Vanilla (forum)

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Vanilla
Image:Default vanilla theme.gif
Developed by	Mark O'Sullivan
Latest release	1.1.4 / October 21, 2007
Platform	PHP
Genre	Discussion forum
License	GPL
Website	getvanilla.com

Vanilla is a lightweight and extensible free/open source forum application developed by Mark O'Sullivan using the PHP scripting language and MySQL database management system.

1 History
2 Features
3 Latest releases
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] History

Vanilla was started by Mark O'Sullivan after he shut down his private forum called "o8" which he had custom programmed for his own needs. After the shut down a lot of people were asking if Mark would release the software behind the "o8" forum which led Mark to program a forum software based on it and release it free.

The first version of Vanilla was identical to the old "o8" forum software, but web communities and forum applications had changed since the time the first "o8" was released, which led Mark to completely redesign the Vanilla forum to add something that contemporary software didn't have and what would make Vanilla stand out.

At the time of the first beta of Vanilla going online the community was quickly built and the development continued on some of Vanilla's most notable features, like simplicity and extensions.

When Mark finally released the 0.9 version of Vanilla on July 16, 2005 it was an instant hit.

Vanilla came out of beta as Vanilla 1 on July 1st, 2006. During the month of July over 15,000 people downloaded Vanilla and over 1,000,000 people visited lussumo.com.

[edit] Features

Vanilla is a W3C standards compliant application with valid XHTML and CSS. Vanilla 1 includes a new templating system which allows Vanilla to be easily integrated into an existing site layout. Vanilla 1 also has the ability to easily integrate with existing systems so users only need to sign in at one place for both Vanilla and an existing application.

Vanilla's most ground-breaking feature is the framework upon which it is built: the Lussumo Framework. This framework allows developers to easily create and add new extensions to the core software. The basic installation of Vanilla comes with very few features, but there is an add-on site at http://lussumo.com/addons where you can get all of the latest new extensions.

Here are some of the most popular extensions for Vanilla:

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