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Vanilla Evaluation
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    NikolayhgNikolayhg
     
    January 2011
    Here will come evaluations of the Vanilla Forum:

    Disadvantages:
    a) An already created non-parent category, cannot be made into a parent category. It cannot contain other sub-categories. This means we don't have the flexibility to adjust the forum as it grows. TODO: How to create a subcategory? I created one category, but can't find the way to assign subcategories ...

    b) Cannot insert an image from my computer! I only can embed the URL of an image. Case not covered: I have made a model of some OSE component and can't show to the people. TODO: is there a way to do this?
     
  • 14 Comments sorted by
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    admin
     
    January 2011
    Nikolay,

    I ask you to re-evaluate these points, as the "Admin" role was lacking some permissions. Also, the file upload plugin wasn't installed.

    I have installed the plugin and added you to the role "Super Admin", which can do just about everything.

    I have also enabled the use of tags, let's see its usefulness.

    Thank you!
     
    Attachments
    		 test-upload.txt 16B
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    admin
     
    January 2011
    Oh, Marcin told me he would like to have forums in a layout similar to that of RepRap: http://forums.reprap.org/
     
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    NikolayhgNikolayhg
     
    January 2011
    Okay Eli, I will re-evaluate.
    Btw, RepRap's forum is : http://www.phorum.org/ and it has similar hierarchical structure, as phpBB. We have to see whether we can do this with Vanilla.
     
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    elifarleyelifarley
     
    January 2011

    A comparison chart that might help:

     
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    anthony
     
    January 2011
    Hi all.
    I initially recommended vanilla based on polling my coworkers.  I work at a company that converts large sites off of their current platforms and onto ours.  Most of the conversions are away from vbulletin with phpbb in preparation.  My coworkers have done a lot of research on the question but I myself can only say I don't like vbulletin or phpbb very much based on the many random forums I've read that use them.  Vanilla seems better written so far but I haven't seen it nearly as much of course.
    Anyway, if there's anything super-critical that's missing, I could probably write it.
     
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    admin
     
    January 2011
    I have just installed a new version of Vanilla, which was released Jan. 18th.

    See their announcement at

    It includes better category and multi-level sub-category support. For more information, see
     
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    elifarleyelifarley
     
    January 2011
    From what I could learn, Vanilla seems to be more modular and easy to administer / customize.


    ---

    Vanilla has Smilies and Signatures as add-ons. I have used phpBB before and I can say Vanilla is much easier to theme and customize. There are some features you might be missing or see as must have, but its nothing a couple of moments of PHP scripting could not fix. The best bet would be to download it and try it out on a test subdomain. You will be surprised, I know I was...

    --

    ive used phpbb extensively in the past, and hands down vanilla is the better choice. like adrian said, give it a try and let us know what you think
     
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    SidnelsomSidnelsom
     
    February 2011

    Im starting to get used with Vanilla... maybe because i had so much trouble with phpBB. The way it organize the topics is interesting. And if its better developed, i think we should give it more time to adapt ourselves.

     
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    SidnelsomSidnelsom
     
    February 2011

    I would be happier with a theme like this: http://usergroups.vanillaforums.org/themes/simple/screenshot.png

    or this one: http://usergroups.vanillaforums.org/themes/default/screenshot.png

    i think its better to read.

     
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    elifarleyelifarley
     
    February 2011
    Interesting to note that Make Magazine uses Vanilla for their forums:

    http://forums.makezine.com/
     
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    Conor
     
    February 2011
    Constructive input: I find these forums ugly and hard to navigate.

    Actually constructive input: e107 is good open-source forum software
     
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    Conor
     
    March 2011
    There's phpBB as well. That's open-source, very popular and looks great.

    I really think we should change the forum software as soon as possible; it'll be harder to change the longer we leave it.
     
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    Wolfrick
     
    March 2011
    Who is "admin"?
     
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    MarcinMarcin
     
    February 2015
    Other posts on upgrading:



    I see that we have documentation here: http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Vanilla_Forums

    We should start with an in-depth evaluation of our Forum software. I am personally in favor of emulating successful open hardware communities such as RepRap - http://forums.reprap.org/

    Also, according to http://www.forum-software.org/forum-comparator/phpbb3-vs-vanilla - Vanilla is set up for medium size communities. We need to set up for scalability, ie, millions of users - and now would be a good time to do so if Vanilla is not scalable to millions. 

    I would also be in favor of some platform that has upvoting. Some posts are more valuable than others - and voting would allow people really key posts to be more visible.

    I think the forum should also have different views - such as Most Recent, Most Popular, By Topic, etc.

    For efficient communication, I think that there should be a hashtag or such so that a user is notified via email about a relevant post.

    I would like to add Mozilla Badges into the system - somehow where a person's profile is clear and their 'OSE Credit' is visible. This would allow us to develop our community, build our strengths - as we move forward.

    This of course can turn into a major project, so as we roll forward, we should identify our key specs, and implement a minimum viable product for that, while agreeing that many of the other desired functions may come from other platforms.

    Elifarley, can you comment on the exportability of OSE's existing forum into other platforms?
     
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