Vanilla Forums: Ask Away!

Hi All,

Not wanting to hijack other threads, I figure it would be best to create a new discussion. I work for Vanilla and would be happy to dispel any myths or answer any questions you have about the software (at least those I can). I also happy to run a couple of forums (before joining Vanilla). I am not here to only talk Vanilla, but I figure one thread couldn't hurt

 

What are some of the main features of Vanilla that distinguish it from other paid/open-source forum software?

What design patterns, if any, are used in the architecture?

From briefly looking at it, it has a stack overflow appearance. Does it support marking posts as answers/upvoting?

What kind of social integration, if any, is there?

If there is social integration, does it allow new threads to be posted to twitter/facebook pages?

 

Lots of good questions @getoutofmylaboratory. I should state that this is my opinion and does not necessarily reflect those of my employer (you know that legalese stuff). But here it goes:

I come from a place of using many other solutions. I have used SMF, Mybb, Vbulletin,Phpbb, Invision and have even dabbled with Xenforo and Discourse. I could write a whole essay on this, but I don't want to bore you. I think where Vanilla shines is in the simplicity, hence it's moniker. That's not to say it's not powerful. It's just doesn't require you to spend hours with dials and knobs in millions of sub menus. Everything that is added has a purpose, which is to make sure you community is compelling for engagement (like the gamification features :badges &reactions). I also think Vanilla has a lot of flexility in layout. This sometimes makes people have the wrong impression about the platform, because of the choices a forum owner might make. You can have discussions first or just categories with child categories or no categories at all. I have seen many unique ways people have used this. I cannot recall seeing a software making it this easy to play with it.

Another differentiator is the customizing of the theme. You can completely customize the look and feel. Not just the header and the footer, or some color of some links. Just take a look at the showcase on our website and you will see, if you have design skills (HTML, & CSS) you can make a rocking theme. We also offer a service to do it for you if you don't (cloud version only -- but in the open source community there are plenty of designers happy to help)

What I also appreciated was the ease of spam control and moderating. On the right host, and configurations I found little spam. I also found it easy to stay on top of my forums, even from my mobile device.

As for the cloud version, it has some bells and whistles, for example like email integration that allows you to reply from a thread via your email, API integrations, customizable theme (with version rollback) among other things. I think it's one of the few hosted solutions that actually gives you almost as much flexibility as the open-source version. I think the best part is, the price is inclusive. There are no surprises. What I hated with other "premium" solutions, was always finding out I needed to pay extra for a plugin after I already paid my fee. With Vanilla, you choose the plan, and you get all the items you signed up for. If new plugins come out, we aren't charging extra to access that plugin.

Not sure by what you mean design patterns. Vanilla is MVC, built on the Garden Framework, is that what you mean?

As for Q&A or StackOverflow type site, it can be done. There is up-voting, badges, choosing right answers (ect). The flexibility is there to make it how you want.

In terms of social, I think Vanilla shines. There is deep social Integration to allow you to login in with: Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Linkedin, Disqus (last two on cloud version). You can also have content pushed to Twitter and Facebook from the forum automatically (settings in backend for the admin to control).

We also offer a 30 day free trial on the cloud version, and users from the open source get free migration to hosted (in most cases). We can convert from vBulletin and other solutions to for a fee too. For the DIYers, the open source offers a porter plugin, that just got released. It can help you convert to Vanilla easily as well.

Phew, I guess this was an essay, sorry. I hope this helped. Let me know if you have any others questions...

 

I can't remember the last time I spent hours configuring my forum, but I think with the latest generation of forum software, that's not so much the case anymore. I've been using XF for a few years now, and I found its initial setup quite simple.

Are there still forum software out there that don't give this kind of flexibility?

What relevance does the right host have when it comes to spam control/moderation? Do they provide certain services?

Yeap, that's exactly what I mean.

So, if I understand correctly, up-voting, badges, and marking a post as answered are already included? Please elaborate on this more.

That is excellent.

I do and I did (see questions/comments above)

 

I must say XF is okay, with setup-- so I should be careful with blanket statements. I find Vanilla truly quick compared to some others I recently used: mybb and SMF (I think it’s always good to look at options). It took hours I might never get back. I guess it makes sense when you are used to a certain solution.

In terms of HTML flexiblity, some competitors (mostly paid premium or hosted) claim that they are customizable, but they don’t go beyond colours and backgrounds. Certainly not
customizable yourself.

As for spam, I am talking about the open source, self-hosted. We notice if people run on cheap shared hosts, they may may get spammed. If you use a good host or our cloud product,
spam is negligible. I just like the fact Askimet and Stopforumspam are baked in and easy to set up. It’s not an extra plugin.

In terms of the StackOverflow type of site: Users can ask a a question and users can vote up or down answers (reactions plugin on cloud version) and the questioner can choose the right answer. Not sure how much more details you need, but let me know if that is enough

 

What exactly is the vanilla forum cloud solution? What would I be getting in terms of server resources, if I purchase it? Is it a true cloud computing solution or is it more similar to VPS hosting?

Scott

 

It's a true cloud solution, not VPS hosting. The Vanilla Forum application has been modified for this setup for optimal performance. Sometimes people get confused and think we just offer the open source on a sever. It's cloud setup to handle the Vanilla Forums for optimal performance and speed. We have some very large customers using our solution right now, so we can scale pretty well.

 

I am biased as I helped to put together the showcase here: http://vanillaforums.com/showcase

Personally I really liked Marvel Superheroes, because ... Well who doesn't like Spider-Man, Ironman ect?

 

Does each customer get their own version of the software?

Scott

 

Each customer gets their own instance and they can customize as needed. They can also get a data dump, on request, when needed.

 

Well with the showcase forums you can see what a good theme can do if you take Marvel Superheroes vs Pebble you see that Pebble is standard theme but they changed a lot for making reading easier. But with Marvel Superheroes you would not know that its Vanilla forums that powered the site. This is why a default theme needs to show what the software can do.

 

That's it -- Vanilla can be customized to that extent-- you don't even recognize it. The default theme is pretty good as well and some do stay with the default. I was asked my favorite examples

 

Your missing the point a default theme needs to show off how good a forum is and what it can do. If i look at the default installment of the community Vanilla forum i'am looking at something that is not finished or even loaded.

Look at http://vanillaforums.org/categories its nice its not showing unnecessary stuff its very clean.

Now we go look at http://vanillaforums.org/categories/developers again nice same as above it shows what is needed.

Now we go where the biggest issue begins http://vanillaforums.org/discussion...der-object-demystification-help-assist-needed while there are break lines between posts it looks like one big text on screen. The lines between posts are not noticed when you are busy reading so you have no idea if you are reading a new post or not. Pebble has fixed this as follows http://forums.getpebble.com/discussion/9205/pebble-firmware-1-14-1 you can clearly see where a post stops and starts the avatar is placed outside the box because they wanted so that it seemed that some one was talking while not needed the discussion is now better to follow. By making a small adjustment the forum got even better. That's why the default theme needs to show of its potential.

 

yes, the thread display could use a little work, but it's not that bad.

 

Is each instance a different version or instance of the software? In other words, when an upgrade happens, does each instance have to be upgraded singularly?

Scott

 

The .org theme is not the default theme for the hosted version. It is a custom theme. We have a free 30 day trial if you want to see it in action -- or take a look at our Github repo for the soon to be released OS version.

All have the same core version, but there may certain customizations for customers we have made. We take care of the upgrades and test before.

 

I should add I am not here to sell Vanilla. I am just here to dispel myths which I see time to time. Personally I find this is the best quality admin board and that's why I am here.

As I said before I'm not here to talk Vanilla exclusively. I do moderate and own other forums -- and was happy to find this place. I just wanted to let you guys know I am here and was happy to talk about misconceptions.

Thank you all for being so welcoming

 

@Adrian - What, if any, importers from other software are available for Vanilla?

 

@getoutofmylaboratory good question

These are just some of the platforms that we can (have) migrated:

• phpBB
• vBulletin
• Invision Power (IPB)
• Simple Press
• bbPress
• SMF
• Jive
• GetSatisfaction
• Pluck
• Home-grown legacy software

I am sure there are many others we can do as long as we have the right data/db.