How to become somewhat adept at modifying vanilla to meet your needs for free

peregrine · May 2014

you can use phpinfo for seeing your php settings or http://vanillaforums.org/addon/versioncheck-plugin (which has a viewable phpinfo) to see your php settings as well as plugin versions and vanilla version number.

helpful php and apache settings for vanilla

tip by:JasonBarnabeJasonBarnabe

who got this error

Call to undefined function mb_detect_encoding() in /mypath/library/vendors/simplehtmldom/simple_html_dom.php on line 988

I needed to reconfigure PHP with --enable-mbstring to make it work.

--enable-mbstring

solves some problems if view count is not incremented.

you could change this:

in php.ini

magic_quotes_gpc = Off

or via .htaccess

php_flag magic_quotes_gpc Off

rewriting urls: (pretty)

mod re-write enabled in apache.

a2enmod rewrite
and your .htaccess

Original

If you modify this file then change the above line to: # Modified

RewriteEngine On
# Certain hosts may require the following line.
# If vanilla is in a subfolder then you need to specify it after the /.
# (ex. You put Vanilla in /forum so change the next line to: RewriteBase /forum)
RewriteBase /vanilla
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php\?p=$1 [QSA,L]

in conf

$Configuration['Garden']['RewriteUrls'] = TRUE;

peregrine · May 2014

go here to troubleshoot

http://docs.vanillaforums.com/developers/troubleshooting/

if you see this screen

mattchatterley · June 2014

Installing Vanilla on Ubuntu (and possibly other distributions) - JSON!

JSON support for PHP is packaged separately on some systems and is required for Vanilla to work.

E.g. on Ubuntu, you will need to run:

apt-get install php5-json

(and then restart Apache - service apache2 restart)

Before Vanilla will work without displaying an error screen!

peregrine · September 2014

Ways you can help the community

Before you ask questions. Rad the messages at the top of the page, that pertain to posting.

Read the announcement and release information and readme before Installing software. check back periodically and re-read if its a new release

take a quick scan of the tutorials:

http://vanillaforums.org/categories/tutorials

and release
http://vanillaforums.org/categories/blog

and documentation
http://docs.vanillaforums.com/

try searching for your question first and if it is answered with "do this"
e.g. you should add it to custom.css or put this in config.php

search for the term you don't understand ie. custom.css instead of asking how do I do add to css or where is css, or where is the config.php because the question is probably already answered.

take some time from your busy day and read these as well. You'll be alot smarter and know more about your forum if you at least scan.

when-asking-a-question

http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/26710/why-adding-your-version-is-more-important-than-ever

http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/25115/how-to-how-can-a-new-user-better-help-the-community-

and a few other helpful links:

http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/23130/forum-post-ettikett-etiquette

http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/17954/food-for-thought-forum-etiquette

http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/23483/advice-for-all-those-just-starting-out-with-vanilla

http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/18015/how-to-ask-questions-on-the-internet

Don't be afraid to ask questions, however, you might try to research it first, since many times it is already answered on the forum.

say thank you if someone helps.
try to click awesome or insightful on the responders that try to help you if you learned something or it solved your problem
feel free to send donations to people who help you or who developed plugins you use (it is not mandatory, it is a nice touch though). If you want to send a donation, the worst that can happen is that the person says No thanks I don't want one.
try to participate in threads like this that help the community
http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/26703/plugins-themes-that-work-and-don-t-work-in-vanilla-2-1

peregrine · October 2014

good tutorial by @Adrian on theme customization
http://www.slideshare.net/VanillaForums/vanilla-theme-guide
or here for download: https://images.v-cdn.net/vfcom/docs/Vanilla-Forums-Theme-Guide.pdf

Note: Although it is written for hosted users, almost all of it pertains to open-source fundamentals of changing themes.

page 9 of the slideshow - does not pertain currently to open source version.
in other words you would need to manually change default.master.tpl , there is no "Customize Theme" option currently in the open source vanilla version 2.1.3

however the smarty tags and variables and uses of if conditional and InSection (pages 14-16 of slideshow) and pretty much all other tips and hints would be the same for open-source.

you could use @Bleistivt‌ 's easy to use plugin which is available here (great for testing as well).

http://vanillaforums.org/addon/cssedit-plugin

that is one analogous part of the hosted Customizing theme option.

and see this as well

http://vanillaforums.org/addon/annotatedcss2.1-theme

http://vanillawiki.homebrewforums.net/index.php/Custom_Themes_1