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Coming in from SMf

edited March 2013 in General Banter

Hey there,

I will be making a fresh start using Vanilla, most likely, for my website that is based on Alabama Crimson Tide football. I was wondering a couple of things.

1 - Does Vanilla Forums have easy customization when it comes to the theme? I am not talking about anything serious, just colors and images?
2 - Will I have a huge learning curve from SMF?
3 - When updates are released, is it a huge project updating? On SMF any time I would have to update the forums, I would have to reinstall all mods/plugins and every now and then I'd have to make all of my theme changes all over again.

Thanks, looks like a great product and I look forward to getting involved.

I.M.

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Comments

  • Hey, really appreciate such a great, in-depth, reply. I am looking forward to the swap.

    One more question: I will have certain things that I will want to place around my site as an "article" or "page" whatever, the term for Vanilla might be. Is that possible, or would it have to be a forum post?

  • hgtonighthgtonight ∞ · New Moderator
    edited March 2013

    @insanemustang

    Are you looking for a mostly static page? Something you can slap php into? A blog type page?

    I have used the Custom Pages plugin for simple things I rarely update or need to execute php code. You can add some routes through the dashboard and links to the pages in your theme. For a blog, I started with Nilla Blog. It lets you transform a forum category into a blog. Very useful!

    If you want to have a more fully featured CMS, you could look at Vanilla CMS or Candy. I have more experience with Vanilla CMS, but it is no longer developed.

    In the end... you have options!

    Search first

    Check out the Documentation! We are always looking for new content and pull requests.

    Click on insightful, awesome, and funny reactions to thank community volunteers for their valuable posts.

  • KasperKasper Scholar of the Bits Copenhagen Vanilla Staff

    Like @hgtonight mentioned, Custom Pages, Vanilla CMS or Candy are indeed plugins and applications you want to check out if you'd like to create static pages on your site. There's also a whole bunch of official plugins to be found here: https://github.com/vanillaforums/Addons/tree/master/plugins. One of these is Pockets - it allows you to place "pockets" of freeform HTML in various places around your site also comes with a Smarty function for putting custom pockets ({pocket name="foo"}) in your theme.

    If you'd like to get a bit more advanced (don't yet know where you stand when it comes to PHP), you can also do somewhat the same as I do: Whenever I'd like to include some custom stuff, whether it be widgets, modules or static content, I genrally use theme hooks to do this. Theme hooks allow you to interface with Garden so your theme can do exactly the same things as a plugin would allow you to do. This means that creating extra modules, view partials and the likes can be done directly in your theme instead of in a plugin, the latter which in many cases will disassociate your theme with its custom modules and content.

    Kasper Kronborg Isager (kasperisager) | Freelance Developer @Vanilla | Hit me up: Google Mail or Vanilla Mail | Find me on GitHub

  • Great, thank you for the reply.

  • You can also use the extrapage plugin for

    http://vanillaforums.org/addon/extrapage-plugin

    and building an app off of the skeleton - is actually easier than it looks.

    I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.

  • I did a search and didn't really find a picture gallery add-on. Is that the case or am I just missing it? This is an important feature for me.

  • search add-on section gallery

    http://vanillaforums.org/addon/picturegallery-plugin

    don't know if that works for you - but that is the title for one.

    I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.

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