm not aware of, and I don't really know what's on the admin side with either of them. As far as I know our product has a lot more features and options than either GARS or vBlogetin, but again, I can't say that I've fully used either.

[0ptima]

Id like to see an example of this being used strictly for articles.