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Vanilla has had a great CMS for some time

DirtyDogDirtyDog ✭✭
edited November 2012 in Feedback

If you take a look at this page:

http://vanillaforums.org/addon/583/voting

you will see what is really a great CMS idea for a forum. Content item has comments that are linked to the forum. Forum discussion feed includes labels identifying that the discussions are related to a content item, and links back to that content item. Now just expand this idea a little bit to other usual CMS stuff like a gallery and you have a pretty kick-ass CMS with a great forum, and a centralized comment feed system in the "all discussions" forum view. Almost a perfect CMS for certain applications.

Alas if only it was a plugin or application....

Comments

  • I think you might be a bit confused over terminology. CMS=Content Management System. It about publishing and managing content at the framework level. Like wordpress. Vanilla's main admin interface is the dashboard.

    I don't think Voting should be become CMS, it is bit like wagging the dog by the tail.

    There are various CMS, options. What you are talking about is specifically user features and content related to the forum. These are best done through different plugins.

    Other forms of content could be done through Custom pages, VanillaCMS, and other framework like wordpress (my preference).

    It is about using the right tool for the job.

    grep is your friend.

  • AnonymooseAnonymoose ✭✭
    edited November 2012

    Without built-in caching, for example, like MediaWiki has, Vanilla is a poor CMS.

    Graden, however, is an excellent framework, and Vanilla's capabilities as a forum are very nice.

    Not sure what being a CMS has to do with the voting plugin.

  • @Anonymoose said:
    Not sure what being a CMS has to do with the voting plugin.

    DirtyDog was probably talking about the addons system.

    Add Pages to Vanilla with the Basic Pages app

  • @x00 yeah I don't know about the voting thing? Anyway, I've done extensive work with CMS software and have done some complicated forum/CMS integrations and its always a bloated mess with mismatched styles that is very difficult to support and upgrade over time. There is no reason why Vanilla couldn't be a nice CMS with a few well-thought-out plugins.

    Regarding caching and other more technical issues - it's true a Vanilla CMS wouldn't have that kind of functionality (at least at first) - but what I'm talking about is how content is presented and how users interact with that content - which are the most important aspects of a social CMS.

  • Vanilla is a forum. Garden is the framework.

    Please feel free to develop whatever it is you want.

    I already mentioned there is a Vanilla CMS look in Addons. The name is a misnomer becuase it is really Garden CMS.

    grep is your friend.

  • @x00 said:
    Vanilla is a forum. Garden is the framework.

    Please feel free to develop whatever it is you want.

    I already mentioned there is a Vanilla CMS look in Addons. The name is a misnomer becuase it is really Garden CMS.

    Heh thanks for the permission. No need to get cranky. The CMS in the addons is nothing like what I have described.

  • x00x00 MVP
    edited November 2012

    I take you point about mismatched style, however personally, I use the closest to the job, then adapt or add functionality. Actually sometimes contrast is better then trying to make everything he same. However often clients want that same look. I help them emulate it, but sometimes they get fixated some kind of bridges, even thought the performance is often worse.

    There is no "bridges", what they mean is a hack. I use hacks to meld frameworks, but it for people who know what they are doing only. They can is be really badly done. The Vanilla Pagline integration is pretty bad. it force loads Worpress ontop of Vanilla, which is an overhead which can decrease performance considerably.

    What Garden offers is an incestuous relationship between applications, plugins and themes. So you might not be aware that many of the feature that are used the forum actually reside in the Dashboard app, Vanilla fleshes out the forum features, Conversations and plugins add the additional functionality, but what you have is something fairly seamless.

    So it is a flexible framework from which to work with sure. On the other hand it is early days, a framework that has had many year development is at an advantage, even if the concept is not as elegant. So that is why for something that is not currently available, if you want it now use the closest thing IMO. if you are developing for the future, all power to you.

    Remember ideas are cheap.

    grep is your friend.

  • @x00 said:

    Remember ideas are cheap.

    Almost a great discussion worthy of further discourse but you had to get that last little barb in. Cranky.

  • I'm not actually being cranky, if I came across that way, sorry. This is how I talk. I'm blunt to the point.

    Ideas are cheap, you make them happen. That is a great philosophy.

    You have the vision, only you know what you mean. The rest is semantics.

    grep is your friend.

  • I think know what you meant now.

    You are talking about Autonomous Content Management, which is using the algorithms making use of member behaviour to determine the value of content.

    I was thinking more along the lines of traditional administrative CMS.

    Voting is a good example of what you are talking about. Reactions Insightful is another good example. I creates something called Requests, which will be released eventually, it works ins similar way to voting except on the discussions level where you have requests categories, and voting is linked to Karma.

    The Autonomous Member Based CMS is something that may need tweaking to get the best out of it, the right algorithm for you site.

    grep is your friend.

  • Try searching for "Autonomous Content Management" on Google. It is not a widely used term.

  • I know I just made it up. :D

    grep is your friend.

  • And I'm the Automoose Content Master.

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