Who wants to help Rob? ;)

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Hey Vanilla Dream Team!

Rob from Acer is trying to do stuff with VIP Code Deploy. I can create a task for this, but I am not too sure what level of support we should give these types of requests or who would be a good person to look at such as task. I've started the conversation here simply to see how we should action these kinds of conversations with our VIP devs and also to see if anyone wants to help our buddy Rob B) .

This is less of a task persay (as his questions are pretty non specific) and more of a request for pointers/advice etc.

If you guys think this should be a task/github thing, just yell at me and I shall do that.

Hi Shauna,

As you may remember we have been wanting our old masonry-style Blog page format since the launch, similar to what we had on the Lithium platform. The Lithium version was built-in, I basically flipped a switched and it was there. Since this got overlooked by us during the migration I am trying to put together something now. I have a front-end prototype developed that is working good and under review by Brad and team, and I would like to explore the backend PHP changes that will be required. Attached is a screenshot for your reference.


This new format needs to include some data elements that are not part of the current default discussion layout. For example, we want to output an image header (or default to our logo), plus an excerpt or first paragraph of text from the article. The buttons below will are intended to link to the article in different ways, and then the other elements as usual but slightly re-arranged.

While I’ve done some minor updates to individual files in the repo, this will be the first major update for me. Before I go down the path of exploration and discovery about how to do it, I was hoping to get some guidance in the form of suggestions, best practices, any tips/tricks, or “gotchas” to avoid, that will make my life easier and save time. I would prefer to simply hire your professional services for this but as you know Brad is too cheap! ;-)

My initial thought so far is to create a new BlogController class that extends the DiscussionController class and is tied to the Blog category pages (it is for all languages). If you have a developer that I could contact with questions, or that can offer advice, that would be awesome. I did try searching the developer forum discussions for info but didn’t find anything useful, so anything you can share on this would be much appreciated.

Thanks and regards,
Robert

Plus,

Just so you know, I am (and have been) reading your developer docs in an effort to better understand the details of the Vanilla app. But I sometimes find references to things that do not exist or appear out-of-date for one reason or another. For this reason I am sometimes concerned if what I am reading is useful and correct.

Thanks and regards,
Robert

Thoughts?

Comments

  • Vanilla Forums
    Vanilla Forums

    I think the proper approach to this is to view it as a services request and vet it accordingly for estimation, including a meeting with our developers as-needed. That also includes starting with justification & purpose, and then whittling it down to a reasonable spec. Once we are in agreement that the goals are feasible and supportable, we can then deliver an estimate for them to consider. If he still wants to go solo (assuming we haven't rejected the idea outright), we can at least use that to put boundaries on what he's trying to accomplish to set expectations.

    Some things to start with:

    1. Why does Acer find value in copy/pasting this old Lithium page into Vanilla?
    2. Who is it for?
    3. Why is a masonry layout needed?
    4. Will it look the same on mobile?
    5. Why doesn't it use the normal header/footer?
    6. What is the data being selected to display here?
    7. Why does it need additional info than what is normally available in a discussion list?
    8. What does this list of additional data include, exactly?

    There are definitely some out-dated things in the developer docs. There should be no expectation they are exhaustive. We've been improving over time, but that level of docs has not been our primary focus nor will it be in the immediate future.

    The best defense here is a shared project plan that has gone thru our standard services process. Once we have a common goal, we can look at what additional tips or advice are necessary in a more tailored way. I know Rob thinks he's great and all, but we don't have time to train him on all of Vanilla "real quick". :) We would charge a lot more money for that.

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