Best Of

with composer update in the root folder, it's ok.

you have to do a /utility/update

You have to delete class.qna.plugin.php in the plugins/QnA folder because there is a QnaPlugin.php file otherwise you will have a notice error

Correct me if I'm wrong but timestamp do not bother with timezone, everyone have the same timestamp for all timezones.

The timestamp is the amount of seconds since the 1st january 1970 at 00:00:00 UTC 0.

In Vanilla this timestamp is display to the user according to his own timezone (set in the "HourOffest" column of your GDN_User table).

New Roadmap Objectives

Warning: These notes are not a guarantee of any particular version number or release date. It just represents some of our development goals.

Complete the 4.0 release

The 4.0 release is currently in progress. Main improvements will include:

• New Base Theme & New theming system.
• Hero Image plugin no longer a plugin. Instead it is built-in to core.
• 100s of bug-fixes
• Performance improvements.
• New PHP version requirements.

Documentation Overhaul

As we move our developer documentation over to it's new home in our Success Knowledge Base, we are updating outdated articles, adding new ones, and moving some new technical documentation from our internal documentation to become public.

Items that are set to receive new documentation:

I'll link the documentation here as it becomes available.

• New Controllers & Routing.
• Using Twig for Views.
• Using React for Views.
• Using the new Theming system.
• Using the new FormatService.
• Advanced custom embeds for Rich Editor.
• Improved local installation instructions.
• i18n & Localization.
• New Model Class & Pipelines.
• Dependency Injection.
• New Javascript & Style loading for addons.

As we write these we will primarily looking to provide "quickstart" guides with code examples. For for more technical understanding it's best to look at the key source code files, which will be linked at the bottom of documentation, where possible.

So how many of these Roadmap objectives were actually achieved in 2020?

Maybe time to invest in some GPS instead.

It's not the best example for a beginner plugin. But it's doable, but certainly only if you want to learn. I can give advices, but I will not write code for you.

If you want to develop plugins, you need a test environment. That doesn't need to be a mirror of your live forum. Just some dummy users will be enught. The default Vanilla installation already provides 4 test users and that will be enough.

If you are a linux user, then I guess you know how to install your test environment. If you are a windows I strongly recomment not using some WAMP stack. Your server is running on linux and so should your test server do. Either install Oracles VirtualBox and install some Linux inside. Linux Mint is really beginner friendly.

I have become a fan of the "Windows Subsystem for Linux" (WSL). That allows installing a debian directly on your windows machine. But there is no graphical UI, only a command line. So it requires more Linux knowledge than the VirtualBox + Linux Mint setup.

If you already have a WAMP stack set up, you can certainly go with it. But a plugin that works flawlessly on Windows, might not work on Linux or the other way around.

If you have prepared the test forum, read the basics:

https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/152-what-is-an-addon

https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/151-the-addon-json-file

https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/164-addon-quickstart-guide

The most important task after this is to define the features the plugin should have:

1. It should send mails

2. after a discussion has been created

3. by a person with special permissions

4. but only to those who wants to be notified

Correct? If not, add the missing tasks (one by one if possible)

In one of the links above, there was one very, very important sentence "Download other addons from the Addon Directory and borrow their code.". You yhould take a look how all of the things have been done by others. That's the part where most beginners are lost. Therefore I gathered some examples for you. There are much more, so if you need more, try to find them wih a mighty tool like grep (or Notepad++) or ask and I will give hints on how to find more examples.

Matching the numbers from above, here are the examples:

1. https://github.com/vanilla/vanilla/blob/release/3.3/applications/dashboard/models/class.invitationmodel.php#L198

2. https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/245-event-and-handlers

3. https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/255-permission-checking

4. https://github.com/R-J/kick/blob/master/KickPlugin.php, https://github.com/vanilla/vanilla/blob/release/3.3/applications/vanilla/models/class.discussionmodel.php#L2370

Okay. That has been the preparation. But how to start now?

Create a valid plugin with the following method:

public function base_render_before($sender) {
   decho('useless');
}

If you have done everything correct and enable that plugin, as an admin you should see that debug message on every page call. A normal user should not. During the creation of a plugin, you might need to delete the /cache/addon.php file, because it might have cached incomplete addon meta data.

After that you need to implement the features in the following order: 3., 4., 2., 1.

Read about how to implement permissions, take a look at plugins which create their own permissions (the kick plugin does) and see if you can implement this. If you are at this point, ask again.

Just to tell you my expectations as your teacher: if you are not able to make it this far, I'd say you have chosen the wrong class. But that should just serve as an estimation about the level of difficulty up to this point. Learning includes asking questions, so nevertheless please ask at any time.