Shoutbox

A real-time shoutbox widget for Flarum 2.0, built as a widget for fof/forum-widgets-core.

Features

• Live shoutbox in any widget placement (sidebar, top, bottom, full-width sections)
• Polling-based updates every 15 seconds
• Adaptive button — icon-only when placed in the sidebar, icon + "Send" when placed in full-width sections
• Configurable height — admins can set the messages area height in the extension settings
• Permission-aware — usernames link to profiles only if the viewer has viewForum permission
• Guest-friendly — guests see the most recent 10 messages and a "Log in to shout!" prompt; members see the most recent 30 and can post
• Admin-only deletion — only administrators can delete shouts
• 280-character limit per shout (Twitter-style)
• Avatar fallback — users without an avatar get a coloured letter avatar with a deterministic per-user colour

Requirements

• Flarum 2.0 or later
• fof/forum-widgets-core installed and enabled

Settings

• Messages height (px) — height of the scrollable messages area. Default is 320 pixels. Range is 100–1000.

Permissions

The shoutbox is intentionally simple about permissions.

Styling

The widget uses Flarum 2's CSS custom properties (var(--primary-color), var(--text-color), etc.) so it picks up your theme automatically. The send button shape changes based on placement, detected via parent class:

• .sideNav, .IndexPage-nav, .FofWidgets-sideNavAlt ancestors → icon-only square button
• Everything else (top, bottom, full-width sections) → icon + "Send" label

If you want to override styles, target .ShoutboxWidget and its modifier classes from your custom Less in Admin → Appearance.

Troubleshooting

Widget doesn't appear in fof/forum-widgets-core config page: Run php flarum cache:clear and reload the admin page. If it still doesn't appear, verify the extension is enabled in Extensions.

500 error on the homepage after enabling: Almost always a missing migration. Run php flarum migrate. If it persists, check storage/logs/flarum-YYYY-MM-DD.log for the actual exception.

Shouts post but don't appear until refresh: Polling is set to 15 seconds. If you're seeing longer delays, check the browser's network tab for failing GET /api/shoutbox requests.