[Forum] I want to RENAME everything 'FORUM' on my site to 'COMMUNITY' - What is the BEST way to do this? (vB

[NashChristian]

Hello,

My website has had almost NO participation in the FORUM portion of our site, so I'm going to change the name to COMMUNITY and see if sparks anyone's interest.

I'm wondering what is the easist and BEST way to do this, site wide?

I've just upgraded to vB 4.2 PL-3 and vB is installed in my ROOT directory.

I understand how to use the navigation manager to rename the FORUM tab and repath it after I rename the 'forum.php' to 'community.php'.

Will renaming that file ('forum.php' to 'community.php') cause any problems?

I'd also like to rename my 'forumdisplay.php' to 'communitydisplay.php', what modifications do I need to make for that to work correctly?

After that I'm assuming that I'll just need to search & replace phrases to change 'forum' to 'community'.

Where do I find this at for the "breadcrumbs"?

Is this a plausable idea, or am I just going to cause myself a lot of headache and trouble here? Is vB setup to easily interchange these two words?

Any advice you could provide would be appreciated!

Thanks.
Jeff

[Trevor Hannant]

Renaming files could cause massive problems - you would need to go through ALL files where there may be a reference to that filename - and note that any changes will not be supported, if you have an issue, you will be required to revert to default files and filenames. Additionally, if you do decide to do this, everytime you upgrade, you would need to go back through all files and make all these changes again. You would be better off looking at using URL rewrites to achieve this instead of changing the filenames.

Also, all templates would need to be scanned for links to filenames that have changed.

As far as references on pages, you could edit phrases by searching for the word 'forum' and change each and every one.

[NashChristian]

Renaming files could cause massive problems - you would need to go through ALL files where there may be a reference to that filename - and note that any changes will not be supported, if you have an issue, you will be required to revert to default files and filenames. Additionally, if you do decide to do this, everytime you upgrade, you would need to go back through all files and make all these changes again. You would be better off looking at using URL rewrites to achieve this instead of changing the filenames.

I definately DON'T want to do that then. The last thing I need is more WORK each time that I upgrade.

What options are BUILT-INTO vb for renaming my forum something other than "Forum", such as "Community"?

I see THREE options, but they don't seem to operate independant of each other, and I don't fully understand how to implement them:

FIRST: AdminCP/Settings/Forum Home: Options

Script Name for Forum Home Page: forum || This option allows you to set the script name of the page that acts as your forum home page. By default this will be 'forum' (meaning forum.php but you may want to call it whatever else you like for your own purposes.

If you change this value you must manually rename the forumhome PHP script to match the new value.

So I don't fully understand what this option CONTROLS, I've changed it and it doesn't seem to make any difference on it's own. The "Navigation Manager" seems to override any settings here in FORUM HOME. I'm also unsure what is meant by "If you change this value you must manually rename the forumhome PHP script to match the new value."

The way that this reads to ME, is if I want to rename my FORUM HOME page to be called COMMUNITY instead, I should change the value here for the Script Name for Forum Home Page from "forum" to "community", then I should change the file name for the "forum.php" to "community.php". Is that how this feature is SUPPOSED to work? Is that what is meant by renaming the forumhome PHP script to match the new value? Would this cause file name conflicts?

I've tried testing this, but it really doesn't seem to do anything. The Navigation Manager seems to override any changes made here. So is this section of any value at all for making the change?

I'm considering the stub directory method: AdminCP/Settings/Site Name / URL / Contact Details

Forum Component URL

Optional URL for your Forum Component. If this is specified it will override the Forum URL setting for Forum specific pages. You may specify an absolute URL or a URL relative to the main Forum URL Examples: http://forum.example.com http://www.example.com/forum forum The URL should not have a trailing slash or contain the special directories ../ or ./ Note: If you change the Forum Component URL you must upload the Forum stub directory. See help for further information.

So what I am trying to do now is use this method, renaming the 'forum' stub directory 'community' and uploading that as well as the 'blog' stub directory renamed 'blogs', leaving the cms in the root folder of my website.

This way all of the blog posts appear to be in a subdirectory called "Blogs" and all the forum posts appear to be ain a subdirectory called "Community". The problem that I'm running into here, is duplicity of the word "Blog", and the appearance of the name "forum". Please reference the examples below:

http://nashvillechristian.com/community/forum.php
http://nashvillechristian.com/blogs/blog.php

I would like to rename forum.php to index.php and rename blog.php to index.php, that would prevent the redundancy and make it look much cleaner in my opinion. Then I would have:

http://nashvillechristian.com/community/
http://nashvillechristian.com/blogs/

I thought that I could accomplish this by changing the Script Name for Forum Home Page to "index", changing the Forum Component URL to "community", changing the Navigation Manager for the Forum tab as follows: Title: Community, Target URL: community/{session.sessionurl_q} OR community/index.php{session.sessionurl_q}.

However, regretfully both of those directories already have an index.php so I can't rename the files that.

Can you please explain to me:

1. How is the Script Name for Forum Home Page SUPPOSED to work? What is meant by "rename the forumhome PHP script to match"? Are they talking about changing the file name, from forum.php to whatever I designate this as, such as community.php?
2. Is there a way to use the stub directory method without creating the duplicity: https://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum.php (That just looks CRAZY bad to me!) http://nashvillechristian.com/blogs/blog.php (Same thing here - Uggh!)
3. Is there an EASIER way for me to rename my FORUM section COMMUNITY, and have it NOT look crazy?

Thanks for your help!
Jeff

[Wayne Luke]

The best way to do it would be to do a search on forum and manually translate it to community. This will allow you to maintain case and context.

Languages & Phrases -> Search in Phrases.

There is a find and replace function but I really recommend against it. Using it blindly can disable your site.

[NashChristian]

Thanks for your response!

I understand now regarding PHRASES, but as for the AdminCP Options, URL structure, pathing, and file names, I am still confused.

Can someone please explain to me:

1. How is the Script Name for Forum Home Page SUPPOSED to work? What is meant by "rename the forumhome PHP script to match"? Are they talking about changing the file name, from forum.php to whatever I designate this as, such as community.php?
2. Is there a way to use the stub directory method without creating the duplicity: https://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum.php (That just looks CRAZY bad to me!) http://nashvillechristian.com/blogs/blog.php (Same thing here - Uggh!)
3. Is there an EASIER way for me to rename my FORUM section COMMUNITY, and have it NOT look crazy?

If someone could please explain this part to me, I would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks!
Jeff

[Wayne Luke]

1) Not really recommended because you'll probably have to change code inside files as well.

2) Don't use the stub-directory method. Use mod_rewrite rules and you're urls will be /forum/1234-this-is-some-forum and /blogs/1234-this-is-a-blog.

3) Not and have it done properly. you have to manually edit the phrases.