Blog - Vanilla Community

How to Ask Questions on the Internet

Todd — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:42:59 +0000

When asking a question on the Internet always assume that someone else has the same question as you. I like to refer to this as the golden rule of asking questions on the Internet.

What does this mean? Well, like all golden rules it can mean many things, but there are two direct implications of this rule.

Someone may have asked your question before so you may want to search for an answer before asking again.
Someone may ask your question in the future so you may want to ask your question in a way that will help the next person find it.

Why would you want to ask a good question at all?

When you ask a question on the Internet you are asking people, often complete strangers, to give you help for free. Guess what? This is okay. People should like helping people for free.

However, when you ask a question you can help pay back this free help by putting in a bit of thought into your question.

Things to think about when asking a question

Try and phrase the title of your question as a complete question. Just reading the title of your question should give people a good idea of what your problem is. There should be little need to read the description except for specifics and clarification. If you phrase your question well, people with expertise will be more likely to click through and answer.
Put specific error messages in your question. If your application is giving you a specific error message then this is what most people will be searching for when trying to solve their problem. If the error message is long then include a bit of it in the question title and the rest of it in the first paragraph of your full question.
Ask one question at a time. If you ask a list of questions in one post you may get only partially answered and then have the rest of your questions will get lost.
If you find the answer to your own question then answer it. When someone else finds your question, there's nothing more frustrating than seeing something like "nevermind, solved it!" The absolute least you can do is answer a question that you once expected someone else to answer.
Once your question is answered, avoid asking followups. If you have a different, question then ask a new question. Asking it under an already answered question just makes it get lost for other people.
Have an open mind about your question. You may not get the exact answer you want but it could still be the answer to your question. The goal is getting an acceptable answer to a question and then moving on.

Have you Noticed the new Like Button on vanillaforums.org?

Todd — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:29:55 +0000

You may have noticed that posts on this site have three new buttons: Like, Spam, and Abuse. These are all part of a plugin we are testing that we think will eventually be a core feature of Vanilla.

Originally we had voting set up on these forums. By and large the feature was ignored. We have our ideas why we think this is, but we really think that having some sort of community driven validation and moderation mechanism is important.

I'm hoping that the current system we have will be a much better solution, but I want to hear your thoughts and comments about it. I don't think it's done yet and I really want to have it be a well rounded feature set before releasing it.

So, I encourage you all to use the plugin on this site. Please don't randomly click the buttons, but if you like someone's post then click like. If you see spam, report it. If you see a post that is downright abusive then report the abuse.

Let us know what you think.

Vanilla 2.0.18.4 Released

Todd — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:46:44 +0000

This release fixes a security hole in Vanilla that can leave your forum open to XSS attacks. There are also a couple of other minor fixes included with this release. We strongly recommend updating to this version of Vanilla.

Changelog:

2012-03-26 Partially fix #1330 by checking the format field on models.
2011-09-28 Fixed canonical url in /categories/*.
2012-03-16 Fixed canonical url bug when looking at a category.

If you are running Vanilla 2.0.18+ and want the files to fix the security hole you can do the following:

Download Vanilla 2.0.18.4
Replace the following files on your site:
- applications/dashboard/locale/en-CA/definitions.php
- library/core/class.validation.php
- library/core/functions.validation.php

Security vulnerability: Flagging plugin (2.0.18.2 and earlier)

Lincoln — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:39:06 +0000

There is an XSS vulnerability in Vanilla, version 2.0.18.2 and earlier. This only effects the Flagging plugin. Anyone using the Flagging plugin should immediately upgrade to 2.0.18.3 or make this change: Fix for Flagging XSS.

2.0.18.3 is now available.

Vanilla 2.0.18.2 release

Lincoln — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:18:29 +0000

This release brings minor tweaks, and is likely to be the last update to the 2.0.18 branch. If you're happily using 2.0.18.1 already with no issues, I would regard this upgrade as optional.

Changelog:

2011-12-21 Fixed bug where Gravatar was using name instead of email for Vanillicons
2011-12-20 Pass the real folder name to autoloader instead of app name
2011-10-31 Fixed misformed options array in entry/connect
2011-12-05 vBulletin import: Use new profile custom prefix
2011-11-11 vBulletin import: Support ProfileExtender for seamless future transition
2011-11-11 Importer: vBulletin only needs the Photo field
2011-12-02 Replace periods with dashes in URLs
2011-12-02 Fix checkcolumn for jQuery 1.6.
2011-11-29 Added code to help with Win7 servers that do not allow renaming over an existing file.
2011-11-27 Fixed bug where SSO would not work with non-English translations.
2011-11-01 Embed: Better place to end execution of local.js
2011-11-01 Embed: Fixes force redirect
2011-11-09 Fixes Tagging issue where tags could disappear. Remove tag module from discussion.
2011-11-08 Setup: Fixes malformed HTML (no /form on 2 page)

VanillaCMS 1.0 beta 2 is out!

Sheriffen — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:41:14 +0000

Christmas is early this year!

I've worked hard the last weeks trying to fix all the bugs and at the same time adding a lot of functionality. Now I've come as far as calling it beta 2, thank you all for positive feedback (keeps me going) and for testing. My big hope is that some of you guys would also like to help out building this application!

CHANGELOG

1.0b2 (beta 2) - Completely rewritten Custom Fields (PageMeta). Now includes core modules like GuestModule and Recent Discussions - Updated the ckeditor and reconfigured and updated kcfinder for image uploads - Fixed search function for pages - Added a lot of page templates and Core reserved urlcodes. - Tons of bugfixes! - Stability fixes

1.0b1 (beta 1) - Initial release

Download here -> http://vanillaforums.org/addon/vanillacms-application

or find the latest code on github: https://github.com/JockeGustin/vanillacms/

ButtonBar v1.1 released!

Tim — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 16:55:52 +0000

This is the first release of ButtonBar, which places several simple formatting buttons above the Post Reply and New Discussion textareas, allowing easy access to HTML, BBCode and Markdown formatting.

The bar automatically uses your forum's default InputFormatter for New Discussions, and the Format of the Discussion in question when used in the Post Reply window.

Please report any bugs. Thanks!

Vanilla 2.0.18 final release

Lincoln — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 13:31:15 +0000

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new stable version: 2.0.18. I strongly recommend upgrading from 2.0.17 immediately. Download 2.0.18

UPDATE: We released 2.0.18.1 on 7 Nov at 10:20pm EST to correct bugs effecting the some of the social connect options, mass-approval of applicants, and some aesthetic problems. We recommend all users upgrade to the new version. The link above will automatically give you the new version.

Changes in 2.0.18.1 (patch for 2.0.18):

c662ce Fixed bug in the Twitter plugin.
c6fbc3 Fixed some bugs with connecting.
e3d7ec Prevent too many "photo changed" activities.
ab2aa9 Added the ability to include announcements in the /categories/discussions page.
bc6747 Fix so people with custom domains don't see strange text.
6e3a27 Fixes mass-approve/deny for Applicants
2abf52 Correct title on /categories pages
bc0d64 Fixed jQuery syntax errors.

What's new since in Vanilla 2.0.17:

Added moderation tools, bans, and delete/edit logging
Asynchronous notifications (Growl-like popups)
Advanced category management
IP logging in core
Our new Split/Merge plugin comes included
HUNDREDS of bug fixes!
More highlights for developers are in the changelog

NOTE: The following plugins must be updated to their latest versions: Voting, Gravatar (included in core)

Helpful stuff:

Do not report bugs here; please use our GitHub issue tracker. Search first to avoid duplicates.

Vanilla 2.0.18 RC3 released

Lincoln — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:04:34 +0000

This is NOT a stable release. BACKUP YOUR DATABASE AND CONFIG.PHP FILE BEFORE UPGRADING. This is a release candidate for testing purposes only.

Download it here

Changes since 2.0.18RC2:

2011-10-29 Fixed bug with restoring discussions from the spam log.
2011-10-28 Fixed bug where hashtag links were being double encoded.
2011-10-28 Fixed another error that may cause SQL pollution.
2011-10-27 Flagging: Use CategoryDropDown, closes #1183
2011-10-27 Disabled Popup functionality in IE7 or less. Closes #1184
2011-10-23 Fixed bug when restoring log entries. Check deletion of spam entires and moderation entries.
2011-10-21 Fixed user sort Url.
2011-10-23 Fixed bug that prevented OpenID from working.
2011-10-19 Added webos to mobile user agents.
2011-10-19 Fixed bug in tagging plugin that overwrites the sort improperly.
2011-10-06 Fixed bug in StringBeginsWith() and StringEndsWith() when trimming short strings.
2011-10-23 Fixed bug where CategoryModel::JoinUserData() can pickup/pollute Gdn::SQL().
2011-10-21 Fixed bug where blank tag is created.
2011-10-12 Fixed comment embedding to not turn a valid categoryID of zero into null
2011-10-10 Prevented SQL pollution when querying the category list.
2011-10-10 Prevented sql pollution in the user meta model.
2011-10-09 Fixed AllViewed issue in MySQL strict mode

We'll do more release candidates if necessary.

Here's the usual details:
=======================

Reporting Issues

DO NOT REPORT ISSUES ON THE COMMUNITY FORUM

Please report all issues on the GitHub Issue Tracker. Remember to do a quick search through the issues to make sure your issue has not already been added or resolved.

Keeping track of new releases

You can follow our releases by pointing your favorite RSS reader at:
http://www.vanillaforums.org/addon/vanilla-core/follow.rss
This feed will automatically update whenever we release a new version of Vanilla Core.

Troubleshooting the Vanilla 2 Installation

If you run into any issues during the installation, you may see the "Bonk" error screen. In order to get past this screen, you can add the following line to your conf/config.php file:
$Configuration['Debug'] = TRUE;

This will show you a more detailed screen of information about the actual problem you've encountered. Please include this information when reporting issues (copy & paste exact errors, please).

Upgrading Vanilla 2.0 Forums

Back up your database.
Back up all of your existing files.
Unarchive the new files and copy them over your existing files. Make sure that your hidden files (ie .htaccess) are copied to your server.
Make sure the conf/config.php from your old version has been copied over to the new version.
Delete all *.ini files in your cache/ folder
Navigate to the page in your forum that updates your database: www.yourforum.com/utility/update (or www.yourforum.com/index.php?p=/utility/update)
Visit your forum and test away!

For more help with upgrading, check out the Upgrade Documentation and the Upgrading Tips and Tricks thread.

Vanilla 2.0.18 RC2 released

Lincoln — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 01:02:31 +0000

This is NOT a stable release. BACKUP YOUR DATABASE AND CONFIG.PHP FILE BEFORE UPGRADING. This is a release candidate for testing purposes only. I skipped releasing RC1 because I had 1 more patch to pull and messed up the git tag. :)

Download it here (VIA GITHUB - Do not use the Addons section on this site currently).

Thanks to everyone who filed issues against beta 4! It was very much appreciated. Special thanks to jspautsch, sbenes, zamrih, and petitben for contributing fixes since beta 4 that made it into this release candidate.

Changes since 2.0.18b4:

Fixed issue where user's IP address was returned by API
Fixes drag-n-drop category organization
Fixes setting of the Homepage view in Dashboard
Fixes profile to not ask for old password if one was never set (via SSO)
Fixed issue where footer would be hidden when clicking "More discussions"
Enabled "Mark All Viewed" plugin in mobile
Fixed user meta data bug that could result in data loss
Fixed where advanced notification permissions weren't checked correctly
Fixed case where bookmarked discussion would not show in module
Fixed support for PHP 5.2 on Windows (fnmatch)
Fixes SignIn target
Changed default: Ability to view other members' private conversations is now 'off' and require adding Conversations.Moderation.Allow = TRUE to config and manually giving permission Conversations.Moderation.Manage to allowed roles.
Adds 'AfterActivityQuery' event
Turns off Embed by default
Adds translatable strings
Misc framework fixes
Adds some inline documentation

We'll do more release candidates if/as necessary.

Here's the usual details:
=======================

Reporting Issues

Keeping track of new releases

Troubleshooting the Vanilla 2 Installation

If you run into any issues during the installation, you may see the "Bonk" error screen. In order to get past this screen, you can add the following line to your conf/config.php file:
$Configuration['Garden']['Debug'] = TRUE;

This will show you a more detailed screen of information about the actual problem you've encountered. Please include this information when reporting issues (copy & paste exact errors, please).

Upgrading Vanilla 2.0 Forums

Back up your database.
Back up all of your existing files.
Unarchive the new files and copy them over your existing files. Make sure that your hidden files (ie .htaccess) are copied to your server.
Make sure the conf/config.php from your old version has been copied over to the new version.
Delete all *.ini files in your cache/ folder
Navigate to the page in your forum that updates your database: www.yourforum.com/utility/update (or www.yourforum.com/index.php?p=/utility/update)
Visit your forum and test away!

For more help with upgrading, check out the Upgrade Documentation and the Upgrading Tips and Tricks thread.

Vanilla 2.0.18 (beta 4) released

Lincoln — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 22:47:48 +0000

We got a little sidetracked during our beta release process for 2.0.18. No worries! We're back on track for release now. Ignore that this is beta 4 - treat this as a first beta. Lots of features got added, and lots of stuff got changed.

I can't provide a responsible changelog. You'll need to check the GitHub commit log for that (and a hearty cheers to those of you who follow along and regularly pull and file new issues - much appreciated!)

Does this release fix every known bug? Nope! As usual, this is a nice mix of fixes and new stuff. If you have a pet bug that needs fixin', get involved on GitHub and send us a pull request.

Thanks for all the help over the summer! Hopefully we'll resume our faster release schedule now. Expect a VERY short beta / release candidate period before our final release, so get your bugs filed on GitHub soon.

Here's the usual details:
=======================

Download it from the addon site!

Build History

2.0.18b1 - Added moderation, bans, logging. Fixed 50+ bugs.
2.0.18b2 - Fixed 12 bugs.
2.0.18b4 - Restarting beta with tons of changes and fixes.

Reporting Issues

Keeping track of new releases

Troubleshooting the Vanilla 2 Installation

If you run into any issues during the installation, you may see the "Bonk" error screen. In order to get past this screen, you can add the following line to your conf/config.php file:
$Configuration['Garden']['Debug'] = TRUE;

This will show you a more detailed screen of information about the actual problem you've encountered. Please include this information when reporting issues (copy & paste exact errors, please).

Upgrading Vanilla 2.0 Forums

Back up your database.
Back up all of your existing files.
Unarchive the new files and copy them over your existing files. Make sure that your hidden files (ie .htaccess) are copied to your server.
Make sure the conf/config.php from your old version has been copied over to the new version.
Delete all *.ini files in your cache/ folder
Navigate to the page in your forum that updates your database: www.yourforum.com/utility/update (or www.yourforum.com/index.php?p=/utility/update)
Visit your forum and test away!

For more help with upgrading, check out the Upgrade Documentation and the Upgrading Tips and Tricks thread.

Vanilla 2.0.18 (beta 2) is now available

Tim — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 15:13:55 +0000

Vanilla 2.0.18b2 is now available!

Beta Version?

We've been working hard on the latest point release of Vanilla and the new version is right around the corner.

In the past we've always just released versions and fixed late-breaking bugs with quick patches. This time we've decided to do a beta release to help get the bugs fixed in a more controlled way.

In order for the beta release to be successful though we need your help with testing. We've been running this code on a lot of our hosted sites for nearly a month now, but we know that additional issues always crop up when the release goes out into the wild.

Here is what we need.

Try out this version on your site. If you are planning on upgrading then give the beta a try. This is the best way to make sure that we don't miss anything.
Use the issue tracker. Github has recently done an amazing job overhauling their issue tracker. It has really helped us manage the issues and schedule them to a particular release.

Download it from the addon site!

This is a feature-filled release which also contains a ton of bugfixes for issues in the 2.0.17 family.

New Features

Moderation Tools! Vanilla received some brand new, much needed tools for managing discussions (merge/split) and users (community reporting, user infractions).
Improved Bans! Vanilla now supports a proper ban list, with Name, Email and even IP bans.
Edit/Delete Log! Moderators/Admins can now review post edits and even deletions. This is especially useful when dealing with disputes or punishment.
Inform Messages! Snazzy new growl-like popup information boxes have replaced most of the old form feedback messages. Watch out for them in the bottom left of your screen!

Bug Fixes / Changes

Fixed bug #947 - Split/Merge plugin permissions awry?
Fixed bug #939 - Theme preview broken in 2.0.18b1
Fixed bug #938 - Paging not working when 'don't use categories' is checked
Fixed bug #936 - Relaxed category URL character restrictions
... and 8 other issues

Build History

2.0.18b1 - Added moderation, bans, logging. Fixed 50+ bugs.
2.0.18b2 - Fixed 12 bugs.

Reporting Issues

Keeping track of new releases

Troubleshooting the Vanilla 2 Installation

If you run into any issues during the installation, you may see the "Bonk" error screen. In order to get past this screen, you can add the following line to your conf/config.php file:
$Configuration['Garden']['Debug'] = TRUE;

This will show you a more detailed screen of information about the actual problem you've encountered. Please include this information when reporting issues (copy & paste exact errors, please).

Upgrading Vanilla 2.0 Forums

Back up your database.
Back up all of your existing files.
Unarchive the new files and copy them over your existing files. Make sure that your hidden files (ie .htaccess) are copied to your server.
Make sure the conf/config.php from your old version has been copied over to the new version.
Delete all *.ini files in your cache/ folder
Navigate to the page in your forum that updates your database: www.yourforum.com/utility/update (or www.yourforum.com/index.php?p=/utility/update)
Visit your forum and test away!

For more help with upgrading, check out the Upgrade Documentation and the Upgrading Tips and Tricks thread.

Vanillaforums.org has been Updated

Todd — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 22:49:04 +0000

We've been working our butts off over the past couple of months improving the core of Vanilla and we are almost ready to start rolling those changes out in version 2.0.18 with a few new plugins too. Some of these changes have worked their way into our very own support community here and I thought it would be a good idea to give a summary of what we've done.

Voting is Out, Questions are In

We've had a voting system for a while now, but we've really noticed that it hasn't been used all that much by the community. We're not exactly sure why that is as we haven't received much feedback either.

Since the community support site's primary purpose is to answer questions, we decided to add our new Q&A system to the forum. When you go to start a discussion you can now designate it as a question. When your question gets answered you are encouraged (i.e nagged) to either accept or reject the answer.

Our goal is to really try and enforce a bit of a social contract here. If you want a question answered then you have a small job too: you have to let people know that your question has been answered by accepting the answer. Not much work, but it will allow others know when things are answered as well as allow us at Vanilla HQ what we should read and what we can gloss over.

Categories are Back

We've had categories disabled for a little under a year now, but based on community feedback we feel it's time we brought them back. The community has enough activity now that it'll be nice for some people with more limited time to concentrate on just one or two categories.

We've started off with just a few categories as we truly believe that over-categorization is a cardinal sin of forums. Here's a quick run down of how we think the categories should be used.

Questions

This is the category that should be used to ask most questions.

Feedback

Got some feedback or feature idea? Talk about it here. I'd love to see people spit balling some extra fun ideas here.

Developers

This is a category specifically for people that are writing code for and with Vanilla right now. You're going to need permission to post here as I want this to be a place where people that are doing stuff can talk with other people that are doing stuff. If you want to post in this category just ask, but give a reason too.

Localization

We want to see Vanilla translated into as many other languages as possible. However, since people that do this are usually writing in other languages we think it's best to give them their own area.

Blog

This category isn't a real blog (yet), but I really want a place to post little tips and tricks and whatnot. I actually struggle with writing so I figure if I can just post a paragraph here and a paragraph there I can actually get some info out there. Vanilla can do a tonne of cool things that you probably don't even know about.

How do I change the html of a page in my theme?

Todd — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 10:42:33 +0000

A lot of people ask questions of the sort "how do I change this text" or "that html?" Most all of the html that Vanilla displayed is stored in views and the beauty of these views is that they can be overridden in your theme.

Here's how you do it, and I'll use the example of changing your discussion's rss feed.

First you have to create a theme. Let's say you name your theme MyTheme.
You need to find the view that displays the rss feed. In this case it's in /applications/vanilla/views/discussions/index_rss.php.
Copy the view's file to your theme's folder. It has to have the same subpath as the original view. So in this case you'd copy the file to /themes/MyTheme/views/discussions/index_rss.php.
Edit the copy of the view and your theme and it will display your changes.

How do I find the view I want to override?

If you want to find the view to override you usually just look at the url of the application. So in our example above you know that to view the rss of the discussions you go to /discussions/feed.rss. You need to know that Vanilla is the application all discussion and comment related activity Then you can just look on the /applications/vanilla/discussions folder to see what view might be appropriate.

The Ultimate Theme Guide for Designers

digibomb — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 11:54:22 +0000

The Vanilla community continues to grow and thrive and with that comes lots of questions, and the BIGGEST question is “How do I design a theme in Vanilla?”

I’ve spent the last week trying to answer this question by putting together a guide that illustrates the design approach/process I take when it comes to theming. It is my goal that this guide will continue to grow organically with the help of the community and their feedback.

I bring you …

The Ultimate Theme Guide for Designers – will show you how to build a powerful, up-to-date, Vanilla Theme from scratch. Essentially, you’ll learn everything you need to know about Vanilla Theme development.

What are you waiting for? Go code yourself up something awesome! http://vanillaforums.org/docs/themeguide/toc