I love Vanilla 1 to bits and was keen to try Vanilla 2 but kept running into issues which I could not resolve. I've finally got it up and running with the help of some helpful folk on this forum so I decided to write an extended how-to for Vanilla 2 in case you encounter similar problems to me.
I'd like to reiterate the developers' comments first by saying Vanilla 2 is still in development so you should bear this in mind if you intend on using it on a live site. It could be prone to unexpected bugs/behaviour. If you're unsure/concerned, use Vanilla 1 instead.
Extended How-to install Garden/Vanilla 2
1. Download the latest stable release of Garden from GitHub. What's Garden? It's the platform on which Vanilla runs - but don't fret, Vanilla forum is bundled in with this download.
2. Extract the .zip or .tar and copy the contents into the desired folder on your server. Remember to upload the .htaccess file in the root directory which may not be visible to you if you have these types of files hidden. Most FTP programs have an option to show invisible files if it isn't already set by default.
3. In /conf/config-defaults.php consider uncommenting line 47: // $Configuration['Garden']['Errors']['MasterView'] = 'deverror.master.php'; // <-- Use this error master view when debugging This will enable verbose error messages and is very useful when installing and setting up. These messages will help other forum users with diagnosing any problems you encounter. Of course, once happy with your setup, it's recommended to comment out this line once again, so users encounter 'pretty errors'.
4. Grant Read/Write permissions (777) to /cache/, /conf/, and /uploads/
5. Create a database (name does not matter).
6. Browse to your install folder in your web browser, and follow the instructions on-screen.
As I said, if you encounter any errors and have completed step 3, you should have a verbose error - post this and any information about your server (PHP version etc.) and the steps you performed leading up to the error into the community forums.
Hope that helps - thanks to @benno and @bean for their help in getting my install working. I used their advice, my experience and the Documentation to provide the above information.
Try it out - let us know what you think. If you are a Vanilla 2 early adopter (ie. you've downloaded a copy of Garden/Vanilla from GitHub and you're running it somewhere), there are instructions on how to update your database for search here:
While we've been hard at work getting Vanilla 2 ready for it's official release, others in the community have been hard at work fixing lingering bugs and adding feature refinements to Vanilla 1. Vanilla 1.1.10 is now available. The main changes in this release are replacement of deprecated functions, and updates to Scriptaculous and Prototype.
Vanilla 1.2 is going to be a great, significant release. There will be plenty of new features, many of which will be included as new extensions, allowing them to be easily disabled and enabled easily.
Some new features are:
Automatic image width reduction by window size (an upcoming update to HTML Formatter), a feature similar to the one on IP.Board, so that images never create horizontal scrollbars on the page; images will either be too small in width to be sized, or the width will be reduced to the perfect size.
Minification, compression, and a bunch of other speed optimizations (an upcoming extension called Minify) to make the forums load faster for users, especially first-time users.
Whisper notifications (the Whisperfi extension) so that users don't miss whispers
Some will be enabled by default, others won't be. So we want to know, which extensions (if any) do you think add essential functionality to Vanilla 1? There are so many really awesome extensions out there, but we don't want to include most of them, just the ones that add a very commonly used functionality, ones that will be useful for 90% of Vanilla installations.
Vanilla 2 is looking nice. We'd like to give it a spin, but can't seem to get it installed outside of the server root. We are attaching it to an existing site, so would like to place it in forums.
Looking at the debug log, it is looking for libraries in the root, even though the path is set to forum.
Does anyone have it working in a subdirectory?
We are able to get the same install working if placed in the webserver root.
As a part of my considering adopting Vanilla, can anybody give sample URL's of Vanilla sites that are "large", meaning lots of content, lots of users, high traffic, etc.
I just did a upgrade test from Vanilla 1 to 2 today while preparing our upgraded support center. I noticed just two little issues with the upgrade script: - There is a typo in the upgrade script that is causing Comments to be loaded into the ConversationMessage table. - Username from Vanilla 1 is being loaded into the Name field in Vanilla 2, since username isn't used anymore, shouldn't First Name and Last Name be loaded into Name field?
Otherwise everything worked smoothly and with some cleanup to roles and permissions and the addition of url codes for the categories, everythign was ready to go.
CKEditor require HTML Formatter to be installed and enabled, you should also save your sanity and formatting by turning the HTML_CONVERT_NEWLINES option to "0" (zero).
Was wondering if there's any way I can turn off email notification for this site (vanillaforums.org/dicussion). I receive over 300 emails a day as it is, and now there's more whenever someone replies to a thread. I might be wrong with this: does it only send off notifications when I bookmark a topic?
Also, an idea: Maybe there should be only one email for a topic, even if there are 30 replies. The email would say something like, "There are updates to a discussion you are involved in. Click here to see the latest update, or click here to unsubscribe from this thread."
Is it possible to get a hosted Vanilla forum at vanillaforums.com and then change the A record so that you can use your own custom domain to access it? Exactly like Tumblr or Google Apps/AppEngine/Labs offers.
So I've uploaded my very alpha CKEditor plugin. Not as much work as I'd feared, it only required two modifications to Vanilla 2 proper:
The nl2br regex in the Html() formatter should have a config option
There should be a RemoveJsFile method to complement the AddJsFile method.
Now, the RemoveJsFile method could return a bool of whether or not the file existed, but as it could be found multiple times I suppose maybe the number of times found would be a good return value. (E.g. the count of $keys)
As coded, this plugin might or might not be compatible with Vanilla Replies or VanillaCommentScore as I encountered an error at one point and disabled both of them, though it might be the JS' fault.
Also, @Mark, is it possible to override JS or CSS from within a plugin, avoiding the need to remove 'discussion.js' just to add it again with a slightly different name? Or should we work on making the JS more extensible? The main incompatibility lies within jQuery's serialize() of the form, which doesn't seem to call the textarea's overridden val() to get the CKEditor's changes and so instead saves the original unmodified textarea that was hidden. One alternative could be a trigger for such changes before serializing the form.
Oh and another change I've forgotten to make is to ensure all IDs are unique for textareas. (Right now they totally aren't, so my start.js overcomes that as necessary.) And to swap to using Google for hosting jQuery, though that could be part of future performance optimizations like 1.2 has received, I guess.
Vanilla 2 is looking sweeeet. It has such a modern feel, and some very high tech features (while I was typing this a little tab just notified me that a draft of my post has been saved). Wow, all I can say is FINALLY the forum software I've been searching for...so excited for the final product.
My plugin idea for anyone who is thinking ahead, is one that Autoposts to Twitter anytime a new thread is created. It's simple and it's perfect both as a service to current members, and as a way to attract new ones. This would go hand in hand with future social networking opportunities that Vanilla 2 is already poised to take advantage of.
How could I add a custom field to the topic starter form. In other words, right now you can type in a title, choose the category and type your message. But, I want to add one additional text field. Would anyone be willing to tell me how this would be done?
Pretty sure I brought this up with version 1 of Vanilla too..
Is there really a need to make 14 http requests for each page before it's even rendered? There's so many calls for separate JQuery files its unbelievable.
I have downloaded the latest vanilla/garden from git and uploaded everything to my test page iphonedevforums.com/new/ I tried to install and it gave me this error http://drp.ly/xMO9k now anytime I go anywhere like iphonedevforums.com/new/ it gives me this http://drp.ly/xMP3y . I am on rackspace and my .htaccess looks like this