Article Dashboard? Pros and Cons?

I checked out this article dashboard..at first i thought it was too good to be true... especially since in order to download it they pitch you in a sales letter format .. I guess the reason why the guy is giving it out is to build BL's to articledashboard's home page. That's fair but I donno if I should use this or spend $200+ for echoarticles or article live.. It looks exactly like what I need but php is completely encoded... Has anyone had any problems with this?

Who has had success with it? Whay are the differences between this article CMS and the others?

 

I suggest you visit their users forum at http://www.articledashboard.com/forum/ there you can find what their users say about it.

 

thanks... i checked that out earlier... wanted to see what non-article dashboard users were saying... and if there are any solutions similiar that dont encode their source code

 

That will only happen if they get a GNU or OpenSource license. Try searching for similar systems at sourceforge.org, freshmeat.net and other known opensource directories.

 

It lacks a lot of features compared to professional ones. After all its free

 

It is easy to use but I'm just starting out with it so there might be some problems I am not aware of. They do offer support though. I ran into a glitch (caused by web host) and they helped me work through it.

Check out my Article Directory.

All the best,
Deanna

 

I am not sure if I would use it.

it would not take long for G to figure out what these sites are all about specially if article exchanges start to take off and they feel like down grading the effect of article exchanges.

 

As a past Forum mod for article dashboard, I'd like to give an insider's point of view of AD...

PROS: It's Free

CONS:

I would highly suggest not using it. It is full of bugs that the developer's are not (and have not) fixed or supported. Article Dashboard sites are being hacked like the turtle beach article directory script was. It's very easy to break into and unsecure.

Also, it's encoded so you are stuck with a few html template files to customize .. unless you are a php whiz and can pretty much re-create the pages you wish to change.

AD may be free, but it starts to cost in alot of ways once you've installed. I wrote most of the AD addons and they were mostly addons to make the admin more user friendly and give basic functions that should be in there already.

Want your site to look different than the other 700+ AD sites? Get ready to pay around $150.00. Like I said, you need to be a css and php whiz to even do the redesign work.

Heres my advice:

Get an article directory script thats not encoded, and that the developers are actively supporting, and you won't have to replace every month after it's been hacked

 

yes, article dash board, too many bugs, and since it is encrypted, it is difficult to fix these bugs. even in their forum, maybe no1 knows the answer.


Average

 

HiredGunz,

I used to check out the AD forum when I was interested in AD, and I know how much time and effort you put into the script and the forum too...

But its been a while since I went there, and for exactly the reasons you mentioned...I concluded that AD just wasnt right for me...

But I didnt expect you to also totally unrecommend AD, you were one of the strongest backers of AD...and I'm really surprised by your post. But I admit I never followed the happenings at the AD forum for a while now, so I dont know about the problems that happened to the users...

Well, this sets the record straight, then

 

Yes, I was one of the biggest backers but you can only back something that isn't working for so long and then you have to face the fact that the script is just to big of a problem to use.

It's really only supported by the users of AD that have found by trial and error ways around the encoding and bugs, but some can't be fixed by anyone but the person with the source code and they didn't write it

I wrote an article directory script at articlefriendly "dot" com that is not encoded, and I'm actively supporting what I wrote thru my forum. Check it out and give me some feedback when you have some time. Good or bad comments, I want to know so I can make article friendly the way users of the script want it!

 

Another problem with AD is: it is difficult for others to mod it since it is encrypted.

articlefriendly looks good. I would suggest have a 'free' version with some limited functions. And have a function to import AD database into articlefriendly database. Then, the script will be much more popular. Just my 2 cents.


Average

 

I'm working on a script to import AD database info into the article friendly article directory script right now

Your free version idea is a good one... I'll look into that

Thanks,

Jan

 

It is worth it to make the change to Article Friendly because I know the support would be worth it.

 

Article Dashboard is good in my opinion, the cons are the many sites looking the same due to lack of customization, and the spam you receive after signup for download it.

Sometimes useful, though.

 

Wow lady, that nightshift sure gets you around the internet LoL ... Article Friendly is not encoded. It's nearly a "set and forget" kind of site as it can run the great majority of maintanance by itself, It gets updated as bugs are found and mods added whereas AD's last update was last December 2005. Thats how long frustrated AD users have gone with buggy sites.

You can customize every page on Article Friendly's .. AD gives you a few templates and you have to be pretty experienced in coding and javascript to do more than simple changes.

Within this month alone, 8 more features are scheduled for Article Friendly.

AD is a hackers playground now ... every 15 year old on the net can break into it.

But then, it is free......

Jan

 

Good point in that I can get SOME use out of semi rotten wood But you are right in that AD does have it's place... right next to the old articlebeach script, which WAS actually nice until everyone found out how to hack it and now it's pretty much given away or sold to unsuspecting buyers for $2.00 ...

Jan

 

Thanks for your advise, hiredgunz. I was closed to downloading it from a blog's recommendation.

 

Hello I have tested and messed around with articledashboard and I personally dont like it at all... If I was you I would use Joomla or Drupal that way you can expand very easily to whatever you want to do.

The main thing I dont like about articledashboard is the back end admin areas etc.

For one of my latest projects I am using Drupal and it works perfectly for an article site!

 

I don't really have a problem with free software, other than I and a lot of others have had the "joy" of having all our sites destroyed by hackers because we had Article Dashboard installed, but in AD's case it's the encoding... Sounds paranoid, but honestly, you don't know whats being broadcast from your site, and with the encoding, you can't fix anything. As the gentleman above said, there are other free scripts that are much better, safer, easier (and more profitable) to use.

Jan