I love Flarum! ♥ But... 😬 4 reasons why I don't use it for most communities

GoodTimes

I love Flarum! However, there are certain aspects preventing me from using it for large or important communities.

I believe these features are critical and should be available in the vanilla version of modern forum software without needing any extensions. Since they're not yet available in Flarum, despite my fondness for the software, I can't use it for large or important communities, nor can I recommend it to colleagues and others who are choosing software for their communities.

Lack of live preview in the editor. You might prefer to call it WYSIWYG, but since WYSIWYG is usually associated with complex editors, I would rather call it "live preview." A simple live preview with features like bold, italic, strikethrough text, links, and images would be more than enough. I'm not asking for the full range of HTML features, obviously.
Lack of image/file uploader. It's well known that almost any deep and detailed discussion requires the ability to attach files, but Flarum lacks this feature. That's unfortunate.
Lack of automated handling of preferred color schemes (light/dark). This is a must-have for any website in 2019, let alone 2023.
Lack of PWA features:
1. Installation to the home screen
2. Notifications
3. Badges for app icons
4. Web Share

Yes, extensions exist for some of these features, but relying on extensions that affect critical parts of user flow is a bad idea for several reasons.

Extensions are less popular, which means they receive less attention, feedback, and proper testing. As a result, they often have more bugs and less incentive to fix them. They also pose a greater risk of being abandoned.

In my experience, people are eager to submit fixes and improvements to the main software repositories, but if they find a bug in an extension, they're more likely to disable and avoid the extension instead of trying to fix it. This is a significant issue.

Implementing these features in the vanilla Flarum is precisely the point at which I would switch all the communities I manage to Flarum immediately.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to Flarum for all your hard work. You rock!

Kakifrucht

Ultimately, the question you are opening is what belongs to the core, what belongs to core extensions, and what should be just third-party. The way I understood the Flarum 'vision' is that the core is mostly a developer framework with the most basic tools that any forum would need. The core extensions add all the basic bells and whistles that most people would leave enabled, and for all other things, there are third-party extensions. As a result, the core stays clean, which leads to more effective maintenance down the line. Flarum itself becomes more of a developer framework for online communities and forms the stable API that will lead to a feature-rich ecosystem that is more interesting for developers and people wanting to run their communities on this stable ground.

The lack of live preview is subjective. Personally, I don't mind it at all and a WYSIWYG extension exists. A basic file uploader may as well be a core extension, I agree here, but I don't see it as a significant issue either since fof/upload is well maintained. I believe better support for some basic light/dark mode support in its core is planned to some degree, but once again, fof/nightmode is perfectly maintained. I'm more neutral on the PWA stuff; I think it's more niche, but I may be wrong. Once again, has there been a specific issue with the extension?

Regarding the risk of them being abandoned, that's the point with the fof extensions. They are basically first-class supported extensions that have a very low risk of being abandoned.

GoodTimes In my experience, people are eager to submit fixes and improvements to the main software repositories, but if they find a bug in an extension, they're more likely to disable and avoid the extension instead of trying to fix it. This is a significant issue.

I don't understand this perspective at all, and from personal anecdotal experience, I would claim the opposite. The main repositories often seem a lot scarier to touch, whereas a smaller, less official extension might seem less intimidating to submit PRs to. Touching a behemoth that lots of people depend on is more daunting than an isolated extension doing one thing.

[deleted]

GoodTimes Lack of live preview in the editor. You might prefer to call it WYSIWYG, but since WYSIWYG is usually associated with complex editors, I would rather call it "live preview." A simple live preview with features like bold, italic, strikethrough text, links, and images would be more than enough. I'm not asking for the full range of HTML features, obviously.

Lack of image/file uploader. It's well known that almost any deep and detailed discussion requires the ability to attach files, but Flarum lacks this feature. That's unfortunate.

Lack of automated handling of preferred color schemes (light/dark). This is a must-have for any website in 2019, let alone 2023.

Lack of PWA features:
Installation to the home screen
Notifications
Badges for app icons
Web Share

https://github.com/askvortsov1/flarum-rich-text

https://github.com/FriendsOfFlarum/upload

https://github.com/FriendsOfFlarum/nightmode

https://github.com/askvortsov1/flarum-pwa

mrXmr

GoodTimes Extensions are less popular, which means they receive less attention, feedback, and proper testing. As a result, they often have more bugs and less incentive to fix them. They also pose a greater risk of being abandoned.

I agree with this. I am kinda disappointed that flarum doesn't out-of-the-box support image uploads, and needs an extenstion for that.

SnakePromise

GoodTimes As a result, they often have more bugs and less incentive to fix them. They also pose a greater risk of being abandoned.

Exactly, I installed the popular private message extension Whisper, and it got abandoned. Now I can't upgrade Flarum because upgrade breaks Whisper.

masihdindar

There is one extension (at least) for anything you mentioned. I just prefer to keeping core simple and add thing with extensions. Just visit Extiverse.com website and you will find a lot of those.

Trc4

[deleted] https://github.com/FriendsOfFlarum/upload

But that only works moderately. Jumping between posts no longer works in a thread with more images. Thats really sad

Yolo

Trc4 SHPD17 https://github.com/FriendsOfFlarum/upload

But that only works moderately. Jumping between posts no longer works in a thread with more images. Thats really sad

this problem concerns us too. As soon as there are several images in one thread, you can forget about jumping to individual posts. Isn't that an essential feature? Because of this, we are also considering changing the software.

longlostsoul

One could have both a minimalist core and a 'commonly used together packages' like a bundle, or even just a handy text of 'here is a script you can copy paste to get the most commonly added and well maintained packages' via a long string of 'composer require's. It did strike me as a little annoying to have to search to grab security/antispam and user bio and moderation plugins.

Actually, it might be nice to have multiple 'bonus bundles', one to do a more reddit-like site (Synopsis plugin, dislikes), one for moderation/spam/warnings, one for conventional early 2000s forum (categories, page views, user bio, uploads). Even if these bundles just amounted to a string of 'composer requires' all put together in one place, it'd be more user convenient.

luceos

mrXmr , and needs an extenstion for that

Tags, approval and many others are also extensions albeit a first party one.

Fof Upload has received more overhauls and contributions than if it would have been a first party extension, of that i am sure.

I can imagine people being disappointed at their most wanted feature not being part of core, it has honestly been a recurring topic. In the end we simply ignore these, because features are always a matter of opinion and need.

Flarum, or rather the framework (core), excels at enabling any feature and FoF Upload is a perfect example of that. It relies heavily on core code, but it also incenticized changes to it for future extensions (like s3) and itself.

This is never a fun discussion to have, because there is no winner. I still hope to explain why we are so strict in excluding more features as a core responsibility. Our team is small and relies heavily on a two to three people actively pushing Flarum code forward. Adding more responsibilities will move their time away from the roadmap and towards maintenance.

GreXXL

I think the core concept of Flarum development (sleek / essentials-only core) has been well laid out. This does not mean that features cannot be incorporated in the future or that specific important extensions change from third-party to becoming core extensions maintained by the core developers.

This is why the proposal tag exists. I think that this discussion, as it stands right now, is not a proposal because it includes multiple changes. Proposals have a higher chance of getting implemented once they receive a more significant number of votes, which again requires consensus on the proposal. I suggest making separate well-described proposals for the topics mentioned, and you will see if it gets picked up by the community.

mrXmr

luceos Alright. I was planning to create a flarum instance for an online community of mine. I should take a look at the extensions presented on friends of flarum, after I am done with the flarum core installation.

luceos

mrXmr let me stress that we do hope to increase our capacity and with it the ability to build more and better extensions as first party. The recent announcement related to the commercial entity is one direction we hope to achieve this.

mrXmr

luceos That's good news. Looking forward to that. However, I really believe some of the basic, expected features really should get in the flarum core installation. Imho:

image uploads
tags (?)
user bio
best answer
night mode
reactions
drafts
spam block
and many more.

These are really the expected stuff from a forum software out of the box, and learning that flarum lacks these out-the-box has disoriented me.

luceos

mrXmr I really believe some of the basic, expected features really should get in the flarum core installation

This opinionatedness has bloated so many competing products.

mrXmr spam block

Private, invite only communities don't need spam prevention tools.

mrXmr best answer

Role play communities don't need best answers.

mrXmr tags

Flarum installs used as a simple blog or diary system don't need tags per se.

Please, stop thinking that your needs apply to every installation out there. It's not the case. Let's focus on encouraging great extensions instead.

mrXmr

luceos Flarum installs used as a simple blog or diary system don't need tags per se.

I am planning on using flarum as a blog, and I was looking for it to have tags supported out-of-the-box, btw.

But anyways... I can see your point. As long as the extension install/update process is simple I think I am fine with this.

mrXmr

Another annoyance I am experiencing with this extension-approach flarum has is this: I have to cycle through lots of extiverse dot com pages and try to figure out how an extension "looks like" when added to my forum.

Most of the extensions I looked under friends of flarum page do not display a picture of how the extension looks like when added, or how its function is visible to the forum user.

Consequently, I have trouble in understanding what a cryptic sounding extension might do, or whether it does what I picture in my mind or not, etc.

One example for that is the fof/mason extension. It has paragraphs of explanation of its functionality but no pictures. https://extiverse.com/extension/fof/mason

Quite bothersome is the process of selecting an extension and judging whether it is what I "expect" it to be.

mrXmr

mrXmr In addition to that, I am finding myself having to go over each extension's github page & its discuss.flarum.org thread and read the discussions/bugs that other users might be reporting with the extension.

This is yet another hindrance in part of me. I just want to setup a forum and then enable/disable extensions from the admin panel.

mrXmr

Yolo As soon as there are several images in one thread, you can forget about jumping to individual posts.

What do you mean by this? Can you provide an example of this bug happening? I am genuinely curious to see this bug.

GreXXL

I did change the tag as this is no proposal but a discussion about Flarum.

As previous said: if there are separate proposals I encourage you to post them separately inProposals. If there a bugs in certain extensions you should report them in the appropriateExtensions discussion - in this case: https://discuss.flarum.org/d/4154-friendsofflarum-upload-the-intelligent-file-attachment-extension/