Hi guys, I just posted a message about this in our notices area. But we are looking for feedback from our newest site idea. This is where we will eventually be moving all of our content. The site is located on our same server (here in Seattle), but due to limited support and development of vBulletin, we are looking to make a move to a new software platform.

I've gone through and created a test system that I am interested to see what you think. Can you take a look at it and post your opinions here in this forum? Most of our content has been migrated about a week ago and you'll notice that most current posts are not online. However, I'd be interested to know what you think about the different features.

In a nutshell, there are also a lot more features included in the new software that we did not have in the past. Integrated chat room, easier to use and integrated gallery, integrated store, better blogs, and top notch support. The absolute best part of this software is that all features are integrated. Right now our system is compiled of many different packages all sharing the same database. The integrated solution is best for me because it allows the system to be managed from a single location and from a single license. I will no longer have to upgrade 8 different pieces of software in the future.

Anyway, if you can spare a few minutes and let me know what you think it would be appreciated. Your opinions really do matter as we will be looking at all of them.

The new site is here:

http://vision.classiczcars.com

The site is still a work in progress and it's limited to supporting members and administrators. You should be able to use all of the features, but, if something is disabled please let me know and I'll open it up.

m

Yeah, click on your Username.

Is it possible to have 2 front-ends to the site: 1 that is read-only for the general public searches and spammers and another where it is accessed only through a VPN like a corporate Intranet by members?

Hmm, not really sure about that one. I'll have to think about it a little more and look to see if we can do it with permissions. The only real way I know how to do it off the top of my head is to create a separate forum area just for serious members. We can hide forums to the general public so they aren't seen until you log in. And we can also hide forums for people who do not have permission to access them (even if they are logged in). I believe there are other parts of the site where we can do that as well. I was thinking of creating another parallel universe for Gold members actually...

Need a button to get directly to your personal gallery. How do you add a signature pic?

EDIT: I found the personal gallery under My Settings under Profile. My gallery is empty. How will my photos from here be transferred?

Ok great glad you found it. I haven't finished importing all of the gallery photos yet, that's still on my list. But all of the images you had on our existing site will be transferred to this new one.

Ok I'm glad you guys like the navigation on the left. It seems to be fairly popular. I'll have more of a play with the colors and things to see if we can make it less gray/brownish and implement some of our own Z graphics.

I really like the look and feel. I also mostly use the what's new, search and classifieds. So easy access to them is handy for my uses.

Switching from vBulletin to IPB, I see. Looks good, although I'm not a huge fan of the skin. I prefer the simplicity of vB, but that's just me. IPB is more versatile, though. Version 4.0, I assume? I think they added Google Login, and LinkedIn support in that version, but I could be wrong. IPB is the way to go, so I'm glad to see this site going in that direction. Never been a fan of vBulletin's management or weekly security fixes. There are less IPB mods available at the moment, but they are way more stable. Excited to see how it all turns out!