What are YOU using Vanilla for? [and where]

rdlomas

I love vanilla and I was just wondering what everyone here is using vanilla for? (i.e. subject of your forum, link so we can see it) I always love checking out designs, especially if you've made your own for Vanilla! If you'd like to share, I'd love to have the links posted here so we can check them out! Thanks!

Jake

Me, I haven't actually got a Vanilla installation online. Im currently testing and using it on my localhost. Eventually Im going to be using Vanilla for a gaming or a web design discussion website! But I am looking forward to seeing what others use it for...

jimw

I don't have it online yet, either. I am trying to get it to the point where I can use it in the classes I will teach this fall for Microsoft Office apps and the Internet.

Jake

Sounds cool, will that all be online then? Or hosted on some sort of intranet?

litbynature

here is a list of vanilla projects:

http://lussumo.com/community/discussion/957/the-official-shameless-plug-thread/#Item_0

garymardell

i currently have a clan forum up www.mad4gaming.co.uk Feel free to post if you so wish.

jimw

It's not going to be online. I hope to use the forum for q&a, discussions, homework, etc. I've been teaching these classes for a long time now (10 years). I wanted to get a place where the students could ask questions and get into "how-to" discussions. I've tried doing this with WordPress. I'm also looking at setting up a wiki. Each has it's benefits.

iambigred

At my university we have a rather unique collegiate structure and I'm the webmaster for my college. The forum is invaluable for applicants or freshers asking questions.

There are currently 1,264 registered users although I imported the vast majority the users from a LDAP server directly into the users database table, I then wrote a script to generate random passwords and send a email to user telling them about the new forum with their username (based on email address) and their random password. I need to do a cleanup sometime to get rid of the people who have never signed in.

The forum is here www.cuths.com/forum. It's hosted on an entire cluster of webservers so it should be blazingly fast, however the SQL server is painfully slow, crippling it. Hopefully we're going to move it across to the Student Union server soon.

Alex

jimw

The classes I teach are for the local adult communities. They are non-credited. The students are mostly people needing to get back into the workforce, or wanting to change jobs, or are senior citizens who want to use the computer they got more effectively. My audience is different than college students. It's a challenge, but very worthwhile. I love to help people.

rdlomas

@ libbynature: Thanks for that list!

litbynature

...very welcome.

Burke Prefect

I had it installed at http://board.godswitch.com but last night I ripped my hosting package out and slotted up a cheaper one, and have yet to restore the board, but there wasn't much on there. I'll be reinstalling it later w/ some bb code extensions to satiate the whinings of my phpbb/invision-addled visitors.

Jazzman

I'm using Vanilla for my World of Warcraft forums, and I use it just to program extensions :P

gasface

local community site

http://bayridgetalk.com/

Burke Prefect

So how well are you guys seeing people assimilating to Vanilla from things like phpbb, invision?

Jake

Im living proof, I used to use Invision for everything, moment I saw Vanilla I started drooling and haven't stopped since! Its the best thing EVER!

Burke Prefect

Vanilla > SlicedBread

Jefftheman45

I used to have one on my localhost server (offline) but it just wasn't working that well for me. All of the stylesheet links and such were broken because I installed it to localhost/testsite/vanilla and accesssed it through localhost:9090. I couldn't seem to fix it, either. Oh well.

lech

Currently using it locally for world domination! as well as stylings and such :)

Mr K

I run http://www.studiowhiz.com an online community for web developers etc Over the 5 years this site has been alive we started with YaBB, then bought a 1 year license of vBulletin, after that we switched to the then new Invision Power Board. We used that up untill last week when we suffered a major hacking via the forums. We've also used a number of different systems to power our content delivery (WordPress, InvisionBlog, Moveable Type, Custom Built). Now I've switched to 2 copies of Vanilla to drive everthing. Our forums a nolonger public, instead they are INVITE only and are located at http://www.studiowhiz.net/ the other version of Vanilla has been modified (not too many hacks, mainly just changes to the theme) to become a content/blog system located at http://www.studiowhiz.com/ What do people (member) think? Most of them are loving the new system ... I've not had any complaints (except for me mucking up the CSS for a bit) ... From a hosting point of view .. Vanilla is so much lighter on the server, and seems to be very robust and secure. From a developer/designer point of view, it is very powerful and flexible through the theme system - however if I have any complaints ... it's not easy for php noobies to modify, and the CSS is not of the faint of heart! Do I recommend it ... DAMN STRAIGHT! It is very good & Mark has done a fantastic job!

Jake

Really cool setup you got there, its pretty damn fantastic! I think your right it does look like a blog.