Regarding Theme Compatibility Feature
Got so many queries about the theme compatibility feature and I wanted to add some context about the feature that we are working for months on it.
We got a few blockages regarding the theme compatibility features.
- When we load the theme and other plugin styles, some UI parts get mixed up.
- Rendering the Sidebar and Header part is the biggest challenge in the theme's page template. Also, some themes are block-based and work in a different way. Also, classic themes are used in many variations.
- Dark Mode: This is also a big challenge. We don't know how we can make the dark mode work when using theme styles yet.
A few solutions we are experimenting with:
- Giving Template parts (Community header parts, sidebar etc) to block editor site template builder so you can build your template. Our roadmaps page is an example.
- Provide a shortcode of the community app so you can paste in your page and use that UI as the base UI for the whole community App.
- Another crazy experiment: Build a light-weight theme to handle everything as we will have all the controls for everything.
Once we build something, the problem is that we can't revert back, as close to 4,000 sites are powered by FluentCommunity, so we can't just take back a feature.
So, yes it's a bit complicated, and our team is working hard to find the perfect solutions. I just don't want to build any feature as a temporary fix. FluentCommunity will be the go-to solution for building communities, so we are a bit cautious about the internal design.
Our team is working on these experiments and I am hoping to start releasing this feature part by part from next month.
Sure is very complex, now I can see the reason for the delay. By the way, as you test, do not forget to test with Thrive Themes builder
Is the goal for theme compatibility to be able to incorporate parts of FC into existing sites because there isn't a good way to incorporate non-FC content into FC? If so, why not just build a way to incorporate regular WordPress content (pages/posts) into FC? There is a roadmap idea for a new space type of 'page' that would allow adding pages with similar functionality as regular WordPress pages. Would doing that solve the issue (hint: it would for me :)? Granted, that may not be easy to do either.
Building a lightweight theme is relatively easy to do. I posted one I've been working on a few days ago and Ross H has posted one as well (heck, I even duplicated the spaces page layout in a page template that I'm using to display info from form entries). Granted, this only works if you want your entire site to look like FC although new page templates could be build by people that need some pages to look different.
Also, Thrive Apprentice. Thanks, as we await the amazing theme compatibility
Thanks for the update Shahjahan Jewel - I think that there's at least two distinct requests that are being grouped together under "theme compatibility" that might be worth splitting out for a roadmap.
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Bringing your existing theme header into fluentcommunity - this is the harder one I think you are describing. Making this feature universal is near impossible without the theme developers providing FC integration. It's hard to load a distinct theme header with its own scripts and styles and have that load independently and not impact the styles of FC. For dark mode etc to work the theme needs to honor the "dark" html class, and FC needs to know the class names of all the elements.
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Adding custom pages to your fluentcommunity. Allowing users to just create a "page" with potentially a rich text or block editor and their own custom content. I think this is the more requested feature and one I think is more within the control of WPMN. Users can add a "discussion" space, or a "course" space, and they would like to add a "page" space.
So two distinct goals. Integrating your existing website seamlessly with FluentCommunity, and adding custom pages inside of FluentCommunity. I think users would be ok waiting for a time when their own header can be added to fluent if they could just create their own custom pages inside fluent for now.
As an aside, struggled to add this post as the text overlapped the reply button and I could not scroll. Had to add half then add the rest by editing the post.
Ross H Thank you. You are very correct. The second option is what I have seen a lot of people request and that is exactly what I needed. I don't see myself bringing my main Website Header and Footer into FC. I want a different experience for the community.
Ross H you'll have to tell their support.. Many times they don't look at these bugs when posted randomly here and there.
Ross H Option 2 for starters! ;) With the option to hide or reduce to the sidebar like Kim Jagstedt posted in the chat. A "page" space is exactly what it needs right now.
Luke Barrett when hiding the sidebar we need the content to expand instead of staying the same size.
Ceez Vision true that!
Ross H my workaround for the stand alone page is to create a discussion space/page not allow any comments and only admin can post. But it's limited to what a post is and not an actual page so sometimes I have to resort to using a course with a lesson.
Shahjahan Jewel Like Ross said, a page (like from a lesson) would be perfect for many, many things (like the welcome page for a space that includes discussions and courses and instruction video on how to use the space). Right now, I have meeting information and how to prepare for the meeting in a lesson in a course. Not ideal.
If I can add a wish list item to the page, allow the same permissions for discussions or courses. For example, I have a program called Unstuckable. There are 3 member levels with different features available. I would like to have 3 welcome pages (one for each level) showing them how to use the features in the community. I have a video that I send out in an email, but ideally I'd have a FCRM smart link directing them to the welcome page instead of them watching the video (I use Loom) outside of my system because occasionally people will comment on the Loom video and I'd rather have that in the community.
Wendy Shoef I have custom pages working and will release a beta version soon. If you had an example of what this page would look like I can mock it up and see if it's suitable. You can see it in action here https://fluentcommunityaddons.com/portal/pages/hello-world
For me, I don't want to bring FC header/sidebar or UI over to my main theme/website. Rather, I want to be able to bring/add WP pages I built into my FC. E.g. https://www.mysite.com/portal/events check this out: https://community.wpmanageninja.com/portal/events. That page where we have: "Please wait while we redirect you to the appropriate page.." I want my WP Page to display there. I hope this will be possible at the end of the day?
Personally, I completely agree with Tim Olukayode and Ross H . I don't want to distort the design of Fluent Community and overcomplicate things by trying to add more menus and other elements from my site. The FC community design, as it is, suits me perfectly.
It's the same thing with LearnDash's “focus mode”, for example. It doesn't match the design of my site, but it's perfect for online training.
In my opinion, the team should focus much more on adding elements to the community, pages, blocks, and the like, rather than trying to create a Frankenstein's monster by trying to adapt to a multitude of themes. Frankly, I don't see the point because what we want is to keep our members in the community, with a simple, sleek design.
I don’t want to bring the FluentCommunity header, sidebar, or UI into my main theme or website — and I definitely never will. What’s most important to me is simply being able to add regular WordPress pages into FluentCommunity and have full shortcode support here 😊
I’ve explored how Better Messages integrates with FluentCommunity and used that as a reference for understanding the SPA structure and routing approach. Based on that, I think it might be possible to load full WordPress pages dynamically, using a custom server-side AJAX endpoint combined with custom FluentCommunity routes and a Vue component. This way, the component could fetch and inject fully processed content — including shortcodes, dynamic elements, and page-specific assets — directly into the existing SPA layout. It would keep the community header and sidebar fully in place, allow smooth navigation between native community views and WordPress pages, and avoid full page reloads or the need for iframes.
Sam Jansen Actually, we have given them the API to load the Better message into it.
Shahjahan Jewel is that something that will be more widely available? Or can be requested? I'd love to be able to integrate more directly.
Shahjahan Jewel can you add 1 more hook for me? :D
Shahjahan Jewel Got it! I checked Better Messages for SPA structure, and it looks like loading full WordPress pages might be possible with public hooks, even without internal APIs.
Ross H they are using vue router for navigation:
https://router.vuejs.org/
and you can hook into it this way, which I found in they source code:
https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/bp-better-messages/trunk/addons/fluent-community/scripts.js
Sam Jansen Better Messages fully rendered at client side, like SPA do, so that is kind of perfect match for FC. WordPress pages will not be that easy to integrate, mostly because of JS will not work from that pages, which can be ok for static content pages, but for not static, that will be huge issue.
Andrij Tkachenko For WordPress pages, external scripts should work fine, and for inline scripts, manual execution is needed — it’s an extra step, but should be possible.
Sam Jansen it would work probably ok on first WordPress page load inside SPA, then you cant unload loaded scripts within SPA without full page reload and that will cause alot of issues in WordPress ecosystem, when you try to load one more page using that way. There will be alot of error and conflicts.
Andrij Tkachenko Good point! I think this would need a proper cleanup routine to remove previously injected assets when loading a new page.
Sam Jansen the point is there is no way to unload/cleanup JS, its loaded to browser RAM until page reload and thats why only SPA compatible code can be integrated to SPA applications seamlessly ( like Better Messages )
You're right that JavaScript stays in memory, and fully cleaning up JS without a page reload is challenging. However, modern page builders and plugins like Bricks, Elementor, and Gutenberg blocks are designed with SPA compatibility in mind. These plugins handle dynamic content efficiently without full page reloads. For these, cleanup routines like removing injected assets and reinitializing dynamic elements could work well. However, for legacy plugins or scripts that rely on globals or document-ready functions, a full page reload is still necessary to avoid conflicts and properly unload content
Andrij Tkachenko that better messages code helped a ton. Think I've cracked this now. Custom pages loading in the SPA without faking it with a theme...
Ross H Good job! That is nice :)
Ross H sometimes you just need an example to understand things ;)
Oh wow! So many experts in the building 😄
Choose themes that you integrate with, and thats it.
Rosvaldas Nudas cough cough Bricks cough ;)
Luke Barrett u mean blocksy?
Rosvaldas Nudas Kadence theme for sure.
Rosvaldas Nudas Divi 5 please.
Did u ever think to realise your own theme just like bb did, so u can have internal control over it?
Simple shortcodes should do the trick.
"Giving Template parts (Community header parts, sidebar etc) to block editor site template builder so you can build your template. Our roadmaps page is an example."
This option is all I need. I keep FluentCommunity on its own domain. It doesn't need to be consistent with my blog. Instead, I need to have a consistent presentation for things like the Roadmaps, FluentSupport, FluentBoards, and BetterDocs. A consistent interface within the FluentCommunity header and sidebar is perfect for me. Most of the things I need to display are your own products, and I know you integrate FluentSupport with BetterDocs. I hope that would be helpful if you go with this approach.
William Beem have you had any success using my theme for this?
Ross H I haven't tried it, so no idea.
Ross H Just tried it today and posted on your site. Unfortunately, the theme didn't show anything inside the FC header and sidebar.
Perhaps what you could do is test different final products and roll it out for a few people specifically? They could test this and give you feedback. That way you wouldn't affect everyone.
DIVI 4 and DIVI 5 - it must work with these ... :-)
I believe creating your own theme would be a strong solution. It would open the door for users who are focused on community development and want a clean, modern look. For those seeking a hybrid approach, it’s important to understand the limitations—such as issues with dark mode compatibility. A theme specifically designed for Fluent Community could serve as a solid starting point for those building on your platform.
This is just my personal opinion, and others might see it differently. But if compatibility with the current theme is a key issue, then offering a superior alternative could encourage users to switch over and migrate their data to the new theme.
I think the focus should be on building solid migration tools—for example, from Divi or Kadence to a Fluent Theme. \
Shortcode is good enough 🙏🏻 Especially for those of us who want to make site live with fluentcommunity header & mobile nav bar everywhere on site
Tjaša Peterle Lets go with shortcodes
This is how my community looks, you can run it in a iframe and use you header and footer, short code will do the job as well, I have created couple of light themes snippet for my use and what you see is one of them....
This is how it looks in light and dark mode!
Manoj Sharma can you share some basic code on how you are implementing this?
Manoj Sharma how did u put that left sidebar?
Paul Hopkins Yes, I posted the theme code CSS about 3 months ago. It should be somewhere in my profile if you scroll back or search for it.
Tindaro Battaglia side bar is part of the header, I have set it as Fixed on the left side, so it's visible on all pages.
I'm loving the idea of a simple theme, Shahjahan Jewel - I've been playing with the one created by Ross H and, with the addition of another page template (no header, footer, just the content) I can then use Beaver Builder to do exactly what I want on pages outside the portal, and then use his page template for pages inside the portal.
However, having an official, supported FC theme (bonus - with hooks) would mean I could sleep at night knowing that nothing's going to be broken when there's an FC or WP update.
Definitely have both... 1. a simple theme and 2. short codes as both with cater for different customers and provide that flexibility. Some prefer short codes and some prefer an integrated theme.
FluentTheme will be another product offer to your list to incentivise sales for FluentCommunity.
You could also offer template parts too to make FluentCommunity even more flexible as an additional feature seeing its a side loading plugin and has its limitations for customization vs a standard plugin.
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Another crazy experiment: Build a light-weight theme to handle everything as we will have all the controls for everything.
This is far from crazy, and in fact, is the easiest and fastest way to provide the theme flexibility users need. It could be as lightweight as Fluent Community and avoid taking on any bloat that some modern themes have.
I would gladly trade a lot of "fancy theme" code for a fast and lean theme that allowed me to seamlessly integrate my site with Fluent Community. ⚡
My two cents:
I like Community for a plugin for creating a community. I look at it as an alternative to Skool that I can host on my website (like how Fluent CRM is an alternative to Active Campaign and other email marketing programs). I use Breakdance or Oxygen for my websites (mine and my clients). I don't plan on switching any time soon.
For me, being able to use short codes in Community solves the majority of my "aww, I wish community had that" moments.
Having more custom theming (specifically the ability to set our own colors and adjust heading size and logo placement) for Community solves a lot of visual problems. I'm less concerned about it but I have one client that is a little disappointed at the lack of customization - yet she is still extremely happy she doesn't have to get another product and that it's in her website (to her, every plugin I use feels like her website and not a new system - more a feature of her website).
I don't want pages of my website inside of Community. If something belongs in Community, then it should live there. Pages inside of Community solves A LOT of these issues. Even if you can't use shortcodes elsewhere, having pages that allows short codes would be a great place to start and I think solves every issue I have (at the moment).
Except design. And that is where I think people are having the issues and will forever be a debated issue (just ask Elementor, Bricks, Beaver, Breakdance, Kadence, etc).
I don't look at Community as a theme or builder, I look at community as a plugin that allows a community to be hosted on a website. WordPress website themes & builders is a completely different beast. I personally would rather the team focus on the functionality of Community and making it an ever better plugin (not theme replacement) that it already is.
Wendy Shoef I understand where you're coming from with this, which is why I use a different installation for the community than I do for my website/blog.
That said, I think a lightweight, dedicated theme for FluentCommunity may help with one aspect - keeping related plugins within the user interface.
I would like to have the Roadmaps, Fluent Support, BetterDocs, a calendar, and things that could extend the front-end of this platform to users, while still having backend services (like FluentCRM and parts of those other plugins I mentioned) available from the WordPress dashboard.
William Beem I think the key is lightweight. I know not everyone is using a theme/site builder or is tied to a specific ecosystem. That's why I had suggested at the minimum having more customization options and/or use community through shortcodes or vice versa.
In the end, I think the team will pick what is best for their company long term goals and some people will be happy about their decisions and others won't.
If you made a theme it would cut off one of the best builders on the planet. Bricks Builder. If you did that it would suck arse… just saying..
Luke Barrett I disagree. Just because they make a theme doesn't mean you have to use it.
Shahjahan Jewel, have you decided which method will be implemented? Thanks.
Would like to have each space of fluent community to have its own shortcode and be able to insert those however I choose on my site using my prefered theme/page-builder
Shahjahan Jewel the theme compatibility adopts light mode by default, but what if we customize our light mode to feel like dark mode.
I tried customizing it but it's quite hard to get the exact dark mode colors, please can you share the exact colors the dark mode uses 🥺?
It'll really help