Simple Machines Community Forum

I have to say, that I have struggled to keep my forum alive since August of 2004 - I have 2665 Posts in 366 Topics by 43 Members - most are posts just to make the community look alive, but, really - I have lost all faith in my administration of the forum and the lack of returning members, and membership growth.

I really want vBulletin and Photopost - the bulletproof combination of a photo gallery and a forum.  I see so many sites out there that have high success rates using this combination, but I honestly, do not ever want to pay $129.00 and $160.00 for zip files.  (no matter how great these programs are, I do not agree with this stiff pricing).

I really want to keep SMF, with my coppermine gallery (integrated).  I have asked around for a major feature that would totally rock, but I haven't seen it, and I'm not that great at coding php to do it myself.

It's a link that is under the user's avatar that is created to link to their photo gallery, that is created in photopost - which is integrated with vBulletin.

It's the only option that I "Need" on my forum to at least be competitive with the rest of the BMW community, and it's almost like a glass ceiling with me, always has been.



So, is there any type of modification that is even close to this that is compatible with SMF/Coppermine?

Doesn't seem very hard of a mod to do. Not familar with coppermine but if each user has their own coppermine gallery.  This would have to be a custom mod.

True.  Think about it though - if a mod like this was for SMF/Coppermine - people would never even waste money on photopost/vBulletin - think of the memberbase that could be here, even from existing clients of those 2?

maybe i'm just a little aggressive right now, but I'm so damn desperate for results, I'm almost ready to drop that cash for that ******e.

and my website is www.bmwsport.net - has potential, but is seriously struggling right now...

Yeah, I am checking it out. I like the cotent but the forums are not really blended with the site neither is the photo gallery. Things just need to be a little more ogranized.

I was just thinking about re-theming both the gallery and the forum to be more like the main site, but -- I am hessitating about wasting my time if it's not worth it - if I don't get a return from it - you see?

It really depends VBulletin if do the owned license you still need to renew each year if you the latest edition. Depends on how much traffic you get.

I might as well just do this theme update on both coppermine and SMF - and just hope that somebody makes a mod that I need, and I'm sure there are so many other people that could use it.

Thanks for your insight - it's been helpful, really.

-Jeff

Hey Jeff,
I started writing up a good reply but then somehow closed the tab and lost it, bleh.

I think I visited your site in the past when I owned by E30 325es, missing having an E30 these days.

So the hard part we run into is just not having enough time to work with third-party developers to make sure that all sorts of integrations and mods are as good as they could be.  Though people seem to make some pretty awesome stuff anyway.  I'd definitly like to see our mod team grow and reach out to the community more than it does today.

Adding a link like this should be pretty easy to do as a mod.  Also may not be a bad thing to add to the coppermine integration either.  Hopefully someone in the community will have time to write this for you.  Wish I had a better answer for you.

--David