Link Robins Shoutbox — A Live Shoutbox Widget

MaxDob

oo! is this like the good old online chat from the 00s? it's a really interesting addition! I'd love to see an example in action. how much does it load the website?

KBExit

MaxDob you can test it out temporarily here 🙂 https://kbexit.vet/ (my blog)

MaxDob how much does it load the website?

Very lightweight, texts are small.

Walid

Nice addition to the widget pool.

MaxDob

This is really cool! Is it possible to implement this on a separate page?

KBExit

MaxDob I can look into it when I get some time 🙂

MaxDob

KBExit Thank you very much! I would really like for you to implement this.

Capybara

Good work!

KBExit

linkrobins/shoutboxreleases/tag/v1.1.0

Added

Webpack + TypeScript build pipeline; js/{forum,admin}.js now compile to js/dist/.

Changed

composer.json: PHP ^8.2 → ^8.3 (matches flarum/core); fof/forum-widgets-core pinned to ^2.0.0-beta.3 (was "*").
Removed dead module.exports = {} from the JS source.

Fixed

Failures are no longer silent. Initial-load failures now render the existing load_error message in the widget. Poll-refresh and delete failures log via console.error; the delete is optimistic and rolls back (with an alert) if the API call fails.
The hardcoded title: 'Delete' is now translatable.

KBExit

MaxDob per your request:

linkrobins/shoutboxreleases/tag/v1.2.0

Features

Standalone /shoutbox page. The shoutbox is now available both as the sidebar widget (unchanged) and as a full-page chat at /shoutbox, reachable from a new index-sidebar nav link. The widget title also links through to the page. Both share one chat component; the page uses the normal forum layout with a full-height message area.
Permissions system. Two new permissions in the admin Permissions grid:
- linkrobins-shoutbox.shout — who can post (default: Members)
- linkrobins-shoutbox.moderate — who can delete others' shouts (default: Moderators)
  
  Users can always delete their own shouts; admins bypass. A migration seeds the defaults so existing forums keep working on upgrade.
Flood-control feedback. Hitting the post cooldown now shows a clear message instead of failing silently.

Security & performance

The list endpoint now requires viewForum, so shouts, display names, and avatars aren't exposed to guests on private forums.
Per-user cooldown on posting (HTTP 429) to prevent spam/flooding and table bloat.
Added an index on shoutbox_shouts.created_at — the polled ORDER BY created_at DESC LIMIT N was doing a filesort that worsened as shouts accumulated.
The shared latest-N list is cached for 5s to absorb the 15-second polling herd (busted immediately on create/delete); per-viewer delete rights are applied outside the cache.

Misc

Changed the extension/widget icon to a bullhorn.

Upgrade note

This release adds locale keys under linkrobins-shoutbox.forum/admin; existing translations fall back to English for new keys until updated. Run migrations on upgrade to seed the new permission defaults.

MaxDob

KBExit Great job! Thank you! But I have a request. Is it possible to implement it so that there is only a separate page without a widget? In other words, is it possible to avoid placing the widget on the main page? I want the add-on to work as a separate page /shoutbox

KBExit

MaxDob I'll look into it!

MaxDob

KBExit Thank you again. I have edited my message above to make my point clearer.

KBExit

MaxDob I want to say that your first message was more clear than this edit 😛 I got the point, lol. You want the shoutbox as a standalone, not widget.
I'll see if there is a way to toggle it away from the Widget interface since that's how it was originally designed for.

KBExit

linkrobins/shoutboxreleases/tag/v1.3.0
Fix the broken delete (route param was read from the wrong source -> every delete 404'd). Internal rewrite to Flarum 2.0 conventions: a proper API resource + policy (the API moves from /api/shoutbox to /api/shouts) and a TypeScript frontend using ES module imports. Also bounds the shouts table to the newest 500 rows. No visible change to how the shoutbox works.

flavour1

since updating to flarum 2.0.0-rc.2 i see the shoutbox also in the item-nav > dropdown-menu > item-linkrobins-shoutbox (which is not bad at all). but i have no option in the admin panel to decide whether i want to keep the shoutbox a a widget or in the navigation list. it can only be both at the same time which makes no sense really. i could hide the item-linkrobins-shoutbox via css, but i would actually like to do it vice versa and remove the widget from the site but keep the shoutbox as a seperate page accessible via the navigation. is this possible?

KBExit

flavour1 MaxDob mentioned the same thing and I said that I'll look into it here: KBExit
However I had not been able to make the adjustments just yet. I'll get this done when I have time 🙂

Silvestrus

KBExit I can't send you private message so I will use post method. I vibe coded shoutbox on my forum and it works wonderful. It might give you some ideas, since I built it with the help of my forum members and everyone contributed with ideas (like including link preview extension and so on...). You have to be registered to see it since it is not visible to guests.

KBExit

Silvestrus I appreciate the thought. I'll check it out when I get time. Are your intentions of hoping it gets absorbed into my code?

KBExit

@MaxDob @flavour1 linkrobins/shoutboxreleases/tag/v1.3.4

Added

Display mode admin setting — choose where the shoutbox appears: Page and widget (default), Widget only, or Page only. The standalone page, sidebar nav link, and sidebar widget are shown/hidden accordingly.

Changed

A direct visit to /shoutbox now returns a proper 404 when display mode is Widget only (instead of serving the page shell and redirecting).
Full translatability (i18n): server-side validation messages, the relative-time suffixes, and the unknown-user fallback are now translatable; the timestamp date fallback respects the forum locale.

Notes

Backward compatible — the new setting defaults to Page and widget, preserving existing behavior.

Silvestrus

KBExit just to give you some ideas... For example, it is handy to have fixed icon at the bottom right corner for shoutbox all the time. But, different approach, I guess.