Vanilla Forums#Garden
{{more citations needed|date=July 2015}}
{{Infobox software
| name = Vanilla
| title = Vanilla
| logo = Vanilla Forums.png
| screenshot =
| caption = Standard installation of Vanilla 2
| collapsible =
| author = Mark O'Sullivan
| developer = Todd Burry, Tim Gunter, Matt Lincoln Russell, Klaus Burton
| released = {{Start date|2006|07|01|df=yes}}
| discontinued =
| latest release version = 3.3
| latest release date = {{Start date and age|2019|10|29|df=yes}}
| programming language = PHP
| genre = Forum software
| license = GNU GPL{{cite web|url=https://github.com/vanilla/vanilla/blob/master/LICENSE.md|title=vanilla/LICENSE.md|work=GitHub}}
| website = {{url|vanillaforums.com}}
}}
Vanilla is a Canadian software company founded in 2009 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is both a cloud-based (SaaS) community forum software and an open source community supported software. The company's main product is Vanilla Cloud.
Its open source product, Vanilla OSS, is a lightweight Internet forum package written in the PHP scripting language using the Garden framework. The software is released under the GNU GPL. Vanilla Forums is free software, standards-compliant, customizable discussion forums. Since 2009 there is also a cloud-hosted version (offered by Vanilla).
Vanilla's open source project was released on 1 July 2006, and has since undergone many changes, the most notable being the complete rewrite between Vanilla OSS and Vanilla Cloud, the latter of the two became the primary product and Vanilla 1 was passed into the hands of other developers.{{Cite web|url=https://code.google.com/archive/p/lussumo-vanilla|title=Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting.|website=code.google.com}} Vanilla 2, open source is still maintained and supported by the core team.
Vanilla is designed to bring forums back to their roots, providing core functionality with additional features such as emoticons available as plugins.{{cite web|first=Tim|last=Gunter|title=Vanilla Emotify Plugin|url=http://vanillaforums.org/addon/emotify-plugin}}
Business model
Vanilla Cloud is funded in part by a custom, non-distributed hosted implementation of the software run as a commercial SaaS, by Vanilla Forums, Inc. offering various plans with support options.{{cite web|url=http://web.appstorm.net/reviews/communications/another-look-at-vanilla-online-communities-reinvented/|title=Another Look at Vanilla: Online Communities Reinvented|work=appstorm.net}}{{cite web|url=http://www.rackspace.com/blog/designing-a-hosting-platform-around-high-availability-low-cost/|title=Designing A Hosting Platform Around High Availability, Low Cost|work=Rackspace Hosting}}{{cite web|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-digital/biz-categories-technology/booting-the-jerks-from-discussion-forums/article4096123/|title=Booting the jerks from discussion forums|work=The Globe and Mail}}
Hosted plans offer many features from the open source version with additional premium add-ons supported by the core team.{{cite web|url=http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/19927/difference-between-self-hosted-vanilla-vs-vanilla-hosted|title=Difference between self-hosted vanilla vs Vanilla hosted|work=Vanilla Forums}}
Vanilla OSS is supported by the original core team with help by the community.
Features
Vanilla OSS is a free,{{cite web|last=Miles|first=Stephanie|title=App Vita|url=http://www.appvita.com/2010/01/01/vanilla-forums-%E2%80%93-build-an-online-community-for-free/}} FOSS, extensible and multi-lingual forum system. The following items describe the open source version:
- Users can easily set up and maintain a full-featured discussion forum with unlimited categories
- A variety of community made themes and add-ons are available.{{cite web|url=http://vanillaforums.org/addons|title=Browse Addons|work=Vanilla Forums}}{{cite web|url=http://vanillawiki.homebrewforums.net/index.php/What_are_Features_and_Addons%3F|title=What are Features and Addons?|work=homebrewforums.net}}
- Single sign-on{{cite web|url=http://vanillaforums.org/docs/proxyconnect_sso|title=Vanilla Documentation|work=vanillaforums.org}}{{cite web|url=http://www.itworldcanada.com/news/canadian-software-company-improves-on-the-internet-forum/144307|title=Canadian software company improves on the Internet forum|work=IT World Canada}}
- Social media login{{cite web|url=http://vanillaforums.com/blog/news/how-to-integrate-twitter-and-facebook/|title=Vanilla Forums|work=Vanilla Forums Blog}}
- Embeddable forums{{cite web|url=http://gigaom.com/2010/10/25/vanilla-forums-now-embeddable-offers-import-tools/|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130722041741/http://gigaom.com/2010/10/25/vanilla-forums-now-embeddable-offers-import-tools/|url-status=dead|archive-date=July 22, 2013|title=Hosted Community App Vanilla Forums Now Embeddable|author=Charles Hamilton|work=gigaom.com}}
- Import from other forums
- Commenting system for a site{{cite web|url=http://www.techvibes.com/blog/montreals-vanilla-forums-launches-new-commenting-feature-to-help-cultivate-online-communities-2012-04-13|title=Montreal's Vanilla Forums Launches New Commenting Feature to Help Cultivate Online Communities|work=techvibes.com}}
- Integrates with other FOSS projects, like WordPress{{cite web|url=http://wordpress.org/plugins/vanilla-forums/|title=WordPress › Vanilla Forums « WordPress Plugins|work=WordPress.org}}
History
Mark O'Sullivan created an early version of Vanilla to support his own online graphic design and programming community.{{cite web|url=http://vanillaforums.com/blog/news/the-quest-for-better-forum-software/|title=Vanilla Forums|work=Vanilla Forums Blog}} Between 2002 and 2005, this alpha version of the forum went through many revisions, and the core theming and plugin engines were built, culminating in the release of Vanilla OSS.{{cite web|url=http://lussumo.com/docs/doku.php |title=Vanilla 1 Documentation Archive |access-date=February 4, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140215210610/http://lussumo.com/docs/doku.php |archive-date=February 15, 2014 }}
Vanilla increased in popularity and was invited to TechStars 2009 in Boulder.{{cite web|url=https://techcrunch.com/2009/08/06/techstars-incubator-hatches-10-new-companies/|title=TechStars Incubator Hatches 10 New Companies|publisher=AOL|work=TechCrunch}} At the start of 2010 Vanilla received 500,000 CAD in series A funding.{{cite web|url=http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100119007662&newsLang=en|title=Vanilla Forums Receives $500,000 (CAD) Round A Funding for Its Innovative, Open Source Community Forum Software - Business Wire|work=businesswire.com}} In July 2010, Vanilla Cloud was released, which was a complete rewrite of Vanilla OSS.{{Cite web|url=https://readwrite.com/2010/07/22/vanilla_forums_gets_investment_releases_new_versio/|title=Vanilla Forums Gets Investment, Releases New Version|date=July 22, 2010}}
=Vanilla OSS=
Vanilla OSS has a very lightweight core with a number of optional plugins, including chat, private messages, "Who's Online", and attachments.
The most recent version (2.6.3) was released on September 23, 2018.
Vanilla OSS is still maintained by the Vanilla team with help of the user community.
=Vanilla Cloud=
Vanilla Cloud is a complete rewrite of Vanilla using the Garden Framework, an MVC, object oriented, modular, extendable framework.{{cite web|url=http://boagworld.com/reviews/vanilla/|title=The forum is dead, long live Vanilla|work=Boagworld - Web & Digital Advice}}
New core features in Vanilla Cloud:
- GPL importer for other forum systems such as vBulletin and phpBB.{{cite web|url=https://github.com/vanillaforums/VanillaPorter |title=Vanillaforums's VanillaPorter |access-date=February 4, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100513170736/http://github.com/vanillaforums/VanillaPorter |archive-date=May 13, 2010 }}
- {{tag|embed|open}} Vanilla (embed forum anywhere via JavaScript)
- Social Connect
- Vanilla Mobile - Configuration required
- Vanilla Connect (Single Sign In)
- Themes
- Banner
- File Upload - included as a plugin
- WYSIWYG Editor - included as a plugin
- Emoticons - included as a plugin
=Garden=
Garden is the PHP framework on which Vanilla Cloud is built, and deployed with, but can also be used as an MVC framework in its own right, and has a convention-based folder structure.{{cite web|url=https://stackoverflow.com/a/3652230/1211661|title=cakephp - Forum/Board written atop one of the big PHP Frameworks - Stack Overflow|work=stackoverflow.com}}{{cite web|url=http://markosullivan.ca/garden-preview-part-i/|title=Mark O'Sullivan • Garden Preview Part I|work=markosullivan.ca}}
When downloading a Vanilla release, it is packaged in Garden as an application.{{cite web|url=http://vanillawiki.homebrewforums.net/index.php/Garden#Garden|title=Vanilla|work=homebrewforums.net}}
Garden can be developed on via 'Addons' of applications, plugins, themes, and locales.{{cite web|url=http://vanillawiki.homebrewforums.net/index.php/How_to_Build_a_Simple_Module_and_Integrate_it_as_a_Plugin|title=How to Build a Simple Module and Integrate it as a Plugin|work=homebrewforums.net}}
Each application follows the MVC paradigm, and applications are typically placed in the applications folder, plugins in plugins folder, and so on.
Applications can be extended by plugins and themes, these mainly use a combination of convention based file structure, configuration, and event hooks.
Pluggability is a core feature of the framework, as is object-oriented programming, so the application and core is mainly extended via plugin classes using a public method naming convention to denote event hooks, 'magic event' hooks, 'magic methods', and occasionally method overrides. Some general functions in the core can be overridden by predefining them.
In addition, locales can be used to translate into different languages, or variations of text, which are replaced by reference.
Release history
{{Version |l |show=111111}}
Hosted forums
The hosted version of Vanilla runs on the newest version of Vanilla. It also provides features that are held back from the community edition (usually people who are self-hosting their forum). The features held back are Reactions{{cite web|last=Stubbs|first=Ryan|title=App Storm|url=http://web.appstorm.net/reviews/communications/another-look-at-vanilla-online-communities-reinvented/}} & Badges, Polls, User Ranks, and enterprise integrations such as Salesforce, Zendesk, and GitHub (among others). This leads to ongoing discussions in Vanilla's own community forums. There have been numerous discussions in the past about the business model and why certain features have been held back.{{cite web|url=http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/24089/the-community-and-vanilla-please-read|title=The Community and Vanilla - Please Read|work=Vanilla Forums}} The community version of the software has seen developers replicate many of these functionalities.{{cite web|url=http://vanillaforums.org/addon/yaga-application|title=Yet Another Gamification Application 1.0.3 by hgtonight|work=Vanilla Forums}}
See also
{{Portal|Free and open-source software}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{Official|http://vanillaforums.com}}
- [http://docs.vanillaforums.com/ Vanilla Forums Documentation]
- [https://github.com/vanilla/ Vanilla Forums Repository]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vanilla (Forum)}}