Blog Documentation Book a Demo
Vanilla 1 is no longer supported or maintained. If you need a copy, you can get it here.
HackerOne users: Testing against this community violates our program's Terms of Service and will result in your bounty being denied.

link from Design Melt Down

jakob_rjakob_r
edited October 2007 in Vanilla 1.0 Help
getvanilla is linked from a fresh article from Design Melt Down. Nice words many will echo here from a nice resource: http://www.designmeltdown.com/chapters/Forums/
Personally I find most forum app's to be rather confusing, and this is ironic since I consider my self a rather technical person. It seems to me that forums need a simpler format, a more basic means of enabling conversation. I highly recommend you check out vanilla, a new type of forum app. I only wish I could find something as elegant in .net.
Mark, perhaps you want to get a 1.0 beta notice onto getvanilla.com?


PS: It'd be interesting to hear what your favourites are from the forum examples on design melt down are. Or for that matter, any other examples you really like?
«1

Comments

  • ithcyithcy New
    not directly related, but from the linked article:
    Q. Could you make a feature where I check a box that says "email me if somebody replies to my post?"

    A. This one feature, so easy to implement and thus so tempting to programmers, is the best way to kill dead any young forum. Implement this feature and you may never get to critical mass. Philip Greenspun's LUSENET has this feature and you can watch it sapping the life out of young discussion groups.

    Why?

    What happens is that people go to the group to ask a question. If you offer the "notify me" checkbox, these people will post their question, check the box, and never come back. They'll just read the replies in their mailbox. The end.

    If you eliminate the checkbox, people are left with no choice but to check back every once in a while. And while they're checking back, they might read another post which looks interesting. And they might have something to contribute to that post. And in the critical early days when you're trying to get the discussion group to take off, you've increased the "stickiness" and you've got more people hanging around, which helps achieve critical mass a lot quicker.
    sounds a lot like this discussion.
  • uziuzi
    jakob_r: the first from the left is very good
  • jakob_rjakob_r
    edited June 2006
    yes, agree very much so - rss is much better in that respect as it always keeps you up to date on everything that's new.

    just checking some interesting forum designs and approaches I've noted:
    • Typophile – clean, clear, discussion centred and with some very nice touches for visual interest. Naturally, designer-centred.
    • Spotleid – minimal almost to the extreme
    • Aqua Soft – okay, nothing new with the design inspiration, but the makeover is convincing and very polished.
    • AIGA Designforum – a very different approach, at times more of an open-contribution blog, but the overview page gives a mix of different overview formats. Compare for instance the start page (scroll down for discussions) with a sub-forum overview. Note: they could really do with a spam hurdle. There's a thread on the MacBook Pro on there with 612 replies, 4 of those actually on topic!
    • Designmadeingermany – another design forum with an almost vanilla-like approach but with the 'category page' on the main page too.
    Sorry, all rather design-centred but you can suggest some to restore the balance :-)

    I'll add more as and when I dig them out.
  • uziuzi
    imho spotleid is awesome!
  • jakob_rjakob_r
    yes, spotleid really pushes it to the limit. The visual cues are sometimes so bare that I don't always know where to click without mousing over things. It'd drive 'normal' users nuts.
  • outbreakoutbreak New
    wow i really like that designmadeingermany approach too! so awesome.
  • uziuzi
    "Design made in Germany" rocks :) Good idea to sort discussions and categories...
  • STE7130STE7130
    spotleid :ouw :)) i love it!
  • ADMADM
    edited June 2006
    I did the design for the 3D Realms forums, would love your opinions on it :)

    Main Page:
    http://forums.3drealms.com/vb/index.php

    Topic:
    http://forums.3drealms.com/vb/showthread.php?t=18129

    Profile:
    http://forums.3drealms.com/vb/member.php?u=850
  • WallPhoneWallPhone
    @ADM: You know Joe Siegler?
  • ADMADM
    Yeah I do. Why's that?
  • WallPhoneWallPhone
    edited June 2006
    He's one of the first people I ever interacted with on the 'net. Way back when 3D Realms was known as Apogee and they were on AOL.

    Memories. Awesome design, BTW.

    *Goes off to play some Commander Keen*
  • VincentVincent
    Ouch, keen, that was the first game i ever finished when i was 7...
  • ADMADM
    Ahh cool :) Yeah they have definitely been around awhile.
  • mcneilpmcneilp
    I would like to use the samples mentioned above in an update to the Design Meltdown article if no one minds. I presume they don't. For the article I tried really hard to find some samples of Vanilla that have been customized, but I couldnt' find any. If anyone has some samples I would love to include them.
  • ADMADM
    No I wouldn't mind at all (if you were talking about the forum I linked to anyway heh), in fact I actually emailed you asking what you thought of it.

    As for a Vanilla sample you could use.. look no further then Bergamot's forum:
    http://pong.uwstout.edu/forum/

    Great example at what a customized version of Vanilla is.
  • jakob_rjakob_r
    sure, they are their own sites, just one's I'd noticed as being a little different. Nice to see you around here.

    There were some vanilla site mentioned recently in this thread, notably the Johnson&Johnson and the MAKE forums. Bergamot here has one with quite a different look (yep, ADM said that already), stuart (36-degrees.co.uk) has/had a nice looking vanilla theme (but can't find it off the cuff - maybe offline?), and in another thread this interesting one was posted too: http://www.designateonline.com/, which is also based on vanilla.
  • LoOkOuTLoOkOuT ✭
    Also, run a search for Jazzman's WoW site, which is heavily customised
  • MarkMark Vanilla Staff
    cssbeauty has also done some subtle but nice integration with the old version of Vanilla... http://www.cssbeauty.com/skillshare/
  • BenBen
    I like the designateonline.com one. Very good simple design. I also like how it works in 1 column.
This discussion has been closed.