Common questions about Vanilla

Mark

I've been wanting to write up a FAQ for Vanilla, but I really want it to be relevant instead of what I *think* people want to know. I always notice some common questions popping up here on the forum, and I figured we should try to at least get a summary of these together before I write the FAQ. So, you guys know as well as I do what gets asked. Let's post the most common ones in here.

Here are some of the ones I see often

• How to include into site design: header and footer?
• How to make the category tab the default page
• Can there be subcategories?
• Pages load blank in installer or vanilla

Got any more?

LoOkOuT

I'd say that's quite a comprehensive list already. At a push, how about: Changing icon size; getting Google Ads to work (though this will probably be an extension I assume); how to make Vanilla fixed width was asked quite a lot;

uhhh, that's it for now

Krak

How about... Database migration support? From phpbb, vbulletin, etc.. Signatures?

Freedman

Something about the language file for editing all sorts of things... took me a while to find that out but it's very useful.

litbynature

common questions from a newbie:

how do you delete posts / categories?
how do you add static pages?
does vanilla include email notifications?
does vanilla integrate with wordpress?
when is vanilla 2.0 going to be released?

Krak

when is vanilla 2.0 going to be released?

haha

nathan

Can I integrate my my login with (insert application here)?

That seems to be asked on a regular basis.

droozie

I dont really know how you, Mark, are going to solve this? Is it with a sort of FAQ-link in the footer which points to the Lussumo-site?

Wouldn't it be cool (useful as well) with some sort of dynamic (and unique) FAQ page for every Vanilla install out there?

Some sort of system where your Vanilla install tells the FAQ-engine which addons that are installed and then fetches the relevant FAQ-info based on this.

Lets suppose there are a general section which refers to a clean install of Vanilla and for every add-on you have installed, it retrieves the FAQ from the 'Vanilla Add-ons section' here. (That means the add-on developers has to write the FAQ them selves...)

Mark

Well, I was going to write a custom FAQ add-on for the community and add it as another tab up top. I could probably pretty easily create a feed for those faqs and serve them via rss or atom. Then I could write another more basic add-on that just retrieves that feed and displays them. That way you could add the add-on tab to your site(s) as well. I don't think extension authors will be too excited about writing a ton of documentation, but you never know. For add-on questions, I am still planning on doing something where the add-on's page has comments below it so people can ask for help or offer advice for problems, etc.

Mark

Here's another: Is there any possibility to move Threads into another Category?

3stripe

"Can I import my existing phpBB forum?"
"What do I need to run Vanilla?"

Ben

"Installation for Dummies" Instructions for modifying the conf/settings.php collection, and so on.

Actually could changing those be inserted as a step in the installer?
So it generates the file from inputs during the install script?

Mark

That's what the installer will do. It will also create and save the file(s) in the conf directory so (a) you don't have to upload it and (b) it knows for sure that your permissions are set up correctly on the file.

3stripe

"How much does Vanilla cost?"

sean lancaster

being a newbie myself, i am curios to learn the answers to just about every question asked in this thread. i'll search through the existing discussions as most are probably answered there.

fishgrrl

I'm considering using vanilla, and have some questions I don't have answers to yet, so they're probably ones other people would have: Can you make categories that are only accessable by certain member types. I.E. an admin forum only administrator members can read? Can you attach files/images? (link to images?) Can you change the color of messages from different categories that show up in the discussions tab. I.E. you have forums named happy, sad, and silly. Silly messages always show up blue. Can individual users set preferences to show either the discussions tab or the categories tab? That's all I have, the rest were asked here (I'll search the forum or wait for the faq to see the answers).

ithcy

Can you make categories that are only accessable by certain member types. I.E. an admin forum only administrator members can read?

yes. this is easy to do via role management/category management.

Can you attach files/images? (link to images?)

you can link to inline images (<img src="">) with the HtmlFormatter extension and probably either of the BBCode extensions. you can attach files with the Attachments extension (which is being has just been updated to work with 1.0.)

Can you change the color of messages from different categories that show up in the discussions tab. I.E. you have forums named happy, sad, and silly. Silly messages always show up blue.
you could alter the CSS to do this without much trouble, i'm sure.

Can individual users set preferences to show either the discussions tab or the categories tab?
currently, no. it could be done by extension.

Kent

How about a Themes faq/tutorial that is newbie friendly: -To include your banner, open this file and modify x -To change content of disclaimer text... -To ... With a few of these that cover the basic makeover moves one might want to do, it would likely give enough info to ramp up the intuition of the new user to do other cosmetic changes. The Themes wiki is helpful generally, but a couple of step-by step guides might go a long way. BTW, just how do you change the text... and where should I look to insert our banner image? :0)

WallPhone

The text is stored in /Languages/English.php. Whoa, don't edit that file! Instead, copy the text you want to change, and save it with your changes to /conf/definitions.php. Reason being that the conf folder's settings override those in the languages folder, and if you update Vanilla in the future, your settings will stay intact.