How to modify "View" for "Start new Discussion" Page in custom theme

fraxture

I'm trying to figure out how to modify the html for the Start New Discussion Page. I thought the way to do this would be to copy the .tpl file for this page into my theme -- assuming that that page is rendered using a view. But I can't seem to find a corresponding .tpl file. I tried grep -lr 'Form_Discussion to try to locate the file, but got nothing.

hgtonight

Most views (other than the master views) are actually php files. They can generally be located by going to /applications/{app_name}/views/{controller_name}/{method_name}.php.

In your case, you are looking for the Vanilla application, on the Post controller, in the discussion method. So your view file is /applications/vanilla/views/post/discussion.php and you need to copy it into /themes/{your_theme}/views/vanilla/post/discussion.php. The next refresh should load the view from your theme at this point.

fraxture

Thank you @hgtonight! Unrelated, is there a good tutorial/discussion somewhere that defines the various functions/roles of these different "applications"? This is one part of Vanilla's architecture that is still mystifying to me.

hgtonight

I remember writing something about it on the community wiki, but here is a quick breakdown of the four applications bundled in the Vanilla download:

• Conversations: This handles the private messaging features. Your inbox, conversations, and new messages are all in here.
• Dashboard: This is the meat of the Vanilla application suite. It handles user registrations, notifications (activity), logging, profiles, searching, stats, importing, configuration, etc. It really does a lot, which is why it can't be disabled through the GUI.
• Skeleton: This is just an example application built on the Garden framework.
• Vanilla: This handles all of the forum specific stuff. Categories, discussions, posts, drafts, and moderation.

fraxture

@hgtonight said:
Most views (other than the master views) are actually php files. They can generally be located by going to /applications/{app_name}/views/{controller_name}/{method_name}.php.

In your case, you are looking for the Vanilla application, on the Post controller, in the discussion method. So your view file is /applications/vanilla/views/post/discussion.php and you need to copy it into /themes/{your_theme}/views/vanilla/post/discussion.php. The next refresh should load the view from your theme at this point.

Could it be that the way to do this is to drop the vanilla part in /themes/{your-theme}/views/vanilla/post/discussion.php? So: /themes/{your-theme}/post/discussion.php. That's the only way I've gotten it to work...

hgtonight

I know there is quite a bit of flexibility built in to the theme overrides, but I thought I had split them up into application folders. Strictly speaking, controller names are going to be unique, so /themes/{your_theme}/views/{controller_name}/{method_name}.php should suffice. As long as it is organized and works, I don't think there is an issue.

@tama, @phreak, and @vrijvlinder might be able to give you more insight on this.

vrijvlinder

You can modify the pages in a limited way. You can modify the controller/page however I have not had the need to do so since I rely on css and js mostly. If I knew what you wanted to do to the page maybe I could come up with a better way than hacking the master files.