Vanilla forums open source broken on wpengine

martinjlogan

I get the following error when I try to upload via git:

remote: - info: checking wp-content/plugins/vanilla/themes/mobile/views/discussions/helper_functions.php ...
remote: - failed: we detected a PHP syntax failure.

Any help much appreciated

vrijvlinder

Please tell us how you installed Vanilla and Wordpress.

They need to be in separate directories to start with. What version of Vanilla ?

What theme ?

How about a link ? Hard to guess ...

x00

As far as I know it has never been tested on this platform, but it has been tested on other git based PaaS, albeit not officially supported.

As far as I'm concerned any PaaS it is up to those implementing it to get it working. I don't know enough about wpengine to know, what is at issue, but it appears to be a its own syntax checker.

Make sure you have actually got a complete version of vanilla. Then try pushing. If it doesn't work investigate how to turn their syntax check off.

martinjlogan

I downloaded vanilla from the vanilla forums open source download site. I then unzipped it and placed it into the plugins directory of my wordpress install. Then went to do a git push and, I got the syntax error. I noticed that in the file where it stopped a trailing ?> was missing. I fixed that, and still no joy. It might be worth a check of the current package to make sure there are not additional syntax errors.

vrijvlinder

Yes you installed it wrong.

You need to install vanilla in it's own folder not inside wordpress.

Vanilla is an application not a plugin.

Put Vanilla in it's own directory and call it forum or whatever...

Then if you want to embed it in wordpress use the plugin . But first install this properly.

x00

it stopped a trailing ?> was missing

you should not put ?> unless there is static output after this point. People mistakenly close php, when if there is any whitespace at the end it can result in whitespace errors, when nothing intended to be outputted after this point.

If php doesn't need to be closed, then always leave off the ?> save yourself some headache.

php will exit at the end of the file, it doesn't need to be closed.

x00

I just noticed, must be loosing my nack.

Vanilla is not a wordpress plugin, so putting it in the worpress plugin directly will not work.

Vanilla runs on it own framework and need to be installed separately.

Where did you get the impression it was a wordpress plugin? it is nothign to do with wordpress.

vrijvlinder

@x00 Vanilla is not a wordpress plugin, so putting it in the worpress plugin directly will not work.

Precisely what I said , glad you agree as well ...I think he mistakenly thought he was installing the Vanilla wp plugin into wordpress.