module Native Forum – a complete community forum for ProcessWire (free)

[Roych]

Hi all,

I needed a real forum on a ProcessWire site. This is it: Native Forum, fully built, and it installs on an existing site without touching what’s already there.

The forum part

• Structure: groups, categories, topics and replies, with pinned and locked topics, tags, search and a member list.
• Posting: quotes, “in reply to”, likes/votes, a copy link and share cards for every post.
• Members: private messages with a “you’ve got mail” popup, followed topics with e-mail notifications, and a “Followed topics” tab that shows what’s new.
• Profiles: avatar, signature and ranks (manual or by post count).
• Editor: CKEditor with drag & drop uploads, resizable images and file attachments.

  

Keeping it clean

• Anti-spam: honeypot, JS challenge, link limits for newcomers, disposable-email and MX checks, StopForumSpam and optional Cloudflare Turnstile. Bots get bored, humans don’t notice.
• Moderation: a report button and a dashboard with Hide/Lock/Delete in one click. You can edit every topic and reply right from the admin.

SEO, GEO & speed

• SEO: clean meta tags, JSON-LD, RSS and a sitemap.
• Share cards: Open Graph cards with the right picture for each reply.
• GEO (AI search): Markdown versions of topics and an /llms.txt file.
• Speed: fast, with batched queries, and ProCache-friendly.

Fits your site, not the other way round

• It renders inside your own _main.php (Markup Regions or $content) or as a standalone page.
• One switch hides your site’s page loader on forum pages.
• You can add your own header, footer, <head> markup, or anything before or after the forum.

Looks

• Six ready-made presets: Obsidian, Light, Dark, Auto, Monochrome and Custom.
• A Simple or Bootstrap 5 theme, and a Classic or Compact layout.
• Design Studio, if you want to tweak every colour and size yourself.
• Pick a preset, and your forum looks finished before your coffee gets cold. ☕

Themes:

     ...

Admin goodies

• Dashboard: reports, groups and categories (drag & drop), topics, messages and members.
• Settings: neatly arranged. It also works in Konkat dark mode and on phones.
• Optional demo content: pinned forum rules and a few sample topics, removable in one click.
• Export / Import: move the whole forum to another site as one .zip: settings, posts, files, members, and even passwords (encrypted hashes, so members just log in as before).
• Clean uninstall: it removes everything it created, with a big red warning first.

Install: copy the module to /site/modules/NativeForum/, run Modules > Refresh, and install Native Forum. The admin installs itself. Then open /forum/. That’s it.

Download: NativeForum.zip

Feedback, bug reports and ideas are very welcome. And if you build a community with it, show it off! 🙂

Cheers 😉
R

 

[szabesz]

Hello @Roych Thanks for sharing!

20 hours ago, Roych said:

I searched, I waited, and nobody built one,

Maybe that is not fully the case, see:

It have never tested that module, so I have no idea what sort of  "Proof of Concept" that is.

 

[Roych]

16 hours ago, szabesz said:

Maybe that is not fully the case, see:

That’s true, my mistake; I actually didn’t see or find that module, nor did I test it. I retract my previous statement. 😉

I also included a minor update in my module above; specifically, some text in the drop-down menus within the settings was not visible.

[Markus Thomas]

Hi @Roych

Thanks a lot for building and sharing this! I'm currently testing the module and find it really exciting and promising.

A quick first observation: the module settings feel a bit clunky in a few places for example, changing a dropdown in the Design Studio triggers a page reload, which then resets/closes the open accordion. But that's purely polish and fine-tuning.

I'll be taking a closer look at it over the coming days and weeks and will gladly share more detailed feedback once I've put it through its paces.

Great work!

P.S.: I also really hope you consider putting the module up on GitHub! That would make tracking issues so much easier and would allow the community to contribute via pull requests.

[Roych]

1 hour ago, Markus Thomas said:

module settings feel a bit clunky in a few places for example, changing a dropdown in the Design Studio triggers a page reload, which then resets/closes the open accordion.

Fixed a bug where picking a page template in Design Studio could stop the settings page with a selector error. Also colors now match selected preset. Sorry about that! Just update the module. 🙂
If anything still looks off, let me know.

We'll see about git ... 😉

[Markus Thomas]

@Roych

Thanks for the quick update! Just tested it and everything works seamlessly now.

Awesome work, keep it up!