RapidWeaver Forums

After setting up a site with PunBB, I started getting a little off-put by the fact I can’t just click “publish” when I make changes. So I went looking for a forum backed that would give me the ability to easily integrate into a RW site that would allow me to easily publish site changes, and I found Vanilla Forum. It’s very, very easy to do, so I decided to type up notes in case I wanted to do it again. In the spirit of giving back to these forums which helped me out, I’m sharing my procedure. Below is a simple step-by-step to implement it. Enjoy!

Note: These directions assume you’re installing Vanilla into a folder named “forum” at the root level of your website.

1. Make a new HTML page called “index.php”. In the Inspector, set the parent folder to “forum”.

2. Adjust style & CSS as appropriate in RapidWeaver.

3. Duplicate this file and make sub pages named as follows. Make sure the parent folder in the Inspector palette is set to “/forum”.
• account.php
• categories.php
• comments.php
• extension.php
• people.php
• post.php
• search.php
• settings.php
• termsofservice.php

4. To the Prefix of each page, add:

Without this, you’ll get a bunch of PHP errors… This bit of PHP will add any output to a buffer and put it at the end so that RapidWeaver can set your http headers in the middle of it.

5. Download and unzip the Vanilla installation

6. Copy the contents of each Vanilla file into the corresponding RW HTML file created in Step 3

7. In the Vanilla folder, open “themes/vanilla/style/default/”

8. Open “vanilla.css” in your favorite text editor and comment out (or remove):
• in the “body” section: the “background” line
• in the “#Header” section: the “background” line

9. Open “people.css” in your favorite text editor and comment out (or remove):
• entire “a,a:link,a:visited” section
• entire “a:hover” section
• entire “h1”, “h1,h1 a”, and “h1 strong” sections

10. Upload the contents of the Vanilla folder to your webserver to the /forums folder.

11. Publish your RapidWeaver site.

12. Install and test as per Vanilla’s instructions.

From now on, whenever you make any changes to your site, you can just click Publish.

Wow this is exactly what I was looking for!!!! I was able to integrate the forum into my website with these instructions no problem! The only difference is I made the forum index page a stacks page so i could use the css stack and put it in a nice little box on my page. I would like to be able to modify the style so it matches my website more but i have no idea how i would go about doing that besides from searching for a theme that seems to mesh well.
Here is the forum:
http://www.sdcitymath.com/forum/index.php

coolmemin - 31 January 2010 02:17 AM

Wow this is exactly what I was looking for!!!! I was able to integrate the forum into my website with these instructions no problem! The only difference is I made the forum index page a stacks page so i could use the css stack and put it in a nice little box on my page. I would like to be able to modify the style so it matches my website more but i have no idea how i would go about doing that besides from searching for a theme that seems to mesh well.
Here is the forum:
http://www.sdcitymath.com/forum/index.php

your integrated site is cool!

b a n a n a - 02 February 2010 02:23 AM

coolmemin - 31 January 2010 02:17 AM

Wow this is exactly what I was looking for!!!! I was able to integrate the forum into my website with these instructions no problem! The only difference is I made the forum index page a stacks page so i could use the css stack and put it in a nice little box on my page. I would like to be able to modify the style so it matches my website more but i have no idea how i would go about doing that besides from searching for a theme that seems to mesh well.
Here is the forum:
http://www.sdcitymath.com/forum/index.php

your integrated site is cool!

thanks!

I integrated it here too so my students could have a forum:
http://www.guillermoteaching.com/math150/forum/index.php

Hi people,

Thanks for the great tutorial. I was wondering if any of you have figured out how to remove or replace the Vanilla logo at the header?

Thanks

PowerMacDaddy - 15 December 2009 04:33 PM

After setting up a site with PunBB, I started getting a little off-put by the fact I can’t just click “publish” when I make changes. So I went looking for a forum backed that would give me the ability to easily integrate into a RW site that would allow me to easily publish site changes, and I found Vanilla Forum. It’s very, very easy to do, so I decided to type up notes in case I wanted to do it again. In the spirit of giving back to these forums which helped me out, I’m sharing my procedure. Below is a simple step-by-step to implement it. Enjoy!

Thanks for posting this. I’ve been thinking of using a Vanilla forum and this might just tip me over the edge.

milomac - 07 February 2010 08:00 PM

Thanks for posting this. I’ve been thinking of using a Vanilla forum and this might just tip me over the edge.

Not a problem! I’ve gotten a lot of help from these forums throughout the years, so I thought it was only appropriate I “paid it forward”.

I’m particularly happy with how well Vanilla integrates, and with the number of plugins you can add to easily tweak Vanilla into being something not so… vanilla. (Sorry, couldn’t help myself!)

I am building a website for our church, http://servantsofchristchurch.com/ .  Our pastor would like some type of forum for teens to communicate. Would Vanilla work for this, or would a simple link to a facebook group work just as well?

I have not seen Vanilla work, I have not applied for membership in any of the sites listed in this thread. Will Vanilla allow a topic (or question) to be listed and then have users post responses? In other words, could our youth pastor pose questions and have the teens answer and discuss?

Chops - 08 February 2010 11:55 PM

I am building a website for our church, http://servantsofchristchurch.com/ .  Our pastor would like some type of forum for teens to communicate. Would Vanilla work for this, or would a simple link to a facebook group work just as well?

I have not seen Vanilla work, I have not applied for membership in any of the sites listed in this thread. Will Vanilla allow a topic (or question) to be listed and then have users post responses? In other words, could our youth pastor pose questions and have the teens answer and discuss?

Well, I don’t use Facebook (oh the horror!) so I can’t speak to what a FB Group can do. Vanilla forums is similar to how the forums work here: there are Categories where people can start threads and other people can reply. You can have multiple levels of permissions, so for instance, your youth pastor can be the only one allowed to start a thread, but anyone can respond. I think the advantage of using your own forum as opposed to starting a FB Group is that you have fine-grained control over the entire site, its contents, and how it works.

Olympicmars - 07 February 2010 02:57 AM

Thanks for the great tutorial. I was wondering if any of you have figured out how to remove or replace the Vanilla logo at the header?

Just use a different Vanilla theme. Personally, I’m using the Vanbook one, which mimics Facebook’s look-and-feel, since it integrated well into my site. When in doubt, dig into the Vanilla theme’s CSS and modify as necessary.

PowerMacDaddy - 09 February 2010 02:42 PM

Well, I don’t use Facebook (oh the horror!) so I can’t speak to what a FB Group can do. Vanilla forums is similar to how the forums work here: there are Categories where people can start threads and other people can reply. You can have multiple levels of permissions, so for instance, your youth pastor can be the only one allowed to start a thread, but anyone can respond. I think the advantage of using your own forum as opposed to starting a FB Group is that you have fine-grained control over the entire site, its contents, and how it works.

This sounds exactly like what he is looking for. Thank you for your reply. I am new to Rapid Weaver, the site I linked to is the third site I have designed with RW. Well… one is still in development. I love the ease and flexibility RW provides. I had been using KompoZer, and I am in no way a programmer or coder. Here’s my “Photoshop/KompoZer” site: http://www.welkinbbc.com .

You lost me at Vanilla.

After an hour of researching Vanilla, I am not comfortable with all the extra work involved due to my lack of programming experience. Does anyone have a recommendation for an easy plugin that will allow me to add a forum to a RapidWeaver site?

Also looking for a content managed news feed, or I could post the news feeds for them on a monthly basis.

Thanks,
Chris

Chris123 - 11 February 2010 11:45 PM

I am not comfortable with all the extra work involved due to my lack of programming experience.

Don’t fear, Chris! It’s not really even programming… While it looks complicated, it’s really just a matter of a little editing of some text files with a text editor like Smultron or TextWrangler. You don’t really have to know how it all works… heck I don’t know how it all works.

Basically, here’s how it works:
1) In steps 8 and 9 above, you’re just opening a text file, searching for some lines, and removing them. What you’re removing are pieces of style sheet that conflict with ones that are already in your RW theme.

2) After following the instructions above, you create a MySQL database with your web host. Most ISPs have some web-based front end for doing it, something like MySQL Database Wizard or phpMySQL. They’re all about the same: you just name the new database and set up a user and password for Vanilla. (Not for you as a user, but for Vanilla itself.)

3) You hit your forum’s page with a web browser. Since it’s not set up, it runs through the configuration steps. You answer some questions, set up an admin user account (for you as a user, different from Step 2), plug in the database user and password you set in Step 2 where it asks you for it, and you’re done.

If you want to PM me with questions or help, feel free.

OK, I’m going to try it out. Thanks for the reply. I’ll start out with version 1.1.10.

Chris

PowerMacDaddy - 12 February 2010 12:41 AM

Chris123 - 11 February 2010 11:45 PM

I am not comfortable with all the extra work involved due to my lack of programming experience.

Don’t fear, Chris! It’s not really even programming… While it looks complicated, it’s really just a matter of a little editing of some text files with a text editor like Smultron or TextWrangler. You don’t really have to know how it all works… heck I don’t know how it all works.

Basically, here’s how it works:
1) In steps 8 and 9 above, you’re just opening a text file, searching for some lines, and removing them. What you’re removing are pieces of style sheet that conflict with ones that are already in your RW theme.

Getting to Step 8 was easy. I’m not sure how much copy to remove from step 8
• When you say, “in the “body” section: the “background” line” Do I delete all this? “background:#fff url(’panelfade.gif’) top left repeat-y;”
• When you say, “"in the “#Header” section: the “background” line Do I delete all this? “{background:url(waves.blue.gif) repeat-x left top #E5EAF6;border-top:1px solid #acbedf;border-bottom:1px solid #acbedf;}#Header”

Please advise and thank you for your assistance.

2) After following the instructions above, you create a MySQL database with your web host. Most ISPs have some web-based front end for doing it, something like MySQL Database Wizard or phpMySQL. They’re all about the same: you just name the new database and set up a user and password for Vanilla. (Not for you as a user, but for Vanilla itself.)

3) You hit your forum’s page with a web browser. Since it’s not set up, it runs through the configuration steps. You answer some questions, set up an admin user account (for you as a user, different from Step 2), plug in the database user and password you set in Step 2 where it asks you for it, and you’re done.

If you want to PM me with questions or help, feel free.

I never got it to work after following all the steps.