Add-ons for Fluent Community
Not sure if this could be a thing - but I wanted to share an idea.
I’m generally reluctant to start introducing too many add-ons into anything (eg.:Fluent Community), since I prefer keeping a solid and reliable core. 🙂
However, I’m seeing some great initiatives emerging lately, and I think it could be really useful to create a dedicated “Add-ons” topic or space inside the Fluent Community Space.
That way, developers creating custom solutions for Fluent Community could properly categorize and showcase their contributions - and other users could easily discover and benefit from them.
I’d also like to take a moment to acknowledge some great contributors:
- Nelson Miller – whose add-ons for SureCart are excellent, and who’s now working on similar solutions (e.g. for Services) in FluentCart. Reference
- Ross FCA – who shared fluentcommunityaddons.com, where you can find shortcodes, pages, and other useful custom tools.
- Tom Robak – recently sharing interesting add-ons like video upload features, and WiLson Eberechi , who posted solutions for generating certificates.
All in all, I think this could become a really valuable and inspiring space for everyone in the community looking for custom solutions that are not currently available on core (and may not be available due to roadmap priorities).
I love this idea!
I vote yes
Thank you for the acknowledgement Jorge de los Reyes
Your suggestion is nice.
Honestly I've been blogging and writing codes since 2013, and I'll have to say that I like FC and I'm using FC as my main domain cause that's how much I like FC
But the problem is, they're a lot of features needed for FC and the developers are yet to develop them.
So since I use FC and I enjoy writing codes, I create my own add-ons to meet my taste.
Now do you know you can't automate your post/feeds to social media because FC is a Vue spa and sits outside of wordpress, I had to do some serious hard coding on JS and Php to get what I wanted.
I have almost 6000 followers on X and almost 1000 on FB page, I had to create my own RSS feed add-ons that auto post my feeds to my social media.
But this should have been fixed on FC you know.
But in all, I like FC I like everything about FC and I'll stick with it.
WiLson Eberechi Congratulations on your news site. It's very clear and clean. But I noticed that none of your articles seem to appear on Google. I tested with a few news posts. Is that normal? How does FluentCommunity handle indexing on Google and sitemaps? I’d read some criticisms, but they were old posts. Are posts published in FluentCommunity properly picked up by Google, or are there issues?
Prosper I appreciate.
Things to note, my site mpaddi.com is just a month old, new post would hardly get visibility on search engine because it needs views to get there, many of my old posts are visible on search engines due to the fact I use my Custom RSS Feed to automate to my social media.
FC has sitemap available at the tools, but it didn't work for me, probably because my site is my main domain and not a portal. Portal (mpaddi.com/portal) and I'm using the define(fluencommunity slug ' ') logic on my wp-config Php.
I fix that by creating a sitemap from sitemap site itself and submit to Google. All forum site does this
Right now I get 75-135 views on my old post and my new post hardly get such views, which is still not enough to meet up in search engines.
The latest version, 1.8.2 fixed the slug, so hopefully post would get more visibility.
WiLson Eberechi Thanks for answering
I would like also to use my main domain for FC and not mydomain.com/portal. Do you think that this could create problems with google indexing and sitemaps? How to solve that? Or with 1.8.2 this issue is solved?
Prosper even if you use yourdomain/portal you'll still have to submit your sitemap to Google, thats how forums work. Unless your site gets over 1000 views per post of every 10-15 post everyday then you don't need sitemap Google indexing.
If you want to use your FC as main domain, insert this >>> define('FLUENT_COMMUNITY_PORTAL_SLUG', ''); <<< in your wp-config.php, you'll see a line in the wp-config thats says "insert code or something", its usually from line 76-90 you'll see it.
You can insert it at the bottom of your wp-config anyways, but I like clean work that was why I'm telling you to paste it below the comments that says "insert code".
After you're done with that, create your sitemap and submit to Google developer console, gave Google few days and your post would start appearing on Google.
It took me at least 3 days for my site to start showing on Google, because I constantly post and automate my post to social for views since it's a new site. It might take you longer for your site to appear on Google if you don't post or get views
WiLson Eberechi Thanks a lot!
Prosper google often does not reward for republished content and will be short lived once his content falls off of google index in a few months.
Definitely support! But honestly, I won't use unofficial add-ons myself... to avoid security risks.
Artur Abakarov that’s also, one of our main concerns too!
Artur Abakarov I understand you. I cannot speak for others, but I myself do some process before releasing plugins for users.
There's no how Fluent community developers can have all the necessary features users would need in the core, so it is up to individuals like myself to develop plugins to meet your taste.
Speaking about security, I can assure you my plugin are 99.9% safe and clean. A full documentary of the codes are available, and you can upload the codes on any Ai site with prompt to check if the plugin codes are safe.
For instance I have a free plugin "Custom RSS Feed for FC" on my products site Samuuraii.mpaddi.com download the plugin, unzip it, copy the "feed-com.php" codes and paste it on any Ai site with prompt asking if its safe. Hit me at mpaddi.com if you need support or more related information ☺️
Excellent idea
Prosper hello Prosper!
I’ve seen your name pop up in our forms more than once this week - like a digital déjà vu.
I’m genuinely curious: are you exploring something, testing, or just trying to understand what we do (even if it’s all in Spanish)? 😄
Either way, you’ve got my attention now. 🕵️♂️
Jorge de los Reyes Sorry about that. Since I saw you were very active here, I was curious to see if you had a freely accessible community like https://mpaddi.com/ to check out some best practices. But I’m guessing you keep FC for your subscribers, which explains my signing up by mistake. Sorry again. By the way, regarding the add-ons, do you know this one? What do you think of it?
https://wplaunchify.com/fluent-community-manager/
And also this one https://wplaunchify.com/fluentcommunity-customizer/
Prosper No worries Prosper! (I was just genuinely curious)
We’re still building - migrated from Apprentice to FC ✅, fixing structure and SEO before going live ▶️
We’ll have a public layer for reach and a private one for clients and partners - that’s where the real value is (courses, resources, blueprints, etc).
Once it’s ready, I’ll share it: would definitely value any feedback!
Probably, it will be mostly in Spanish on the short-medium term (just take that into account :) ).
Right now, we’re focused on making it work right but we're still dealing with some areas like the SEO, and the public spaces management we still have to sort out!
Loving the process though - and taking the chance for improving performance (that's why I am posting here some post related to speed, performance, checkout experience, and so) :)
PW.: First time I see launchify, but I'll definitely take a look: thanks for sharing!
Prosper For example, something we are really looking for is the option to customize the default lock screen for spaces (just like we can do with courses).
In the case of WiLson Eberechi , and in the site you shared(mpaddi.com), just imagine I want to buy one of the "locked" spaces / products. The lock screen just gives you a CTA to login, which makes no sense 😅. On courses, at least, we can create custom buttons, so as to properly redirect to checkout or landing pages.
That's one of the things we're sorting too :)
Jorge de los Reyes the locked space on mpaddi.com is for verified and interested persons to join the space, get support and reviews.
I don't want any redirect checkout to cart on my space, if I need redirecting to checkout, I would have written some codes and get it sorted.
I already have another site samuuraii.mpaddi.com for product cart :)
WiLson Eberechi will check that out! 👏
WiLson Eberechi I am curious to know your end goal for your community. It appears you are republishing random categories from content that has already been published elsewhere.
David Scurlock that's a blog and a knowledge sharing community. I'm a blogger, I blog, that's what blogging is. Over 40 websites can blog about one particular news.
Anyone can post and share knowledge. It's not up to a month old, and what I'm posting helps for site traffic and views.
Thanks for the shout out! Fluent products are all designed with third party development in mind. They provide extensive hooks and documentation to make it easier to interact with the system and database. For that reason I think they not only expect, but encourage the development of add-ons and extensions.
There will always be features and functions that users want or need that won't appear in the core product. With an all in one solution like fcom you'll also have the ability to creat enhanced versions of built in features, such as Better Messages over Fluent Messages.
The demand for extensions and customisations is definitely there. I haven't advertised mine too heavily and my most popular (free) plugin has over 1000 downloads.
Saying all that. It would be hard for this space to be a place for discussion or 3rd party plugins as I imagine it's hard enough to keep on top of fcom specific topics. I moved the majority of my discussion over to my own community for example to avoid spam, even though they're all very relevant to users here.
Ross FCA , but Better Messages is not supporting Fluent Messages, or?
Marián Šaray Better Messages replaces Fluent Messaging. Fluent Messaging is the default direct messaging system but is very limited in its features. You can choose to use Better Messages instead which integrates directly with fcom.
Ross FCA so can I have BM integrafte with FC? Because on BM site i can see only: "Integrated with BuddyPress, BuddyBoss Platform, Ultimate Member, PeepSo out of the box"
Marián Šaray Seems to be possible: https://www.better-messages.com/docs/integrations/fluentcommunity/
Someone could explain me why BM is better? There is a FC community that uses BM instead Fluent Messaging that I can see? Ross FCA your site?
Prosper BM is a full featured messaging service. It has every bell and whistle you would want from a messaging service. Fluent Messaging may in the future have a lot more features but for now it's very basic. It's like the difference between courses in fluent community and LearnDash.
Yep you can see Better Messages in action on my site. https://fluentcommunityaddons.com/portal/
I've added push notifications too so if you enable those you get alerts for your messages.
Ross FCA does this mean my members would get alerts of new messages? Which of your add-on plugins is this in?
Kaneisha G. Yes - it's disabled as I work on it for now but in my community you receive full push notifications for all community activity and direct messages. Combined with the PWA plugin, you get a full app experience where the notifications are coming directly from your community app and not as a browser notification.
It's not available yet but if you join the Push Notifications group on my community I'll let people in when it's ready.
Yes, I'm interest for addons, but I don't know where or how to find it :)
I completely agree! Having a dedicated “Add-ons” space sounds like a great idea! It would really help organize all those creative community-built solutions in one place and make them easier to discover.
I love the idea of encouraging innovation as long as there’s a clear framework to keep things reliable and safe for users. 👍
Regarding the add-on: does anyone know if it’s possible to hide/collapse FC’s left column with an add-on or modifying something? I know it auto-collapses when the browser window is narrowed and then a floating menu appears. But I’d like to be able to do it even in full screen with a button, kind of like Todoist, for those who know it. Ross FCA, WiLson Eberechi, Jorge de los Reyes any idea?
Prosper no idea tbh 😅. But probably with a custom snippet!
Prosper honestly haven't thought about this, to me I don't see reasons to hide the left sidebar since it does that automatically when browser is narrowed. I've got some plugins and addons I'm working on for FC members and social members, they told me to develop some plugins and addons for them, so I'm not less busy for now, I would have created an add-ons specifically for you.🥺
+1 it would make sense to have addons in one section and not scattered all over the community 🙄
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