Coming in from SMf

insanemustang

Hey there,

I will be making a fresh start using Vanilla, most likely, for my website that is based on Alabama Crimson Tide football. I was wondering a couple of things.

1 - Does Vanilla Forums have easy customization when it comes to the theme? I am not talking about anything serious, just colors and images?
2 - Will I have a huge learning curve from SMF?
3 - When updates are released, is it a huge project updating? On SMF any time I would have to update the forums, I would have to reinstall all mods/plugins and every now and then I'd have to make all of my theme changes all over again.

Thanks, looks like a great product and I look forward to getting involved.

I.M.

Kasper

Hiya,

First off, welcome aboard! It's always great seeing new faces and you'll hopefully enjoy your time here! As for your questions, these would be my answers:

1. Vanilla is by far one of the best applications I've worked with when it comes to theming. The basic front-end aspects are built using Smarty so you won't have to get your hands dirty with PHP. You can do pretty much anything in your theme - these are some examples of highly-customized themes I've written (shameless self-promotion!):

   • AgileBits http://discussions.agilebits.com/
   • ABB Robotics http://robotstudio.vanillaforums.com/ (not yet live)
   • OnlyAnExcuse (Apptastic) http://onlyanexcuse.com/forum/
   • 9to5Forums http://9to5forums.com/
   • Pebble http://forums.getpebble.com/
   • vSauce http://vsauce.vanillaforums.com/ (not yet live)

   This just to showcase the opportunities that Vanilla themes present. I personally really enjoy writing themes for Vanilla and think you will too - and if you'd like to keep it simple, that's entirely possible and super easy!

2. Not at all. SMF is easy to manage (first-hand experience) but Vanilla is even easier. Moderation and administrative tasks are super easy, especially if you add plugins such as Flagging and any of the fantastic anti-spam plugins out there. Using Vanilla is also super easy for your users - the interface is easy to understand and use.

3. Updating is a simple matter of replacing a couple of folders and running an update utility accessible as a URL. Vanilla's architecture means that you won't have to override your themes and plugins directories when updating thus allowing you to keep all of your stuff in between versions. I run 4 installations on my local system and upgrade each of them on a daily basis when new code is pushed. I work for Vanilla so I'm more or less forced to stay on top of the latest codebase when writing themes and plugins for the hosted clients - upgrading all 4 installations only takes a manner of minutes though.

Definitely hope that you choose Vanilla for your next project! If you need first-class hosting, I can highly recommend the Vanilla SaaS solution: http://vanillaforums.com/

Kind regards,
Kasper Kronborg Isager
http://webhutt.com

insanemustang

Hey, really appreciate such a great, in-depth, reply. I am looking forward to the swap.

One more question: I will have certain things that I will want to place around my site as an "article" or "page" whatever, the term for Vanilla might be. Is that possible, or would it have to be a forum post?

hgtonight

@insanemustang

Are you looking for a mostly static page? Something you can slap php into? A blog type page?

I have used the Custom Pages plugin for simple things I rarely update or need to execute php code. You can add some routes through the dashboard and links to the pages in your theme. For a blog, I started with Nilla Blog. It lets you transform a forum category into a blog. Very useful!

If you want to have a more fully featured CMS, you could look at Vanilla CMS or Candy. I have more experience with Vanilla CMS, but it is no longer developed.

In the end... you have options!

Kasper

Like @hgtonight mentioned, Custom Pages, Vanilla CMS or Candy are indeed plugins and applications you want to check out if you'd like to create static pages on your site. There's also a whole bunch of official plugins to be found here: https://github.com/vanillaforums/Addons/tree/master/plugins. One of these is Pockets - it allows you to place "pockets" of freeform HTML in various places around your site also comes with a Smarty function for putting custom pockets ({pocket name="foo"}) in your theme.

If you'd like to get a bit more advanced (don't yet know where you stand when it comes to PHP), you can also do somewhat the same as I do: Whenever I'd like to include some custom stuff, whether it be widgets, modules or static content, I genrally use theme hooks to do this. Theme hooks allow you to interface with Garden so your theme can do exactly the same things as a plugin would allow you to do. This means that creating extra modules, view partials and the likes can be done directly in your theme instead of in a plugin, the latter which in many cases will disassociate your theme with its custom modules and content.

insanemustang

Great, thank you for the reply.

peregrine

You can also use the extrapage plugin for

http://vanillaforums.org/addon/extrapage-plugin

and building an app off of the skeleton - is actually easier than it looks.

insanemustang

I did a search and didn't really find a picture gallery add-on. Is that the case or am I just missing it? This is an important feature for me.

peregrine

search add-on section gallery

http://vanillaforums.org/addon/picturegallery-plugin

don't know if that works for you - but that is the title for one.