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What is your plugin wish list? Let's make it come true!
Adrian
MVP
First off let me say I think we can all agree that Vanilla 2 rocks. Why else would we be here, right? I have used SMF, PHPbb, BBpress and I can tell you Vanilla gets an A+ for being light and easy to set up. No other forum is as easy. Trust me.
Nevertheless, with being so light comes a downside. For people needing some additional functionality and with only basic php skills to tinker, there is a lack of plugins for Vanilla 2. Some of the great Vanilla 1 plugins have just not made there way over--which is a shame.
In my view, with only a couple of plugins, I think there could be even more adoption of the new platform. Plugins don't have to be a bad word. The benefit of Vanilla is its a buffet, you choose what you want.
With that being the case, below is my plugin wish list (but I am sure many people have many of the same).
-A maintenance plugin to allow you to close the forum to perform, well maintenance( I have created a plugin. It's very crude, but I tried--and it works for what I need)
-An easy automatic upgrade plugin --a la Wordpress (should be easy with php fopen, fwrite and fileexists)
-A way to have points/levels/badges for users --some way to allow for promotions or redeem points.
-A karma or thank you system
- 2 words in the tag plugin
- Admin stats about a user (ie user ranks)-- most active
-Poll for a thread or allow the Vote plugin to be more customizable. Sometimes you just need a poll in a thread
-Thread rating
-Some kind of formatting toolbar, like Markitup. Allow admin to select which items appear on the toolbar--ie code clean up is not needed for most. I suscpect link, unlink and image will work for most. Some I know want an WYSIWYG editor and I know its being worked on--but its not been easy to get it integrated.
-Sitemap plugin ( i know there is one, but its broken--for now)
-A mobile plugin/theme for iphone
I have started to work on some of these plugins myself, so I am not a beggar asking without trying or giving. Nevertheless, I'm far from a master programmer, so I'd love some help in making these come true before Xmas. It would be a nice gift for us all I think:) The way see it, it's the best way to give back to the Vanilla 2 community for such a great free product..
Maybe even the team behind Vanilla would be willing to help make this happen quicker with some financial considerations--
I thought it might make sense to create a marketplace of sorts, using something like
http://www.chipin.com/ , so the Vanilla team can set the price for these plugins. I am sure many of us would be willing to contribute to have quality plugins we know will be supported. Furthermore, the Vanilla team can get a real idea of the popular plugins because the community will vote with their wallets.
So what do you think? Would this work? What is your wishlist? Would you consider the use of something like http://www.chipin.com/ good idea? Or maybe its too late and I need to sleep....
Nevertheless, with being so light comes a downside. For people needing some additional functionality and with only basic php skills to tinker, there is a lack of plugins for Vanilla 2. Some of the great Vanilla 1 plugins have just not made there way over--which is a shame.
In my view, with only a couple of plugins, I think there could be even more adoption of the new platform. Plugins don't have to be a bad word. The benefit of Vanilla is its a buffet, you choose what you want.
With that being the case, below is my plugin wish list (but I am sure many people have many of the same).
-A maintenance plugin to allow you to close the forum to perform, well maintenance( I have created a plugin. It's very crude, but I tried--and it works for what I need)
-An easy automatic upgrade plugin --a la Wordpress (should be easy with php fopen, fwrite and fileexists)
-A way to have points/levels/badges for users --some way to allow for promotions or redeem points.
-A karma or thank you system
- 2 words in the tag plugin
- Admin stats about a user (ie user ranks)-- most active
-Poll for a thread or allow the Vote plugin to be more customizable. Sometimes you just need a poll in a thread
-Thread rating
-Some kind of formatting toolbar, like Markitup. Allow admin to select which items appear on the toolbar--ie code clean up is not needed for most. I suscpect link, unlink and image will work for most. Some I know want an WYSIWYG editor and I know its being worked on--but its not been easy to get it integrated.
-Sitemap plugin ( i know there is one, but its broken--for now)
-A mobile plugin/theme for iphone
I have started to work on some of these plugins myself, so I am not a beggar asking without trying or giving. Nevertheless, I'm far from a master programmer, so I'd love some help in making these come true before Xmas. It would be a nice gift for us all I think:) The way see it, it's the best way to give back to the Vanilla 2 community for such a great free product..
Maybe even the team behind Vanilla would be willing to help make this happen quicker with some financial considerations--
I thought it might make sense to create a marketplace of sorts, using something like
http://www.chipin.com/ , so the Vanilla team can set the price for these plugins. I am sure many of us would be willing to contribute to have quality plugins we know will be supported. Furthermore, the Vanilla team can get a real idea of the popular plugins because the community will vote with their wallets.
So what do you think? Would this work? What is your wishlist? Would you consider the use of something like http://www.chipin.com/ good idea? Or maybe its too late and I need to sleep....
1
Comments
I consider that essential, as I've previously had users have to re-register because they mis-typed their email address. With Vanilla they don't know why they haven't received an email confirming they registered correctly, and anyway I think confirming they are the one who registered is essential for various reasons.
I think the 'Follow users' plugin sounds good, and will give that a try. It's very useful to be able to filter discussions and comments for particular users.
As for the payment for plugins idea, while I do donate now and then (I'm not well off) I wouldn't specifically pay for a plugin. There are various reasons, just one being that there's no way of knowing the creator is well trained, and no guarantee of working quality, plugin life expectancy, etc.
Also, there's at least one other thread here regarding wanted plugins.
Update: O, sorry, missed - A karma or thank you system
I like your idea for registering. I am sure people would donate to it. In other words I think it would be a cool idea if there was as an add-on section/list ironically to avoid these kind of wish list threads and we could vote for it with our wallets. Sort if like the idea of the buy it now on EBay.If someone wants the plugin bad enough it might be paid in full by one member. The beauty of idea also was the Vanilla team gets a couple of things: revenue, direct knowledge of what the user community wants ( and willing to pay for), a better product for them. We as users get the plugins we crave, created by the Vanilla Team that we really need/want, and most of all we can insure the quality and that they are supported plugins going forward. In all honesty mine was a wishlist. I think the " need list" is shorter, but the lplugins are just not coming(yet). I figured a financial benefit would make it worth while.
Also maybe besides Vanilla team, they could "approve" certain community members who have proven their work ( for example 2-3 successful plugins) so they can also benefit from the money of Chipin....so if they complete a plugin " successfully" on the wishlist category they can benefit as well.
Another thing that would help is community ratings easy to understand for plugins. For example it's clear in Wordpresss if a plugin is getting good ratings/ comparability with current version. Not everyone likes to comment, but choosing a star is not hard.
Okay I am done for now, time to start continuing the work on my wishlist. I will post in the add-on section as I complete them
Blog type plugin, to pull select comments out to a blog page.
Member showing plugin that works with imported V1 forum members.
With these three plugins I would be ready to rock!
Karma, thank you system, thread rating.. the voting plugin
things i totally agree with
Two words in tags.. this drives me insane
automated updates/upgrade ...
a polling plugin..
But in my honest opinion, i think there are a few major missing features that pull more rank than these listed above. For example
Mass management. Pruning users, deleting multiple threads/users. stuff for very large forums.
Import export, installed by default, with the ability to export your V2 install for a fresh install and import.
If your truly wanting to contribute to the project, i would suggest your plugins/addons be FOSS.
oh and analytics, i've found a treasure, i prefer it over google analytics. Piwik
I guess I am not making my example make sense. So here it is soup to nuts:
Here is the process I see. Either a section on this site, or another sub-site where people can list their wanted plugins. Community votes on the wish list. For the top requests, Vanilla Team or approved plugin makers can set the price to complete the plugin. So imagine if you would the "price" for your mass management plugin is set at 1000 dollars by Vanilla Team or by an approved developer . And lets say that a 1000 of us make a 1-2 dollar the investment-then its on. It would work like Groupon: The plugin has met its requirements so it will be built. It will then be made available to the whole community for free in the add-in area. Sure the Johnny come lately will get the benefit of the plugin without paying, but I think the greater adoption of Vanilla and its growth benefits us all.
I don't know, maybe the idea is a big fail. Maybe I should just take my wishlist to Vanilla team direct and have it funded by those who want my list too. Would that work?
Piwik gets my vote too, I love it-- and it works lovely with Vanilla
Oh, the two I have done is Maintenance and Markitup for Vanilla. My next couple I hope to tackle will be more complex. I want to examine the possibility of an auto upgrade plugin. I think I have a creative way to make it happen--I just need to figure out if its doable the way I think it is..
Vanilla Forums COO [GitHub, Twitter, About.me]
1) Top Posters: A sidebar plugin showing the top 5, 10 or whatever posters and the number of posts for each.
2) Email users: An admin plugin allowing the forum admin to email all users.
3) Contact us: A contact us form for members or visitors to contact the forum admin via email without having to register or login.
4) Discussion Thumbnail: A thumbnail image to appear on the left side of each discussion title on the forum frontpage. Admin and users should be given the option to upload their own thumbnail image, and if they don't a standard thumbnail appears.
5) Poll: A sidebar poll would surely make a difference.
Thank you for a wonderful script!
http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/13181/i-need-to-have-feature-x...vote-for-what-is-really-needed
Vote directly here: http://www.google.com/moderator/#16/e=30d27
The contact form is easy to do right now via custom pages add-on
This not only livens things up a bit, it also looks nice and makes it easier to differentiate between each different discussion.
I'll add the request to adriansonline's poll.
http://www.google.com/moderator/#16/e=30d27
Make sure you vote:)
I pulled out my favorite hatchet, Scite, and started hacking away at the voting plugin.
What I came up with was a very brittle like button. I'm too ashamed of it's ugliness to upload it as an addon, but here it is for anyone who wants it:
http://www.mediafire.com/?7azgcl1dxfgb1cm
It would be nice if it mentioned who liked the post in question
If you pay for the (admittedly not cheap) development time, the community will reap the benefits too.
The only votes that truly get things done at the end of the day are time and money. I vote with my time via PHP code and GitHub. Voting with money can be done with the link above.