Vanilla Web Hosting

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Vanilla Web Hosting

Vanilla is a lightweight and extensible free/open source forum application which uses PHP scripting language and MySQL database management system. It was developed by Mark O’Sullivan. This open source forum application is multi-lingual and a fully extensible discussion forum for the web. Vanilla allows you to run advanced searches through discussion topics, comments, and users. Users can also view number of comments on each topic and which discussions have been unread by the user. By using the per-user preferences, users can change the way Vanilla operates. Moreover, a fully customizable account profile is offered where you can display pictures of yourself and additional information about yourself, if desired.

Vanilla

In order for vanilla to run successfully the following requirements must be met:

  • Server Requirements:
  1. PHP 4.1 or greater
  2. MySQL 3.23 or greater
  • Browser Requirements:

Vanilla can work on any java script- enabled web browser. The following web browsers are recommended:

  1. Firefox
  2. Safari
  3. Camino
  4. Opera
  5. Internet Explorer

Vanilla comes equipped with a powerful, built-in spam control, an autonomous user & role management system and offers an extremely user-friendly experience and easy to use features. The administrators wield ample flexibility in terms of modifying or changing the layout, style, language, and all application settings through an easy to use and navigate settings tab. Adding and organizing roles, categories, languages, and add-ons does not require any technical know how and is very easy and well organized. Add-ons make this forum software all the more exciting as developers constantly strive towards creating new add-ons which allow users to do just about anything with their forum. From a bug tracking system, to tagging discussions to highlighting certain sections of a message; with add-ns users can get innovative and enhance the overall experience of using Vanilla.
Vanilla is a W3C standards compliant application with valid XHTML and CSS. The Vanilla 1 features an advanced templating system which allows Vanilla to be easily integrated into an existing site layout. It also gives the flexibility to integrate it with other existing systems, so users can just log in at one place for both Vanilla and an existing application. The strongest feature of Vanilla is its framework on which it is built called the Lussumo Framework. This framework gives developers the flexibility to create and add new extensions to the core software. At http://lussumo.com/addons , users can get an access to the latest new extensions. Following are the most popular extensions for Vanilla:

  • RSS and Atom feeds
  • Whispers, for private conversations.
  • Intelligent search and search book marking system, for users to bookmark their most used searches.
  • Search-engine friendly URLs
  • Forum announcements
  • Animations using JavaScript

Other new and updated add-ons of Vanilla include Sub Categories, Preview Post, zip2mail, PFC, Auto Hide, Light Category, LightBox, Html Formatter, Hidden Text and JQuery among others. The best suggestion to migrate the forum to either phpBB or punBB, then migrate it to vanilla 0.9.2.6 and upgrade to v1. Themes are sets of xhtml templates that Vanilla uses when rendering to the screen. Styles are sets of css and image files which get applied to the chosen theme. The application setting is limited and visible to administrative users who have the access necessary to make changes to how Vanilla runs. This feature enables the administrators to set the forum name, forum options (like enable whispers, allow members to change their user names, allow non members to browse the forum, log and monitor all IP addresses, allow discussions to be categorized etc.), set the discussion and control panel listings, spam protection, email settings, discussion labels and application settings etc. Vanilla uses code-words to represent bits of text. The default dictionary file is in /languages/English/definitions.php which never be edited. By using the language form, one can change the language file used by Vanilla. By default Vanilla only comes with the English language file. The latest language files can be downloaded from the Vanilla Add-ons directory. After the new language definition has been downloaded, it needs to be placed in Vanilla’s language folder. The path to your language file should be similar to:
/path/to/vanilla/languages/language_name/definitions.php.
Vanilla features “whispering”, which is a private message that appears inline with a discussion. Only the sender and recipient of the whisper can see the whisper. The advanced search feature is very helpful as well, which gives an expanded version of three different types of searches.

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