New Guy Looking For Answers

Xarcell

I have been eye-balling Vanilla for awhile. I love the layout of it, with a category list and all the topics listed. It eliminates the need for a breadcrumb. I believe it to be ahead of the curve in that manner, but it seems alot of traditional forum user's don't like it. I think given time, they will come around...

My biggest hurdle to make the switch to Vanilla is the editor. There is yet a decent editor out there that I've seen for a forum/bbs, except for the one here using markdown(WYSISWM), but it doesn't seem to come with the default installation and I cannot locate the plugin for it. When will it become accessible?

Also, in order for me to make the switch from xenForo to vanilla, I will need a few things(that I can't already find).

• I need to be able to "float" in my posts, will I be able to add this?
• I need to be able to embed YouTube videos in posts, and others if possible. I can't seem to find a plugin for it either.
• I've fallen in love with xenForo's alert system. Does Vanilla have anything similar to this? Basically, you get an alert when someone replies to your posts or quotes you.

Thanks.

422

Welcome.

To embed youtube just paste youtube url in a post, no plugin needed.

422

Buttonbar editor is clean.

This one is nice tho.

http://redactorjs.com/

Perhaps a plugin could be made.

Xarcell

422 said: Welcome.

To embed youtube just paste youtube url in a post, no plugin needed.

I'll have to revisit this then. I have a fresh installation and it doesn't see to be working. Let me play with it a bit and try to debug.

Xarcell

422 said: Welcome.

To embed youtube just paste youtube url in a post, no plugin needed.

Solved it already. "www" has to be in the url in order to work...

Todd

Can you explain "float" your posts?

UnderDog

Welcome Xarcell :-)

You're the first new person that hasn't started about that nice 'badges' system, LOL.
Seriously:

Xarcell said: My biggest hurdle to make the switch to Vanilla is the editor. ...but it doesn't seem to come with the default installation and I cannot locate the plugin for it.

The editor is the buttonbar plugin. After you've installed the plugin, I think you have to make a setting in conf/config.php but let's see what happens with your installation :-)

Also, in order for me to make the switch from xenForo to vanilla, I will need a few things(that I can't already find).

• I need to be able to "float" in my posts, will I be able to add this?

Can you explain what you mean with 'float' ? Is it floating in a thickbox / fancybox / lightbox type view or is it floating in another way? (CSS expert needed and I know the one that can answer in that case)

• I need to be able to embed YouTube videos in posts, and others if possible. I can't seem to find a plugin for it either.

If you've found the solution, can you add it to our Wiki pages, please :-)

• I've fallen in love with xenForo's alert system. Does Vanilla have anything similar to this? Basically, you get an alert when someone replies to your posts or quotes you.

That is a good question... we have a lighter form of an alert system. Some of the replies, comments, etc gets added to the activity page. Then when an activity is added it could get sent to the email, based on the user's preferences.

It might also be something interesting for a new plugin project.

Actually... there's one extra thing you might need with your conversion from xenforo to Vanilla : the porter plugin (converter from other forum systems to Vanilla) is not prepared for Xenforo. You can make a manual conversion or the porter plugin needs to be adjusted.

leafmonster

If by "float" you mean "sticky"... then "Announce" is the term in Vanilla.

Xarcell

Thanks for your replies.

By float, I mean the CSS, so that I can wrap text around an image or video. "float: left;". I'm pretty sure I may can figure this out myself. I know minimal PHP, but consider myself an expert on HTML and CSS. I've made premium out-of-the-box themes for xenforo, smf, blogger, and wordpress.

As for the "buttonbar", thanks. I have been searching for it, but couldn't find it listed in the add-ons after a search. So I went through every single plugin until I found it. It's "button bar", not "buttonbar". ;)

Although, I have installed the plugin and it seems to only add the buttons, not the markdown, which is what I really want. I prefer markdown over BBCode. However, I recently found redator, a jQuery powered WYSIWYG that actually seems to work. I'm curious if I'm able to make this into a plugin, but not likely because I can't get past the PHP part for handling images & files securely.

As far as Activities for tracking alerts, I planned to disable that the best I can, by removing the menu item for it. I have seen complaints about it slowing down forum speed(after adding plugins, which everyone does). The only real complaint about Vanilla I've seen.

I don't think I need a Porter because I keep restarting my site on various software, because I cannot find one that I'm 100% happy with. I don't care for saving members and posts at this point, only the articles that I've written, which I already have saved. My site is barely kicking because it's still fairly new(only 36 members and 356 comments).

422

Didnt a wise man suggest that editor ;)

peregrine

gotya

Xarcell

422 said: Didnt a wise man suggest that editor ;)

A very wise man indeed. Heck, truthfully I hate WYSIWYG editors with a passion, but this one actually seems to work, unlike any other I'v ever used. On top of that, it's iPad compatible. I'm very impressed with it.

422

Must admit it is nice.

Xarcell

422 said: Must admit it is nice.

I actually started the plugin. So far, I haven't been successful. I need to figure out one little thing to make it work.

hbf

Xarcell said:

422 said: Must admit it is nice.

I actually started the plugin. So far, I haven't been successful. I need to figure out one little thing to make it work.

Post what you have done, what works and what doesnt.

hbf

hbf said:

Xarcell said:

422 said: Must admit it is nice.

I actually started the plugin. So far, I haven't been successful. I need to figure out one little thing to make it work.

Post what you have done, what works and what doesnt.

Scratch that. I see you aleady did.

UnderDog

Xarcell said: Although, I have installed the plugin and it seems to only add the buttons, not the markdown, which is what I really want. I prefer markdown over BBCode.

That's the setting you need to change in conf/config.php

From the top of my head : go into conf/config.php and find the setting for $Configuration['Garden']['InputFormatter'] if there is none, just add the setting. Here is an example :
$Configuration['Garden']['InputFormatter'] = 'Markdown';

If it works, please add it to the VanillaWiki explaining how you found it, etc.