Looking for some advice please. So far just about everything I absolutely need GL to do has been doable through changes, hacks, etc. Of course I have a huge wish list but I'm trying to concentrate on what's most important right now to get my site up and going. Basically the functionality I absolutely need is an article manager, email list manager, static/external pages, a forum, and an easy way to have a bunch of FAQs on my site. That's the bare bones minimum. GL can handle the articles fine. So my questions are related to the other 4 things and I'm looking for good input from you fine people.FAQ Manager - I know there is a beta version available. Questions: 1. Is the current plugin stable enough for use on a soon to be busy site? 2. Is development continuing? I notice the last version is from a few months back. 3. If you use FAQs on your site do you use this plugin or something else and if so what? Static/External Pages - Questions: 1. What is the difference between the 2? 2. When would you use one or the other? 3. Can Javascript be added to either of these on a page by page basis? Email List Manager - I have access to other email managers. The thing I'm trying to avoid is making visitors enter their information too many times - once to log in, once for the newsletter, etc. Questions: 1. Is the current plugin stable enough for use on a soon to be busy site with hopefully a big list to email a newsletter to? 2. Is development continuing? I notice the last version is from a few months back. 3. Do you use this plugin or something else and if so what? 4. How hard would it be to configure (import/export) registered users to another list solution? Forum: Basically I'm having a hard time deciding between using the plug in and PHPBB. I have the plugin installed and have been playing with it but as with most software or scripts these things need time to mature. Hopefully my site will have a busy forum so it needs to be stable and configurable. Again though I don't want to bother my visitors too much by having them have multiple logins (site, newsletter, forum). Questions: 1. Is the current plugin stable enough for use on a soon to be busy site? 2. Is development continuing? I notice the last version is from a few months back. 3. If you use a forum on your site do you use this plugin or something else and if so what? 4. Has development of the PHPBB integration hacks stopped with the release of the forum plug in? Thanks so much for your time.

I'm the author of the Mailing List (lists) plugin... 1. Is the current plugin stable enough for use on a soon to be busy site with hopefully a big list to email a newsletter to? Yes, although all the mailing lists I've used it for are relatively small (< 100 recipiants). I'm not sure how good it would be for really large email lists (> 10,000?). 2. Is development continuing? I notice the last version is from a few months back. Not really, the plugin does everything I want it to do as is. Since no one has requested additional features with any urgency, I haven't felt compelled to work on it further. What else would you like to see, have you seen any bugs? 3. Do you use this plugin or something else and if so what? I use this plugin, I'm not sure how many others do. It lacks the power of the dedicated mailing list managers. Then again, most of the websites I've seen running geeklog do not also have mailing lists. 4. How hard would it be to configure (import/export) registered users to another list solution? Probably not that hard. A single, simple MySQL select will export usernames and email addresses. -Vinny

Well I can talk to the FAQ and Forum Plugin. Both are very stable and active projects. You should check out my site for updates and discusssions as well on my Plugins.

I don't have a lot of data on number of sites using the FAQ plugin or number of questions being maintained but it has been downloaded a few hundred times.

The forum plugin is widely used and I know of sites with 10-20,000 posts and 100's of users.

Both are excellent components for Company Intranet or business applications as well. I hope that if you are using them for business you will stop by my site and contribute as that will help me support my projects.

Cheers,
Blaine

Remember Opensource does not mean free

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Geeklog components by PortalParts -- www.portalparts.com

Hi Blaine, Thanks for your comments. I've installed the forum plugin and about to install the FAQ plugin. I think I'm a little overwhelmed with the forum because I've never run one before but that is going to be a vital part of my strategy. I'll ask specific questions regarding these on your site - I posted this here to hopefully get some input from others too. About payment - I fully intend on giving back financially. Yeah I know the saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" but after literally months of trying various scripts GL looks to be the only reason I'll have a site in the first place. I'm not a designer or a coder and even I've been able to set things up fairly easily. So I intend to give a portion of what I make back. I can't pay before hand because of my personal situation (long sob story) and to be honest after so many "misses" with other scripts I want to make sure it works - I hope you understand where I'm coming from. But if it works and I can get it to do what I need I will indeed give back. My wife and I sat down the other day to work on a budget for after things are moving and this was included for regular deductions. Thanks again.

Hi Vinny, I just installed it last night and so far everything works. I'm still not sure which way I'll go as my newsletters (not spam!) will be an important part of my efforts. Thanks for the plugin though whether I wind up using it or not.

Static/External Pages - Questions: 1. What is the difference between the 2? 2. When would you use one or the other? 3. Can Javascript be added to either of these on a page by page basis? Lets see if I can answer these: 1. Static pages are kept in the geeklog database whereas external pages are just that external seperate pages. 2. External pages give you a little more flexibility in that you can wrap the page in geeklog or not -- your choice. Static pages allow you to do a little more like the static page - front page option. External pages are not limited in size. I would use static pages for small pages that were not preexisting and not too complicated and external pages for existing or complicated pages. 3. As far a java script, external pages are a littlle easier to add java to, unless you need your java in the head portion of the page. If your script needs to be in the head then you will have to edit the template for either one. TomW