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Facebook login UniqueID issue and text editor

edited June 2012 in Feedback

Look Guys,

sad to say but I'm researching other forum platforms at the moment. I really was attracted to the Vanilla overall design - I think it's a modern looking design with a great intutive interface for non technical posters or first time users. My few members like it also.

However, I have spent so much time solving issues after my initial install (several days ago) that I feel I need to cut and run now before my forum membership grows.

Some problems include:

Facebook login - tried the fixes searched the forum and web nothing including this "solved" thread worked http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/comment/135221#Comment_135221

Text editor - So many posts (many unanswered) of text editor issues including from me. These days people expect to write a comment in bold or italics without seeing or using code, upload an image easily, get a smiley, and post a link without issue.

**Mobile view **- mine didn't work without a fix and the first time this issue was reported was back in 2010. I shouldn't be apply this fix 2 years later on the new V2.

There's several more "bonks" aswell.

I hate to criticise because the people who design forums like this work hard to create these products and I don't like to sound ungreatful.

Bottom line - if the product isn't user friendly for site owners who don't have coding knowledge then it will always be a product with an elite user group and not one for the masses. And, if that is the goal then so be it.

Good luck with future developments - I'll keep a keen eye on new releases and reviews.

Answers

  • mcu_hqmcu_hq yippie ki-yay ✭✭✭
    edited June 2012

    Have you tried reporting the issues on github? You will be more likely to get it solved there than here.

    Feedback on this stuff is great, because it lets the developer(s) know of the problem. If no action is taken on it, then I would get worried, but what mostly happens is that people see a 'bonk' or whatever and move on. Not reporting problems can kill any project and hinder improvement....which is probably why the Vanilla team has open sourced their software. We are really just a bunch of testers. It is not a bad thing, but you should at least expect a response if there is a problem in the core and not a 3rd party plugin.

  • Hi mcu_hq,

    no I haven't reported the issues I'm having on github - had no idea what it was till I saw your link :)
    I'll check it out and try again. Calling us a "bunch of testers" I can understand that, fair enough. Maybe, I'll stick around and fight through these problems for awhile longer. To be honest, I don't like the look of other platforms (paid or free) Vanilla suits my audience but I just want to get back to writing rather than spending hours fixing bugs that's all.

    Thanks mate, I appreciate your response.

  • edited June 2012

    Ok, I just have to update this thread incase someone reads it.

    I got the facebook sign-in working - seems like you need to be careful when entering the secret id into the plugin settings to ensure there's not the slightest gap at the end. Even if it looks right, click on the secret id and place the curser at the rear of the number-press delete and ensure no gap. Then save and it should be good. Here's where I found the solution: http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/17376/solved-facebook-login-always-says-uniqueid-is-required

    Still working on the text editor WYSIWYG. Users are complaining of double postings, error messages, and extra code popping into the comments box. Hopefully, the plugin will be fixed or a better text editor plugin created soon.

    Getting there... :)

  • Unfortunately I wish to make this topic a summary topic of all the problems you have with Vanilla at the moment.
    (I cannot split topics, otherwise I would)
    I understand that you had a problem with faceBook, that's fine. I also understand your frustration, even your frustration of not being able to find posts that are marked [Solved] (by the way, I mark them 'solved' manually).

    I understand that you want(ed) to move to another forum software, things happen.

    What I do not understand is that you have (had) these problems and we didn't see that you had those problems. You were searching, but you didn't either post in an existing topic (careful, please don't 'bump' old topics to the top of the topics list) or you didn't even create your own perfect topic start (mentioning you searched and found thread (link), thread (link) and thread (link) but no answers.

    Even for your text editor problem (and let's call it wysiwyg editor for the moment) I don't know the exact issues you have with it. Do you use buttonbar? do you use tinyMCE? did you read about redactor plugin that's a recent topic? Explain what you need (new topic start please and many links to the unsolved threads if you can) and maybe we can advice you in the right direction.

    I actually now see your comment in the 'mobile view' thread. I'll post link to entire thread here: http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/16893/vanilla-on-mobile-phones and the link to a probable answer : http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/19374/my-forum-goes-bonk-when-applying-themes

    Don't forget that with the sentence 'my forum goes bonk' we cannot give you a solution. 'bonk' is actually a 'nice error screen' hiding the actual error message. By now you do now what to do when your site goes bonk. Yes it's technical, but that's almost the only thing we ask from a user when his site goes 'bonk'. If the user posts his details, the conclusion can be drawn what's wrong.

    Last thing. We love helping new users, we hope that they stick around and even help create Wiki pages (the faceBook Wiki page is what I hope that you will create). If you have a problem, post it. Don't bump ancient topics, just create a new topic explaining that you searched and found ... etc (see my text above). Explain which error message you (or your user) receive. Screenshots will help. Browser information will help. Sentences like 'Help! I have an error message', will not help. It's almost the same as 'when will that nice badges plugin come to the Free version of Vanilla?' (joke). Sure Vanilla is still in development, but regular users like me have the idea that the real bonk (and other) errors are limited to Smarty, directory problems, facebook unique id's, hosts not being found, etc. etc.

    Wiki page for Facebook plugin? :-)

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  • Crikey! I'm not sure if you're giving me a shalacking or a pat on the back mate :)

    No, you're right UnderDog I didn't start any of my posts with a link demonstrating which solved posts I had checked - lesson learnt (I'm a jubie, I'll get better). And, I thought by going to old posts and making a comment was the right thing to do rather than create new questions about the same topic but I undersand now.

    However, I did make a follow-up comment and post a link when I subsequently found a soultion to any of the questions I asked. So I should get some brownie points for that :)

    For the text editor question, I did detail the faults but I conceed that I never detailed what other plugins I had installed. I was using button bar as well as WYSIWYG (CLEditor) and emotify. Now, I disabled button bar and just have CLEditor with emotify. No others.

    The errors I see when making a comment are lots of code text (for want of a better description) and it happens with the Chrome browser. All the extra text and numbers issue only shows upon posting or preview of the comment (it looks like the code for all the tools in the editor somehow gets displayed along with the comment). I haven't seen this problem happen in ie or firefox. I had two users complain about this problem and of double postings and the word "error" pop up when they post - haven't confirmed their browsers. If I disable CLEditor the issues go away.

    There are a few other minor bugs I am researching at the moment but they aren't war stoppers and if I need to post the questions, thanks to you taking the time to educate me, I now know what to do.

    Yes, I was looking at changing platforms but I found it difficult to walk away from Vanilla because the user experience is so unique to all the others (which all navigate and look similar). Vanilla is way more intuitive for non-tech users, in my uneducated opinion anyway.

    I understand the developmental aspects of this project more now, also and I'm keen to stick around to help and watch it improve.

    Will checkout the Wiki page "thing" for the fb plugin and see if I can wrap my head around it. :)

  • sufficientme said:
    The errors I see when making a comment are lots of code text (for want of a better description) and it happens with the Chrome browser. All the extra text and numbers issue only shows upon posting or preview of the comment (it looks like the code for all the tools in the editor somehow gets displayed along with the comment).

    I even had that happen to me couple of weeks ago here on the forum.

    I think there's a bug report for that on gitHub.

    Thanks for taking the attempt to add the fb plugin Wiki page 'thing'

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