This is what I did with my Vanilla Forum [Some Feedback + A little Showcase]

rahulparekh

Few days back I setup my forum and went with Vanilla as it's pretty clean, lightweight and much more modern and easier to use than traditional forums like phpbb3 and smf.

There were some great addons which made life very easy for me. Installing addons is also very convenient unlike PHPBB3 where all sorts of files are needed to be hacked. At the same time I feel some features should be shipped with the core forums like post count, top posters, number of views in threads, basic forum statistics in the footer or something. I'm sure developers are working very hard and I appreciate all the effort they put in. Hopefully some of these features come out in 2.1.

Anyway, here's the forum I designed and tweaked to my needs: http://www.devilgang.in/

It's a football (soccer) forum primarily following Manchester United. I'm looking for some feedback on the design and suggestions on what more can I add to it/do with it.

Of course if there's a football supporter over here, I'll be more than glad if you join.

Anyway, hoping to get some good feedback and I hope my feedback/suggestions for the forum were useful.

x00

Post count is in the core, it just isn't displayed as default (actually there is two counts discussions an comments). Top poster is a calculation based on post count.

So plug-ins an themes can use these.

Vanilla like you say is vanilla, it is up to you to add the chocolate sauce. I would be in favour of keeping the core clean. There are officially endorses plugin though, that are shipped with the core. I have mixed feeling about that.

rahulparekh

x00 said: Post count is in the core, it just isn't displayed as default (actually there is two counts discussions an comments). Top poster is a calculation based on post count.

So plug-ins an themes can use these.

Vanilla like you say is vanilla, it is up to you to add the chocolate sauce. I would be in favour of keeping the core clean. There are officially endorses plugin though, that are shipped with the core. I have mixed feeling about that.

Yes, I am talking about displaying it as default. Quotes and post count are the most basic features every forum has. I think those are "vanilla" enough. Rest is fine. I love how pluggable and quick the software is though. No complaints really!

422

Nice !

rahulparekh

422 said: Nice !

Thanks!

OnlyAnExcuse

Running a football forum myself (http://forum.onlyanexcuse.com) i've found Vanilla to be far superior for this type of board than many other forum packages.

Plugins add many of the functions you're looking for but for me, the lack of bloated and often unneccesary options on a forum can be beneficial for users and moderators. I agree with quotes and post count, i'd rather they were an option to turn off than anything else. But, that's the point x00 made, you customise it to suit yourself.

Really like what you've done - the colours suit the club and the site's very clear and easy to navigate.

422

Great reply @onlyanexcuse

rahulparekh

OnlyAnExcuse said: Running a football forum myself (http://forum.onlyanexcuse.com) i've found Vanilla to be far superior for this type of board than many other forum packages.

Plugins add many of the functions you're looking for but for me, the lack of bloated and often unneccesary options on a forum can be beneficial for users and moderators. I agree with quotes and post count, i'd rather they were an option to turn off than anything else. But, that's the point x00 made, you customise it to suit yourself.

Really like what you've done - the colours suit the club and the site's very clear and easy to navigate.

You seem to have a good and active forum as well. Bootstrap theme is pretty good.

Yes, plugins are awesome. One of the reasons I shifted from phpbb. That and the lack of AJAX by default.

OnlyAnExcuse

Thanks. I'd been trying the new development versions of bootstrap and vanilla, I know they're not really supposed to be used in a production environment, but I couldn't wait much longer. lol

rahulparekh

OnlyAnExcuse said: Thanks. I'd been trying the new development versions of bootstrap and vanilla, I know they're not really supposed to be used in a production environment, but I couldn't wait much longer. lol

Haven't tried it yet. Does the "Discussion Started By Replies Views Most Recent" traditional forum like look come with 2.1 by default? Because I kind of prefer that.

OnlyAnExcuse

There is an option on the administation panel to choose if you'd prefer a table layout (like I have) or the modern layout (which is standard now). Or a mixed version. Pretty cool.

rahulparekh

OnlyAnExcuse said: There is an option on the administation panel to choose if you'd prefer a table layout (like I have) or the modern layout (which is standard now). Or a mixed version. Pretty cool.

I assume this is available from 2.1 only. Because I can't see it on 2.0.18.4.

OnlyAnExcuse

Yes, new features for a new version. To be honest i'd wait until a more stable release is out, this one is still work in progress.

rahulparekh

OnlyAnExcuse said: Yes, new features for a new version. To be honest i'd wait until a more stable release is out, this one is still work in progress.

Yes. I am not moving soon. Some addons might not work with future versions either so I'll wait and see when everything is stable enough to move.