Vanilla Review - General Features & Requirements

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Web Site: http://www.getvanilla.com
Download here: Download Vanilla
Community Forum: Support
Released under: GPL License.
Current version: 1.0 (July 5, 2006).
Price: Free.

From Vanilla web site:

Vanilla is an open-source, standards-compliant, multi-lingual, fully extensible discussion forum for the web. Anyone who has web-space that meets the requirements can download and use Vanilla for free!

A Rich User Experience

In Vanilla you can quickly and easily see which discussions you haven't read, and how many new comments are in each discussion. You can run advanced searches through discussion topics, comments, and users. You can change the way Vanilla operates using per-user preferences. Finally, you have a very customizable account profile where you can provide pictures of yourself and add as much information about yourself as you like.

Slick Administration Capabilities

Vanilla has built-in spam control, an autonomous user & role management system, and affords administrators a great deal of flexibility and ease-of-use. As an administrator you can completely change the layout, style, language, and all application settings through an intuitive and easy to navigate settings tab. Adding and organizing roles, categories, languages, and add-ons is a breeze. Simple or advanced searches that yield useful results are invaluable in day-to-day administration.

Extend the functionality of your forum with limitless Add-ons

Vanilla is all about add-ons. We've spent many, many months developing a new system whereby developers can create add-ons for Vanilla that allow you to do just about anything with your forum. Want to turn your Vanilla into a bug tracking system? Want to tag discussions instead of categorizing them? Maybe you just want a fancy highlighting effect when new messages are posted. Your imagination is the limit.

Server & Clients Requirements

Server Requirements
Operating Systems
Systems supporting this software.
  • Linux
  • Windows Server 2003
  • Windows XP
  • Solaris
  • FreeBSD
  • OpenBSD
  • NetBSD
  • Windows Server 2008
  • Mac OS
Web Server Details
Web servers host the forum software.
  • Apache 1.3
  • Apache 2.0/2.2
  • Microsoft IIS
  • Lighttpd
  • Nginx
Languages Details
Development language.
  • PHP 4
  • PHP 5
Databases Details
Systems that store forum datas.
  • MySQL
Browsers & Clients Requirements
Compatible Browsers Details
List of compatible browsers.
  • Mozilla Firefox 3
  • Mozilla Firefox 2
  • Mozilla Firefox 1
  • Opera
  • Safari
  • Konqueror
  • Internet Explorer 7
  • Internet Explorer 6
  • Chrome
  • Mozilla SeaMonkey
Required Plugins/Technologies Details
What the user needs exactly to use this forum correctly.
  • HTML and AJAX
Localization Details
Languages supported by Vanilla.
Yes Yes.

Forum Threads & Posts

Forum Threads
Forum Style
General appearance of the topics.
Threaded
Social Networks
Users can share information from their social network account...
No.
Thread Icons
An icon that identifies the type of a topic.
No No
Forum Organization
Organize your forum with categories, sections,...
  • Forum Categories
  • URL Redirection Forum
  • Sub Sections
Sticky Threads
Sticky threads stay at top of a section or a forum.
Yes Yes
Spell Checking
Posts and topics are spelled checked with a dictionary.
Unknown Unknown
Detect Duplicate Threads
Duplicate Threads are detected before creation.
No No
Shadow Topics
Some topics are only accessible to a limited list of users.
No No
Posts
Post Editing Form Details
Details about the manner to post messages.
  • Plain Text
  • Formatting Buttons
  • Preview Button
Emoticons Details No No
Post Editing Format Details
Markup Language (HTML, Wiki, BBCode,...).
  • Plain
Attachments Details
Attach files (screenshot, archive,...) with a post.
No No
Post Quoting
Quoting a post helps readers understand who answers who.
Yes Yes Syntax Highlighting
Posted Source Code is formatted using colors.
No No
Post Rating
Users can rate the quality of other users posts.
Yes Yes

Key Features & Additional Tools

Key Features
Bundled Softwares
Softwares that are also available with the forum.
No. Users List Details
List of all user accounts, to helps users searching their friends.
Yes Yes
Private Messages Details
Users can communicate using an internal messaging system.
Yes Yes Online Users List
List of actually connected users, in the forum home page, a dedicated topic,...
Yes Yes
Instant Messaging Details
Users can communicate in the forum like in other IM softwares (Yahoo Messenger, Live Messenger, Google Talk, AIM,...)
No No Quick Reply Box
Write a post directly from the topic page.
Yes Yes
Calendar Details No No Remote Control Details
Remote control from external softwares or websites.
No.
Poll Creation Details No No Friendly URLs
URLs are as short and simple as possible (for better copy/paste and share).
Yes Yes
RSS/Atom Syndication Details
New posts and threads available using aggregators (represented by the Syndicate icon)
  • RSS 2.0
  • ATOM 10
 
 
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