I have been a user of MyBB for many years and still find it my favorite free forum software. However, I am just kicking around giving Vanilla a try. Only because I read in their blog a comment about the features you see below.
BTW.... In another forum discussion website, discussing forums scripts, it was NOT Vanilla forums, a poster called MyBB, phpBB and vBullitin "antique" forum scripts. Your thoughts on that too please.
(I just cut and pasted what you see below, so the linked words would not take us to the Vanilla site).
Just wonder your thoughts on the comparison between MyBB and Vanilla after reading the features below, taken from the Vanilla blog:
List of 25 Features:
1- Reactions & Badges: Users can share how they feel about posts and get badges.
2- Last Read Comment: Continue reading from where you left off.
3- Mark All Viewed: Mark all conversations as viewed to start fresh.
4- Mark As Read: Automatically mark read any thread.
5- Quick Reply: Users can reply easily at the bottom of the discussion.
6- Immediate Comments: Your comments appear immediately, no redirects.
7- Mentions: Mention another member by putting @ before their username.
8- Automatic Embeds: Social Media content automatically embedded, just post the url.
9- Best of: Most popular content of your forum update regularly helps discovery.
10-Vanillicons: Vanillicons are avatars that are unique to your name or email address.
11-Profile Page Thumbnail: Choose which area show in your profile picture thumbnail.
12-Private Conversations:A fresh take on private message systems.
13-Notifications: Cool pop-up notifications make it easy to see what’s going on.
14-Auto Time Zone: When a user signs in, post times are adjusted to local time.
15-Auto Image Resize: We resize an image to fit, automatically.
16-RSS Feeds: Subscribe to your forum feeds via RSS.
17-Recent Discussions: The most recent discussions right from the sidebar.
18- Search Auto Complete: User queries are searched as they type.
19- Discussion Profile Photo: Adds a profile photo to discussion view.
20- Dismiss Messages: Users can dismiss messages and announcements.
21- Native Mobile: forums look great on a mobile device without a mobile app.
22- Drafts: An auto-save feature that keeps a draft of your comment until you publish.
23- Polls: Create polls to measure community opinions on any topic.
24- Profile Pages: Every user gets a beautiful profile page
25- Spoiler Tag: Hide text from users until they click the link.
1 - Don't care
2 - MyBB has it
3 - MyBB has it
4 - Would be nice to have for those subforums I frequent that have threads I don't read
5 - MyBB has it
6 - MyBB has it for threads
7 - I've implemented something somewhat similar on a forum (:iconusername: a la FA)
8 - Don't care
9 - Don't care
10 -Don't care
11 - Don't care
12 - Would be nice, there are plugins though
13 - Would be nice, there are plugins though
14 - Might be nice for forums where users travel a lot, probably should be a plugin though
15 - Not too hard to add, especially once 1.8 is released with jQuery
16 - Don't care, MyBB has it IIRC
17 - MyBB has it on some pages, plugins exist for others
18 - Might be nice
19 - Don't care
20 - MyBB has it
21 - Would be nice, plugin + custom theme hack around that
22 - Don't care
23 - MyBB has it
24 - MyBB can have it with plugins (I'm developing one ATM)
25 - Might be nice, Admins can easily add one themselves
10/25 features that would be nice in MyBB, though several should be or are plugins rather than core.
(2014-04-26, 07:41 PM)Firestryke31 Wrote: [ -> ]1 - Don't care
2 - MyBB has it
3 - MyBB has it
4 - Would be nice to have for those subforums I frequent that have threads I don't read
5 - MyBB has it
6 - MyBB has it for threads
7 - I've implemented something somewhat similar on a forum (:iconusername: a la FA)
8 - Don't care
9 - Don't care
10 -Don't care
11 - Don't care
....
Don't care is not really a great answer ...
While the features list can be adopted by any forum through plugins. It does not mean the features should / could not be part of the base package.
For example 18 and 21 are great things to have in any forum software even though 18 probably for very active boards will be a performance problem.
What they should be listing though in my opinion is the plugin system their forum uses. Way ahead of others, they seem to have a good ORM layer and they have everything just like Wordpress contained within one folder which for updating / removing / adding plugins is a far better solution to what MyBB does.
Overall they seem to really implement a MVC framework allowing you to easily add custom pages with custom controllers and very varied database models for custom data. Which should be a huge boost to writing plugins that are not related to forums like galleries, blogs etc.
Important thing to remember about Vanilla is that they make money through their paid, hosted solutions, and release (most) of the software as open source for people who want to host it themselves and don't care about support. MyBB has no income, so the expectations can't be the same.
That said, most of those features are really lame or ubiquitous, with only a handful (mobile, notifications, live search) actually being valuable.
I thought the badges were for the paid system only unless they were recently added to the open source version?
I used Vanilla as the forum software on a site I set up recently. I chose Vanllla because they are mainly facebook users and I liked the core capability to sign in with facebook. In use - I found it clunky and very hard to theme; no attachments out of the box, it needed a plugin.
It is a nice forum script, though I would not recommend it on a big board and its a PITA to customise. The responses to using the vanilla forums over on
http://shiningrocksoftware.com/forum/ have been not that positive.
(2014-04-26, 08:59 PM)Euan T Wrote: [ -> ]I thought the badges were for the paid system only unless they were recently added to the open source version?
I am pretty sure that they are still only in the paid version. There is a free plugin that is under the addons section now, but I don't think it's the same as the one Vanilla did themselves.
My big problem with Vanilla is that they try too hard to make you use their hosting. Everything that makes Vanilla a fully featured forum script you only get with their hosting. I'd rather pay for vanilla and host it myself than pay for their hosting. So they lost me there.
Lately I have started to get into NodeBB. They have a similar model where you can pay them for hosting, but they don't limit your features if you just use their open source script. I'm going to be buying them many beers in the future for having their stuff available for me. Vanilla on the other hand won't be getting anything from my pocket, because I can't get the features I want without using their hosting.
1- Reactions & Badges
MyBB has an Achievements plugin that allows admins to give awards (badges) for giving reputation. While not exactly the same, it is of the same thought.
2- Last Read Comment
Pretty sure MyBB has some version of this...
3- Mark All Conversations Viewed.
It'd be a nice feature if MyBB had it, but it's not one I'm overly concerned about.
4- Mark As Read.
MyBB can mark forums as read (it's on the left side of the table in "forumdisplay.php?fid=" page, across from the title of the forum your in.) but individual topics I don't think so.
5- Quick Reply.
Already implemented in MyBB. Works very nice too.
6- Immediate Comments.
MyBB has this. Sort of...
Just disable the friendly redirects in the ACP (under "Settings" -> "Server and Optimizations" if I recall correctly).
7- Mentions.
MyBB has a plugin for this (MentionMe in conjunction with MyAlerts for even better results.)
8- Automatic Embeds.
There was a plugin for this... Automedia if I recall right.
9- Best of.
MyBB sort of has this. If you view the stats page it'll show the most frequently viewed and topics with the most replies.
Plus there's probably a plugin to display this on sidebars or things like that.
10-Vanillicons.
I guess this is something that a plugin developer could create. Though personally I'm not all that concerned. If anything I'd just rather use a standard image.
11-Profile Page Thumbnail.
It could be kind of neat I suppose, but it's not something overly necessary.
(A plugin could probably replicate this function if one hasn't already been created.)
12-Private Conversations.
Having the PM system as a threaded conversation in MyBB would be nice, but it's nothing I'm overly torn up about.
13-Notifications.
MyAlerts+Custom Alerts+MentionMe replicates this rather nicely. (It'd be nice if other plugins like the Achievement system and etc would also make use of this to further enhance the effect. But this likely stems from the fact MyAlerts is a plugin rather than a core aspect.)
14-Auto Time Zone.
MyBB does this once a user sets their desired timezone.
15-Auto Image Resize.
This can be accomplished through a plugin. I don't recall offhand what that plugin is called, but I know it exists.
16-RSS Feeds.
I thought MyBB had an RSS feed system... But I'm not sure (never really used RSS).
17-Recent Discussions in sidebar.
A plugin could probably replicate this for standalone sidebars. And there was a sidebar system (Advanced Sidebox) that had this function anyway.
18- Search Auto Complete.
Could be kind of cool (provided admins could turn it off to save queries/resources). But I wouldn't be too worried about it.
19- Discussion Profile Photo.
I don't really want this. Avatar is good enough for me. But if there was enough demand someone could probably make a plugin for it.
20- Dismiss Messages.
Sort of possible already depending on how the admin sets up some messages. Like if the admin sets up messages to display via header and uses jQuery to allow users to disable those messages.
21- Native Mobile mode.
MyBB may not have a native mobile mode, but the GoMobile plugin works very nice to make MyBB mobile friendly (without using tapatalk).
22- Auto-save Drafts.
I kind of like this function... since if my browser were to crash suddenly I wouldn't lose anything. But at the same time having it could increase the number of queries made. So on larger forums this could really add up.
Plus the current drafts system is pretty good too (being able to choose to save it and then see a list of all posts saved, without having to go to that topic, is nice).
23- Polls.
This is a standard feature on most forum software... So it's nothing really for them to brag about.
24- Profile Pages.
MyBB users get a profile page also... And if the admin installs/creates a good theme then it should be beautiful also. Unless you mean allows the user to style their own profile page? (If that's the case then someone could probably build a mod for it. But I wouldn't be too interested in it.)
25- Spoiler Tag.
MyBB admins can add their own either through MyCode or with a plugin (allows for nesting of spoiler tags).
So personally, MyBB may not have everything in the box that Vanilla does. But it has a lot of flexibility for users to decide what they want to add. Plus MyBB isn't that hard to develop themes for (which is always a plus).
So I'd just as soon MyBB over Vanilla.
Having lots of features is great and all but honestly I'd rather have the OPTION to add them as plugins, instead of having every possible feature in the base package.
Otherwise eventually you get to the bloat of vb
(2014-05-01, 08:54 AM)Tom K. Wrote: [ -> ]Having lots of features is great and all but honestly I'd rather have the OPTION to add them as plugins, instead of having every possible feature in the base package.
Otherwise eventually you get to the bloat of vb
I agree, but it also causes the big problem of unreliability of those features.