Main page with only one Catagory?

mizzmuzikluvr

Hey all- Lets start off by saying I'd like you to not assume I know anything about this stuff.... since I don't. So heres the skinny: I love Vanilla- its been a lifesaver for me. But I've got a organizational issue. My forums get so much use, that the start page is far too long, and the "sticky" announcements take up at least half of it. I know that users can change categories and that helps weed out the sstuff they arent interested in. But I'd like to take it a step further. Is there any way that I can make it so the index page on the forums is only one catagory? The general category for example? to clarify, you go to the forums and all you see is the "General" catagory, and to see the others, you have to choose them under the categories tab. Can it be done? Has it been? Is it too complicated for a novice like myself? Thankyou all for your time.

Minisweeper

It certainly will be possible, and i'm pretty sure it hasnt been done already. If you're a complete novice, however, it's unlikely you'll be able to manage it. If you have some background you could give it a shot. I've a feeling you'd need to be looking at the library\Vanilla.Class.DiscussionManager.php file. Take a glance through and see how lost you get. Unfortunately i'm way too tired to focus after playing my 360 all day :(

lech

You can also disable category view (while categories will still exist in essence) they just wont be visible and everyone will get dumped into the whole forum. Explore your admin options, I know it's in there somewhere :) Also check the wiki.

Minisweeper

I dont think that's quite what he was aiming for lech, as i understand it he wants to keep categories view, but leave the hompage 'discussions' view showing just the discussions under the general category. Asif every user had blocked every other category (but could then still visit them through the categories view)

Mark

In 0.9.3 this would be a pretty easy extension, but in 0.9.2 it would require a *lot* of work. For example, in 0.9.3 you could define a default CategoryID that is used if there is no category id is supplied in the querystring. That way it would always show a particular category. To change the category, you could use the category selector.

Mark

The only real problem is that 0.9.3 is still pretty unstable. Not really ready for launch on a highly active site.

mizzmuzikluvr

Well, thank you all. I suppose my users and I can just deal with the reaaaaaly long front page. And yes, Minesweeper, you've pinpointed exactly what I (she =oP ) wanted. I've pretty much come to the conculsion that there is no way I'm going to be able to figure this out, so until its an extension- I'll just deal with it. =o)

mizzmuzikluvr

Rawr. Remember about 3 weeks ago I said I could just deal with this? I can't. The website that I use vanilla on is a group website, and we've got a lot of inside stuff going on. I have many, many categories to sort everything out. But now, we've invited other groups to use a particular category in out site... and I dont like them having to wade through our personal laundry to find the general discussions. Its rather overwhelming to go to forums like these and see hundreds and hundreds of posts. I'd really like new people to come and see only the "general" Where I would put how to and instructional information. Is there at least a way I can make some categories hidden from non-members? So if someone is just browsing my forums, they'd only see some of the categories? wow. I'm rambling. Well, heres the site if it helps anyone. http://leavesofivy.com/LegendForum/forum/

Minisweeper

In 0.9.2 if you look under the settings for each category (under settings -> category settings), you can choose which roles have access to which categories. So yeah you can make a 'guest' roll (if you havent already) which only has access to the general category. And you could make roles for each of the groups you have using your site and just give them access to the categories theyre there to use (assuming it's not required for them to have access to all categories at some point). That any use to you?

Minisweeper

What i also meant to suggest, but somehow forgot at the time and now remembered a day later when thinking of absolutely nothing related to this, is that you could install the pagemanager extension, and set your homepage as a search for cat: general. That should do almost exactly what you want?

Bergamot

Minisweeper: That would work, but sticky threads would not stay on top.

Minisweeper

Pah. He has to compromise somewhere :P Good point though.

mizzmuzikluvr

Lol. Why are people here always thinking I'm a guy? My name sounds like miss music lover. Lol./ Anyway- I thank you so very much for your new suggestion. It doesn't require any code. I dunno if restricting acess helps at all, because I'd like the other people using the site to be able to see eerything- I just dont want them to HAVE to see everything. I'm going to find and download this pagemaker extention- I'm hoping so very much that this works! THANKYOU!

mizzmuzikluvr

Working on it

Minisweeper

heh. I tend to call everyone 'he' like 'they' (gets me in quite a lot of trouble at work, heh). And i suspect the majority of people on here are guys. Nice to see some girls making up the ranks though, lemme know how it goes.

Bergamot

OMGGIRLS

NickE

'girl' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

Minisweeper

/me avoids making a bad joke about external/internal operable commands.

NickE

Shit... Just realized how that could be interpreted. I'll just strike that out, shall I?

skyfex

"mizzmuzikluvr" just reads as "zmrzzkurklvrz" to me. Might have been easier to read had you put some caps in there (MizzMuzikLuvr) =)

Minisweeper

To be honest i tend to pay very little attention to the username of the poster anyway. I scan past it and acknowledge it but if i dont instantly recognise i keep going and just see if i can do anything useful in response to the post.