I have made a FluentForum look
Edit: see latest update here: https://community.wpmanageninja.com/portal/post/i-have-made-a-fluentforum-look?comment_id=50167
I have been annoyed with the look of FluentCommunity topics and comments for a while. Made multiple posts about it but never really got any answer from any of the Ninja's.
My main issue with the current setup is that it's really busy and when there are a lot of comments it's so hard to know what you have read and what you haven't read. Especially with all the sub comments.
So instead of waiting I have spend 4 hours with Claude trying to build a prototype. Hoping to hype up this community and Shahjahan Jewel for adding this as an alternative theme to the current "facebook" style theme.
I took a huge influence from NodeBB as I really like their style. But hate their integration into wordpress.
So I started stripping all containers, allowing for a more dedicated opening post (OP: original poster)
As you can notice I also moved all the reply, like, bookmark etc to the side for a more clean look and giving the content of the topic the room it deserves.
Secondly I have added a accordion to the child comments on a comment, which is
Here you can see the sub comments closed:
But I still wanted to see those replies in the main feed for an overall idea of the topic conversation. So a comment made later to the "pet" reply still can be seen, but for the full logical conversation you can click on it and you get send to the sub comments.
Then one of the most important addons is the Read Position bar, which shows exactly how many comments there are, where they are and how much time there is in between them. This way it is so so so much easier to get back into a topic and get back to where you left of.
You can see the video for some more context. All with all I'm quite happy with it. Need to do some stress testing, as there is a lot of workarounds needed since Fluentscommunity code isn't that open. But like I said I really hope this would become an reality as a second theme within the core fluentcommunity.
WOW! This looks stunning. Looks awesome.
Shahjahan Jewel Thanks! Took a lot of back and forth to get it right.
Feel free to try the plugin on a test enviroment https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S5gQknWDRlNPQDfixyEV3etr3z94RREH/view?usp=sharing
(all others reading: use this at your OWN RISK, i'm not a developer. This is as prototype as it gets.) now supports sidebar on.
I've update the file to include a prototype mobile comment-position-reader aswell as the actionbar.
Definitely wow. Looks awesome!!
Amazing work, well done! 👏
Ross FCA actually was inspired by all the things from FCA to try this.
Beautiful! 😍
I have done some more refinements and a lot of visual bugs. Also added 'know last read position' and 'unread comments' into the read positioning bar. Still use it at your own risk: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S5gQknWDRlNPQDfixyEV3etr3z94RREH/view?usp=sharing
So I have also started on the feed view, pulling it together with the current layout.
This was a lot harder to pull off, especially with the latest comment showing and making it clickable to go to the specific comment.
It also works with the sidebar.
Still needs a lot of refinement, so can't share any files yet. Also see the video. https://youtu.be/F3QdMIjlxOQ?si=gEOzo-m4B7UIUxtp
There is a lot of work arounds needed because of the current way FC works. So if you want to see this a optional/secondary fluentcommunity core theme add some comments underneath, mabye we then can get the FC team to built this in the future. When it's core a lot of the work arounds I'm making won't be neccesary.
I really like this! I hope more layouts will be added to choose from in the near future. This is certainly one that should become available.
So I think I worked out most of the bugs. Took a lot of time. This is a different download link which also includes the feed layout changes. https://drive.google.com/file/d/18eldwZl0hn8AbYPv70pf_PFEAm9z9Brm/view?usp=sharing
for anyone trying please consider this is a prototype. It seems to be pretty stable, but can't guarantee it works on large communities. Also for the feed layout and the things I wanted, I needed it to tap into the API/Hooks, so since I'm no developer I can't tell how safely done this is. I have tried to use best wordpress plugin and fluentdev practices.
Shahjahan Jewel curious what your team thinks about it. It could be much better optimized if it was part of the core obviously. Or if you guys would add some kind of theme /module functionality allowing to tap into the Vue. Currently a lot of overriding has to be done. Really do think there is a lot in this that would give a great experience to all users, especially everything on the single post layout.
You, sir, are a wizard! Any feedback from the Fluentcommunity devs? If I download your plugin, can I just install it as a theme and that's it? I'm not tech savvy as you can see. I'm impressed by your work!
Anne-Sophie W you can install it as a plugin and it overrules fluentcommunity styling for the feed and post page. Because currently that's the only way to do it. You only need to activate the plugin nothing else.
The plugin file with only post page changes (you can find it a few posts up) is not doing anything crazy and should be pretty safe to use.
The plugin file with also the feed changes I don't know for sure, like I said it does an API call aswell some WP hooks to retrieve the 'teaser' last comment behind the post. It should be fine, but can't guarantee it.
Either way the plugin doesn't install anything permanently. So once you disable of delete it everything is back to normal.
You also sometimes see a quick flash, thats the old style being loaded before the new style overrules it.
Wilco Wietsma I've downloaded your plug-in. It was very easy to do. Thank you for your message and your work! Is there anything else you plan to do in the future? :) Best!
Anne-Sophie W Cool. I do have some more ideas. But I really do hope this would become something the fluent dev's add to their core (as option to turn on/off). As it would be much more stable since they can tap into everything from the backend without overrruling.
Also a good thing to note:
- You should use 'list view' as the default view if you want the feed to change
- You MUST disable post opening in the modal feature for this to work correctly on post pages:
Wilco Wietsma great, thank you for that because I had just started noticing that not everything had changed the way it should have. Thank you again for your time and help!!! I’ve followed you so I don’t miss out on your future work. Hopefully the fluent community devs compensate you for it some day :)
Anne-Sophie W I have updated the link with version 10.3.1 which now also shows dividers on the feed for better readability aswell the mentions in the reader position tracker.
Wilco Wietsma thank you so much for updating me!! That’s so kind of you. Downloading it right away!!
Love the look of the post view. Some very nice usability features, especially for longer threads.
Nice work Wilco Wietsma 👍🏼
I have added another feature (not in plugin file yet) which for me adds a lot of value and that is showing each time you where mentioned in the read position tracker.
I've updated the plugin file above. Which now includes the mention dots also.
Nice work. I agree that it would be nice to have an option in the FC core plugin for various layouts.
following
Wow, that is awesome!! Thank you. I'm hoping they adopt this as an option in the core plugin.
Love it too. Hope this gets adopted.
I -absolutely- love this.
Plugin has been updated to include a small bug fix that occurred with the new fluentcommunity version. Becauses of new FC css the icons when creating a new topic where being pushed outside the container. Thus you couldn't see the 'upload an image' icon anymore;
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18eldwZl0hn8AbYPv70pf_PFEAm9z9Brm/view?usp=drive_link
Would like to know from you guys if you think this feature would add value. A modal pop-up when hovering on the post, showing the OP's post up to 1500 char.
Wilco Wietsma Yes, this is a good idea. I haven’t come across anything quite like it elsewhere. It could hit a nice middle ground between your current layout and a timeline-style feed.
That said, 1500 characters might be a bit much. If the goal is to spark curiosity, it should feel like a teaser: just enough for people to grasp the idea and still want to click, read more, and react.
Quick note: in your plugin, posting is labeled as “add a topic.” That wording feels slightly off, since users are really creating a post, not a topic. Topics are, in fluentcommunity, names of main subjects as pre-established by the Admin.
And on this subject: since you seem to be structuring things around topics (I read topic 1, topic 2, topic 3), have you considered introducing categories and subcategories? Throwing it out there since I’ve pretty much given up on getting the Fcom devs to implement feature requests at this point 😅 They always ignore my posts ^^"
Anne-Sophie W Yeah i think i'll add a translation file later so people can change this themselve. I like 'new topic' more then 'new post' it's a bit more old school :)
I understand what you say about 1500 characters, might make it a little less. `
In regards to the categories. In my eyes the current spaces should really allow for adding sub spaces.
Shahjahan Jewel any chance we could get an option to add this theme as standard in the future? By for example creating a theme functionality within FC.