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Error while installing VanillaAddonsApp

edited February 2012 in Vanilla 2.0 - 2.8

Hello friends,
I am facing some issues with enabling addons application in my vanilla forums.

Steps i followed.

1) downloaded Application from
https://github.com/vanillaforums/VanillaAddonsApp

2) unzipped and copied at application folder in vanilla root.

3) navigate to dashboard, Addons, applications, select "Vanilla Forums Addons" application and click on enable button.

it is throwing error
The "ActivityModel" object does not have a "xDefineType" method.|ActivityModel|xDefineType|

vanilla version Version: 2.0.18.2
Vanilla Forums Addons version: 1.0.1

Also I was looking for user documents, readme or some basic information how to configure this application and call default page from the main application

Thanks,
Manish Bansal

Answers

  • ToddTodd Chief Product Officer Vanilla Staff

    The addons app is really just for use on this site and we won't be supporting it.

  • Hey todd,

    Why Not? this is a great application, which will make life easy for another thousands of users who would really like to make a tool repository, along with questions and discussions...

    I see this will surly get a great success if there's a support for this application as well, and if we have this application standalone will be really great.

    from efforts wise i am not technical but it looks like, the code is already there some need to test and provide minimal support.

    Not sure if it make sense to you, but surly to me and will be for thousands of users.

    Thanks,
    Manish Bansal

  • @qualityking Yeah, I got the same error -- was thinking of using it as a base for a different kind of tool.

    Sad that they won't offer any advice on it -- I'll update this thread if I find a fix.

  • It may possibly require v 2.1, did you try it with that version of vanilla.

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

  • edited May 2012

    Found it. Only works on 2.1dev. Installs fine, then you can browse to yoursite.com/index.php?p=/addon

    Edit: Or, what peregrine said.

  • TimTim Operations Vanilla Staff
    edited May 2012

    @stavthewonderchicken I read some of what you wrote in your other thread where you were (admittedly) ranting about the performance of us core coders.

    One thing you should understand (and frankly I'm a little surprised and hurt that you don't) is that we're a tiny team of 4 coders. Our core goal is develop Vanilla into a functioning company and then turn the product into the best forum software in the world. I'm not making up the last part either. We actively plan to have Vanilla powering the majority of discussion forums on the net in the future.

    Where things get harder are when we have to appeal to the THOUSANDS... literally THOUSANDS of different use cases presented by open source users like yourself. You, and others like you, have a long, specific list of things in mind that you want from the software and very often you're vocal and somewhat insistent about those needs.

    So we end up with the 4 of us trying to code for these THOUSANDS of different use cases and getting none of them really 100% correct. And you know what, it is our fault in the end. We need to learn to say a firm NO in cases where people are asking for something that we either don't agree with, or don't have time to do right now. But that is hindsight, and we're past that now.

    So here we are. Hundreds of thousands of lines of code, hundreds of features and plugins, and a business imperative that demands attention. So we buckle down and push ourselves extremely hard to iterate on the core product and get a major release milestone under our belts. Our first major release milestone since 2.0, so I hope you're starting to realize how young this product is. We work late during the week (10-12 hour days) and over the weekend to get it done. So we're very, very dedicated.

    You know what really doesn't help at a time like this? Aimless whining.

    This software is Open Source. There is a small but very significant difference between that and plain FREE, and you're well spoken enough to know that. If you want to help, that is FANTASTIC! How about testing plugins you're interested in (with 2.1) and reporting issues or weirdness (POLITELY) on GitHub? Or if you cobble together some code for a fix, send us a pull request! We love pull requests.

    But please, don't write accusatory rants. They don't help. They just make us sad, and also a bit mad.

    All this is to say that while, yes, it sucks for you that we aren't going to provide free support for an application that we never intended to officially release, we have many many many other, MUCH higher priorities. And you should be glad that we're able to make those tough choices.

    Vanilla Forums COO [GitHub, Twitter, About.me]

  • edited May 2012

    @Tim I understand completely. But I do not think that what I have done in the thread you mention is 'aimless whining'. The fact that you noticed it proved it was not aimless, and one thing I'm definitely not is a whiner. You'll just have to take my word on that, I guess.

    But as an outside observer, all I can see is the way that Vanilla The Company (which decided a few years back to take venture capital funding and isn't, let's be honest, Mark's hobbyist project any more) deals with growth and manages and interacts its community of developers.

    It's not fair to compare Vanilla and Wordpress, perhaps, because of the sheer scale of the WP community compared to that for Vanilla, but it would seem to me to be fair game when Mark himself did so a few years back. And, from my perspective at least, as at best a hobbyist-level coder and designer, it comes up lacking. Is that whining, or meant to make you guys feel bad? No, it isn't. It's merely an observation. I assume if there are only 4 coders actively working on Vanilla, and that they are also the people who are tasked with engaging the community, that the business of the thing has not been an overwhelming success. That is -- and I mean this sincerely -- a shame.

    Were my comments accusatory? Not so much, although I can understand you and the other Vanilla devs taking them as such. I love Vanilla (although, as I've made clear, not so far nearly as much in its current form, which I find orders of magnitude harder to work with than the 1.x version, even with all of 1.x's problems) -- I've run a busy community on it for 5 years, something that has brought me great pleasure. I apologize if I caused offense, but I had gotten to the point where I felt a need to unburden myself of built-up frustration with the way things have gone. Nothing more than that.

    I also understand the strictures and pressures placed on a small company by deciding to take VC money, trust me. I understand that the hosting business, which hopefully is lucrative, must take precedence over the self-hosted developer community, because it's the sole (?) revenue stream.

    But I feel like those pressures -- perhaps because for reasons I am not privy to, nor should I be, it has not been possible to staff up any further, or devote time to building and supporting the community here that keeps things vibrant and growing -- have meant some compromises that, as a user of the product, it is reasonable for me to have an opinion about.

    In terms of architecture and code, well, the fact that I find the decisions made to be questionable -- an example of that might be that I just discovered today that jquery 1.6.2 is being loaded in 2.1 from the Google CDN in library/core/class.controller.php (because I'm working on a theme that requires 1.7.2) which means that swapping out the version of jquery used means hacking core files, which seems at best ill advised as an architectural decision -- probably just means that I'm not a skilled enough developer to understand them.

    That said, though, I have absolutely no problem working with Wordpress, in terms of developing plugins or themes or outright apps. So I'm not a complete beginner in these matters.

    So, I dunno. Perhaps my 'rant' was a bit too ranty, and too little on the side of 'useful criticism'. But, honestly, even though I find I disagree with an awful lot of what you guys have done in terms of architecture and design and feature inclusion, and I feel that the community here has languished badly in the past few years because of a lack of engagement and support from the Vanilla team (but shows signs of coming back to life, thankfully): I still think Vanilla is the best choice out there, and has (or had, because things are getting blurry with featuritis a bit, perhaps -- it is sobering to read this review from 2006 that said 'Forget how 'normal' forums are done - Vanilla strips it back to what's important: the conversations. Not the smileys, the bandwidth-hogging signatures, the mailbox, the forum categories' and consider how well that applies today) pursued many of the right ideas about what a forum should be.

    I dunno. I'm kind of hoping that once you get 2.1 out the door, that things slow down a bit, and Addons are given a chance to mature and flourish (and work with 2.1.x), that most of the major showstopping bugs that have plagued my testing of 2.x.x at least for a few years get squashed, and not only you guys, but the dev community can take a breath.

    As I said in my comments the other day, even if it doesn't sound like it lately, I am a Vanilla supporter, even if I have had very little time until recently to work with it or participate here, and I have nothing but hopes that it succeeds. And, to be utterly clear about it, I appreciate the hard work put in to make it a better product.

  • 422422 Developer MVP

    Well said both of you.

    There was an error rendering this rich post.

  • Coming back to the issue... guys i was looking for a link where i can download the latest dev 2.1 version.
    I always find Git is a super confusing (no matter its free/open) which is made with the intentions for SVN users like me to cry blood.. Nevertheless,

    I found vanillaforums-Garden-Vanilla_2.0.18rc3-2199-gc09e11b
    Is that what you are refferening 2.1 ???

    Thanks,
    Manish Bansal

  • Latest on this issue, i have downloaded latest dev builds from Git and tried VanillaAddonsApp
    This time it gets installed successfully, but when i go to site it shows "Something has gone wrong."

    I have tested the issue and found it is not competible with core "Vanilla" application disabling core discussion vanilla application allow user to open the website but again it does not even show the Addons link at the menu, which was expected.

    Comments please !

  • hbfhbf wiki guy? MVP

    qualityking said:
    Latest on this issue, i have downloaded latest dev builds from Git and tried VanillaAddonsApp
    This time it gets installed successfully, but when i go to site it shows "Something has gone wrong."

    I have tested the issue and found it is not competible with core "Vanilla" application disabling core discussion vanilla application allow user to open the website but again it does not even show the Addons link at the menu, which was expected.

    Comments please !

    Post error details.

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