Even more (or is that less?) Vanilla

Michael3185

I particularly like the way Vanilla makes everything look so easily organised, and simple to navigate for those not used to forums. I've set up one forum for a closed community group, and another which will be public. I've found that there are a huge number of users who find anything other than Google confusing, and so am simplifying things for them as much as possible. This note might be useful for those in similar situations, or who wish to simplify even more. As you probably know, you can modify the conf/languages.php file to override some of the default settings. Adding the lines below makes all discussions appear identically in the lists, ie., no [Sticky, Closed] in front of the topic links. This makes it look much neater, and stops technophobes becoming confused by the labels. All they need to know is that if there's no comment input box then the topic is for information only, and also that such topics usually remain at the top of discussion lists. Much cleaner. The last line appears before the comment input box, and is changed to remove the repeated 'Enter your comment' prompt. It's also a little more encouraging to many readers I think, prompting them to share their thoughts and feelings rather than to just state opinions. (We get very touchy-feely in community work!) // Custom Language Definitions $Context->Dictionary['TextWhispered'] = ''; // Private $Context->Dictionary['TextSticky'] = ''; // Sticky $Context->Dictionary['TextClosed'] = ''; // Closed $Context->Dictionary['TextHidden'] = ''; // Deleted $Context->Dictionary['TextSink'] = ''; // Sunk $Context->Dictionary['TextBookmarked'] = ''; // Bookmarked $Context->Dictionary['TextPrefix'] = ''; $Context->Dictionary['TextSuffix'] = ''; $Context->Dictionary['AddYourComments'] = 'Add your thoughts';