ForumSpark Support

So when @Kathy changed her username on my forum I didn't know until she had told me 🤣

Can there be a notification or notice bar for admins to notify of any new username Changes?

I know I talked with Cedric on Discord about this before, but any chance we can see this implemented?

Ever since I logged out of the ForumSpark Hub, I’ve lost access to it because I forgot my password. I figured a lost password form would help prevent this.

Not every board wants to have a classic list of categories and forums. While it is dense and familiar, some communities have the desire to customize beyond traditional listings.What changedThe forum home now has four layouts: the classic List, the denser Compact, a new Grid of live section cards with cover images, and a Feed that turns the whole board into one scrollable stream you can reply to without leaving the page. You choose which layouts your board offers and which one it opens on, and ev...

Continue reading on the blog

How often have you made a career change? Are you planning one now? What’s the process for changing from one skill to another for your particular job?

What motivates you to keep running your forum?

Is it your community or something else?

Why do you keep logging onto your forum each day and maintaining it?

Hi there! I’m Ashley and I have been on forums since the early 2000’s. I have ran 2 different forums (neither of them really got popular, but that’s okay) and I decided to join ForumSpark to really read up on how the users are enjoying the packages, if what this website has to offer matches what I want for the forum my friend and I will be starting in the future.

I’m excited to be a part of this community and I hope to get to know other forum owners out there.

Cheers!

Ashley

I often browse the Web Archive to find inspiration for themes, graphics, and just the overall nostalgic vibe of the early 2010s. Themes for example were so much more vibrant back then. Partly because the internet itself was different, but also because there seemed to be so many more people interested in creating things. Over the last 10 years or so, a lot of that slowly disappeared. Everything became flatter, cleaner, more minimal... but also, in my opinion, a lot more soulless and boring.

Maybe I’m just stuck in the past, but I really enjoy revisiting old websites and their designs and trying to create something inspired by them in a more modern way. What I make is never perfect, but I’m trying to bring back a little of that old-school vibe while having fun in the process. If something I create sparks someone else’s interest, gives them some inspiration, or someone simply gets some use out of the effort I put into it, then that already makes it worthwhile.

I definitely feel like the internet, and the people on it, have changed over the years. Somewhere along the way it feels like we lost a bit of that creativity, personality, and willingness to just make cool stuff for the sake of making it.

Welcome to the Did You Know thread where staff and members can post about the little things that maybe you didn’t know about, but now you will.

Today I discovered a feature about version 2.0 when I was placing an image in a topic I was creating on another Forum Spark forum. The Editor tool for Left, Right, Center placement didn’t adjust the image like you’d find on other platforms. Don’t fret though because it’s purposely built into the image toolset where you can adjust the location as well as percentage size. So that’s my Did You Know for today because I didn’t know it until just now.

I know this is a huge and potentially difficult thing to add but i’ve got to ask, back in the day, we used to have an Arcade on our forums, i know there are still Arcade systems for other popular forum software today, So, i’m wondering, is it possible that Forum Spark could one day have an Arcade system or if not a full blown Arcade system, just some games?

Absolute is now available in the marketplace.

Absolute is a love letter to the forums we grew up on, rebuilt with today's standards. Inspired by Absolution from Christian B (phpBB) If you ran a board in the golden era, this will feel like coming home. The whole forum floats as a single card above the page, under a shadow soft.One amber line holds the theme together. It runs beneath every category bar, under the tab you're standing on, along t...

View the product, screenshots and reviews

Use this topic for questions and discussion.

In what ways do you show appreciation for your members?

What kinds of things do you know how to do around your home? Where did you learn it from?

We grew up poor, so my dad had to learn everything and his uncle was an electrician, so that helped a lot! When I got my first house, my dad showed me how to do things too. Lately it’s been YouTube because I can see things step by step and pause as needed.

I checked one forum that we manage voluntarily and I noticed that the moderators are barely active again. The truth is that volunteer jobs on forum don't always work. You can't motivate people with just a "thank you" forever. Sometimes little recognition helps. Giving them voice in decision making and showing appreciation publicly is very important.

Liquid Glass 2.2!!!!!!! (it’s fixed, now loading animation page is better)

it has more customizable like (you can change any color you want, customize the cursor and the effects when you cursor is on a button/user menu)

wallpapers also you can add.

i put the theme so you can download it and ready to use.

The editor is one of the most used parts of any community, so a good part of this release is focused there. You can now choose between three different editor layouts, pasted video and audio links can automatically turn into players, checklists can be shared with everyone in a topic, and we finally added proper logo size controls.

There are also a handful of fixes based on reports we received.

Choose how your members write

Until now, every board used the same editor layout: toolbar on top, title above it where needed, and the controls underneath.

That layout is still available, but you can now choose between three different editor styles from the Editor page in your admin panel. Your choice applies everywhere members write, including quick replies, new topics, edits and private messages.

• Classic. The editor you already know today, with the full toolbar at the top.

• Dock. The writing area comes first, with the most commonly used tools underneath next to the post button. Bold, italic, underline, images, GIFs, emoji, lists and quotes are always available, while the plus button opens everything else including text size, alignment, colours, highlights, numbered lists, shared checklists, tables, spoilers, code blocks, media, dividers, find and replace, HTML source and attachments. When your cursor is inside a table, the panel also adds the available row and column controls. Quick reply under a topic stays as a small one-line bar until someone clicks it.

• Paper. The cleanest of the three. There is no permanent toolbar, apart from emoji and GIF controls in the corner. Select some text and a small floating toolbar appears with formatting options such as bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, code, links, headings, quotes and colours. On an empty line, type / or click the button in the margin to open the full command list for images, media, tables, checklists, headings and more.

If you prefer having every option visible, Classic will probably remain your choice. If you want something cleaner without hiding too much, Dock sits nicely in the middle. Paper is there for boards that want the editor to stay out of the way as much as possible.

Paste a link, get a player

Paste a YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Streamable, Loom, Twitch, TikTok, Facebook, Odysee, Spotify or SoundCloud link into a post and ForumSpark will automatically turn it into a player.

The embeds are lazy loaded and privacy-friendly. Until someone actually presses play, the page uses the preview information served through ForumSpark and does not load the full player from the provider.

This keeps topic pages lighter and avoids contacting services such as YouTube simply because someone opened a topic.

Boards that want wider support can enable Recognise all other supported media sites under Media on the Editor page. This enables support for a much larger list of media providers.

Checklists everyone can tick

Checklists is new to the editor.

When a checklist is shared, anyone who is allowed to reply to the topic can tick items without needing to edit the original post. Each item shows who completed it and when, and changes update for everyone viewing the topic.

When a checklist isn’t shared, only the author can edit the post and check an item.

Your logo, at the size you want

Theme Studio now includes proper logo sizing controls.

Under the light and dark logo uploads you will find two sliders: one controls the desktop header size and the other controls the mobile header size.

Move the slider and the preview updates immediately. Save it and that is the size your board will use.

This means you no longer need to keep resizing the original image or use custom css just to get it looking right, and mobile can use a different size from desktop.

If you leave the sliders untouched, your current logo sizing stays exactly as it is today.

Fixes worth knowing about

• Trust levels. New members could sometimes be told to remove a link or image even when they had not added one themselves. This could happen when quoting another post containing mentions, links or images, and typed emoji could also be counted incorrectly. The trust level checks now only look at the content the member actually added themselves.

• Shoutbox. The shoutbox now stays properly pinned to the newest message when images or fonts finish loading after the page. If someone has manually scrolled up to read older messages, their position is left alone.

• Link previews. If generating a link preview failed partway through, it could sometimes remain stuck without a title or image. Failed previews will now retry.

• Moderator dashboard. Forum moderators could receive an error when a profile report was waiting alongside normal content reports. Fixed.

• Custom domains. Temporary DNS issues no longer count as a failed domain verification. ForumSpark will simply try again later.

You can try the new editor styles from the Editor page in your admin panel. Give Dock or Paper a try on your own board and let us know which one you end up preferring.

Meet the ForumSpark team

We have also expanded the ForumSpark team a little, so I wanted to properly introduce everyone and explain what they will be helping with.

Kathy will mainly be working with community owners and support. She may reach out from time to time to see how things are going, what you are missing or if there is anything we can help with. She will also be helping with support tickets and getting new communities started.

Shawn will be working on guides and content for ForumSpark. You will start seeing regular posts from him covering ways to improve and grow your community. He will also help review abuse reports that are escalated to ForumSpark.

Mace has already been involved with ForumSpark for a while, but is worth properly mentioning here. She works through the interface looking for things that can be improved or made easier to use, and also helps run our marketing campaigns.

Al will be helping with marketing and support. He will also be involved when we are discussing future plans and features, particularly from the side of what community owners are actually asking for and using.

For you, this should mainly mean quicker support, more useful guides, more regular improvements around the platform and more direct contact between ForumSpark and the people actually running communities on it.

You may also see members of the team joining or posting in your community every now and then as regular members.

Feel free to say hello when they drop by.

Originally published on the ForumSpark blog

If you have to pick one fast food place to eat at, what would you choose?

What would be your favorite fast food joint out of all of them?

Have you ever had to ban someone from your forum that you truly liked?

Why did you have to resort to banning?

Did you ever try to reverse it or was the damage already done?

Trail Running Forum

https://trailrunningforum.forumspark.net/

Trail Running Forum is for discussing trail running, trail running gear, and trail running races and events.

If you’re into trail running or want to try it, join in on the fun! 🙂

This is the first theme I created

It has a loading page (if you want to customize it, you can see it in the layout)

There is a button where you can change colors (in general, the background is dark, me personally i don’t like the white mode.

What’s your dream job?

What have you always wanted to be when you grew up? Did you pursue that career?

Why is your dream job a dream?

What’s occurring?

I’m Al.

So when using Brave or a Chromium based browser the mobile menu works normally but on other browsers that are FireFox based the menu does not stay put if you scroll upwards. It will pull up with a gap not staying at the bottom. Just noticed it because I rarely use those browsers over Brave.

i love that theme, but i want the notification buttons and the other i can’t remember at the top with the looking of vista theme.

i wonder if i have to remake the whole code again or just a part of it.

Do you by chance accept PayPal, if not do you plan to in the future?
Thanks

Have you ever thought about going into an assisted living facility and showing the senior citizens how to join forums? I’m not sure how many actually have laptops/computers, but those times will be changing to where more and more have them, I believe. I do know one friend from church took his laptop when he moved into one last year.

Sometimes seniors could be really lonely, and forums could fill that gap. Maybe this is a project for high schoolers who need community service hours?