Best way to customize Flarum?

coderstephen

What is the recommended way to customize Flarum for a specific community? We're exploring the possibility of using Flarum for the PHP language community itself, and I'd like to know what the best way to customize Flarum is.

If there are lots of tweaks and added features we need, is it best to create a modified Flarum project that just uses the core components library? Or would it be better to make a "core" extension for that community, or lots of small plugins?

I'm interested in the intended usage patterns, as well as what is planned for the future.

Kulga

I think a lot of small plugins that do what they're supposed to do - efficiently - is ideal since others will probably have similar needs. Like the like plugin. Doesn't do much besides indicating you like something so you can easily choose if you want that or not.

Toby

Yep, exactly what Kulga said.

In 99% of cases, we want it to be possible to use the official Flarum project without any core modification, and the required feature/behaviour be implemented with an extension. That way upgrades will be relatively painless (especially once the Extension API stabilises).

Small extensions that dotadiw have the advantage of being easier to maintain, test, and are more portable (can be used by others too). Just like you would write your PHP classes!