Discussion Participants

stryguardian

This extension's purpose is to display replier avatars directly in the Flarum discussion list. Your members can immediately see who participated in a discussion before opening it. On discussions with more than 6 repliers, an overflow count is shown. This count can be clicked to open a modal showing the total number of participants in a discussion, as well as the full paginated list of participants.

Screenshots

Features

Avatar strip in the discussion list. Shows the first 6 repliers by first-post date, stacked with a subtle overlap effect. The original poster is intentionally excluded — Flarum already displays their avatar natively.
Overflow badge. When more than 6 repliers exist, a badge shows the count of participants not visible in the strip.
Paginated participants modal. Clicking the overflow badge opens a modal listing all participants, 10 per page, with avatar, username, and profile link.
Live updates — no page refresh needed. When a user posts for the first time in a discussion, their avatar appears in the strip immediately. The overflow count also updates instantly.
Accurate moderation actions. Hidden, restored, and deleted posts all accurately update the avatars listed and/or the overflow count.
Admin recalculation tool. A Recalculate button in the extension's admin page rebuilds all participant data to backfill existing discussions with discussion participants.

Installation

composer require resofire/discussion-participants

Existing forums should run a one-time backfill after enabling. You can either use the CLI command:

php flarum participants:populate

Or use the Recalculate button in the extension's admin page for a guided, browser-based backfill with progress tracking.

Updating

composer update resofire/discussion-participants

Special thanks to @huseyinfiliz for some great input and for encouraging me to share this extension with everyone.

Links
Packagist
GitHub

huseyinfiliz

Congratulations on your first extension! I also have to say that it performs excellently and uses very little resources.

I know you must have put a lot of effort into this and spent days working on it. Honestly, I’m giving you a standing ovation, congratulations! 💫

stryguardian

huseyinfiliz Thank you so much for that! Your performance endorsement is also very much appreciated!

Forogramero

A big thank you!! 🔥

junaid

stryguardian kudos 😊

And thanks for sharing

GreXXL

Please be aware that this extension causes an error on removal (https://discuss.flarum.org/d/38970-problems-after-uninstalling-extensions). @stryguardian please that a look at this issue - possibly within your dabatase migrations.

rob006

GreXXL How is this supposed to be fixed by extension? From I can see migration properly creates column in up and removes in down.

huseyinfiliz

rob006 As you can see in the Flarum core migration file below, the participant_count column in the discussions table belongs to Flarum core. No other extension should delete a column that belongs to Flarum.

flarum/frameworkblob/2.x/framework/core/migrations/2015_02_24_000000_create_discussions_table.php

<?php

use Flarum\Database\Migration;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;

return Migration::createTable(
    'discussions',
    function (Blueprint $table) {
        $table->increments('id');
        $table->string('title', 200);
        $table->integer('comments_count')->unsigned()->default(0);
        $table->integer('participants_count')->unsigned()->default(0);
        $table->integer('number_index')->unsigned()->default(0);

        $table->dateTime('start_time');
        $table->integer('start_user_id')->unsigned()->nullable();
        $table->integer('start_post_id')->unsigned()->nullable();

        $table->dateTime('last_time')->nullable();
        $table->integer('last_user_id')->unsigned()->nullable();
        $table->integer('last_post_id')->unsigned()->nullable();
        $table->integer('last_post_number')->unsigned()->nullable();
    }
);

stryguardian

GreXXL This was discovered while updating the extension for Flarum 2.x and has been fixed in that version. I will be making the same changes to this version ASAP.

stryguardian

v1.0.4 Update

This issue is fixed. The extension no longer drops the participant_count column on uninstall.

Tutrix

@stryguardian
Is there a way to display the thread creator among the first 6 avatars, not just in the open modal?
For example, if they've also replied .

stryguardian

Tutrix Since the OPs avatar is typically shown alongside the thread, I specifically kept it out of the avatar strip. It seemed redundant to also have their avatar in the strip. Do you have a setup where the OPs avatar is not shown with the thread?

Tutrix

stryguardian
I'm currently working on a timeline for the discussion list 😉 . Since there are avatars in the timeline, it would be nice if we could also display them next to the participants
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