Release 1.3.5

Hi all,

First of all, apologies for the ~ 25 minutes downtime. I ran into an issue with the PWA. Took me a bit to figure it out.

So far it's been a joy working on ForumSpark since I took over the reins from Jamie. In March we've seen over 50 new boards being created already! I still have a ton of ideas I want to bring to the platform, and I'm excited to release ForumSpark 1.3.5, which is safe to say is a pretty substantial update.

I take this work very seriously, and I'm proud to help take ForumSpark into its next chapter. Slowly but surely, we're becoming the growth and monetization infrastructure for independent communities - and this is only the beginning.

Version 1.3.5 introduces several exciting and much-needed improvements.

Discoverability (SEO Enhancements)

Running a successful community requires strong SEO behind the scenes. While ForumSpark already had a solid foundation, there were still important pieces missing. This update adds:

Sitemaps
Meta descriptions
Open Graph tags (links shared on Discord, Twitter, Facebook, etc. now show rich previews)
Structured data (helping Google understand forum content and display rich search results)
RSS feeds for forums and topics
Canonical URLs to prevent duplicate content issues
Improved Twitter card support
With these improvements, our SEO score has increased from 83 to 92!

There is still room for improvement, but I'm committed to near the 100 soon. There will soon be more settings to control for you as the community admin.

Username Improvements

Usernames have received a major overhaul. The biggest change: underscores are no longer required, making usernames cleaner and easier to read. Spaces and more natural display names are now supported, which is something many of you have asked for.

Mention Improvements

Because of the username changes, mentions have been rebuilt as well. When typing @, you can now simply start entering a username and a dropdown will appear with matching members, making mentions much faster and easier.

Usergroup Banners

A bit of a traditional forum-thing. Usergroup banners are now back. Admins can assign banners to usergroups, which display under member names in posts and profiles - a nice visual touch for staff, VIPs, or any group you want to highlight.

Native Dark Mode

The entire ForumSpark platform now includes native dark mode, including the default theme. It's been carefully designed to feel like a proper dark experience rather than a quick CSS invert - every panel, every button, every element has been styled individually. This works with custom themes too.

Progressive Web Apps (PWA)

This was a highly requested feature. Every ForumSpark community now comes with a built-in Progressive Web App, allowing members to install the community directly on their device for a more app-like experience.

On Android, members will see a clean install banner at the bottom of the screen. On iOS, we show a helpful prompt with instructions to tap the Share icon and then "Add to Home Screen" - since Apple handles things a bit differently (of course).

The PWA also comes with offline support, so if a member loses connection briefly, they'll see a friendly offline page rather than a browser error.

Admins can toggle the install prompt on or off from their board settings. There is still some fine-tuning to do here. If you see something off, please report.

Push Notifications

Alongside the PWA, ForumSpark now supports real push notifications. When enabled by the board admin, members will see a gentle opt-in prompt asking if they'd like to receive notifications. Once enabled, they'll get push notifications for:

New replies to topics they're watching
Mentions
Private messages
Reactions on their posts
Achievements unlocked
Members can manage their push notification preferences from their notification settings at any time. This works on both desktop and mobile browsers.

Again, here applies the same, there is still some fine-tuning to do. If you see something off, please report.

ForumSpark Hub Updates

The ForumSpark Hub has also received a major refresh. It's now easier to explore communities, join discussions, and discover new forums. The feed is more polished, new community pages are better organized, and the overall experience is smoother across the board. You can react, reply, post topics directly to your favorite forum from the hub. And set your community's page in the Directory Listing ACP page.

The Hub also gets its own PWA support, so you can install ForumSpark Hub to your home screen as well.

Everything is better organized, fully synced, and designed with simplicity in mind. There's honestly too much to list - the best way to see the changes is to jump in and explore the Hub for yourself.

Multi-Account Enhancements

Thanks to some great feedback from the RPG scene, I've made some significant changes to the multi-account system. Members can now create and switch between aliases directly from their account. Each alias has its own profile, post history, and identity - perfect for roleplay communities, fiction boards, or any community where members want to maintain separate personas.

Admins have full control over how many aliases are allowed, and can see the link between accounts when needed for moderation purposes.

Achievements

The achievements system is now more flexible. Admins can change the thresholds and criteria types on achievements - Post Count, Topic Count, Reaction Score, Membership Years, and more. This means you can tailor achievements to better match your community's culture and activity patterns.

Search Improvements

Search is now smarter about matching content. The search engine does a better job of matching against post content rather than just titles. Still more to do here, but it's a noticeable step forward.

Smaller Fixes

• Birthday display fix
• Directory listing screenshot fix
• Various custom theme compatibility improvements

That's it for now. As always, I'm happy to hear your feedback and next improvements!

So there's no settings currently for SEO for an admin?

Gizmo said:

So there's no settings currently for SEO for an admin?

Not yet. There's only been some internal improvements. Admin SEO settings will come in a later release.

I've released a patch update for the PWA. Notifications should work now. If anything seems off, let me know.

NOCE, all I need to do now is fix the look of my theme as "Native Dark Mode" poops it all ;(

empire said:

NOCE, all I need to do now is fix the look of my theme as "Native Dark Mode" poops it all ;(

There is a setting to disable this in your theme settings.

Looks good! :-)

Nice maybe a next update would be the option to customize the native dark theme mode. Overall, nicely executed, Cedric.

Sir Chivas said:

Nice maybe a next update would be the option to customize the native dark theme mode. Overall, nicely executed, Cedric.

I have some stuff planned like a visual theme editor and other stuff for easier theme control. Which will be revealed soon.
But if you'd like to style it already, you can override what you have with .dark classes.

You should add a separate css to it. So our stylesheet doesn’t overflow, imo some forums can be heavily modified and won’t have room.

Sir Chivas said:

You should add a separate css to it. So our stylesheet doesn’t overflow, imo some forums can be heavily modified and won’t have room.

I'll be honest - the theme system is a bit of a mess right now. There are currently three different dark mode approaches competing with each other: variables.css, dark.css, and Tailwind's dark: modifiers.

The problem is that dark.css and Tailwind’s modifiers don't play nicely with the theme editor. Since building the theme editor, I’ve run into multiple issues and limitations because of this setup.

Because of that, I'm reworking the theme system so everything is driven by one set of CSS variables, with no separate dark stylesheet. Dark and light modes will be handled entirely through variables so the theme editor can manage them properly.

There’s also a 250k character limit in the CSS editor (roughly ~ 10k lines). That’s far too small to maintain fully duplicated light and dark styles. The default theme alone is already over 18k lines.

So the solution isn’t splitting the theme into separate light/dark stylesheets - it’s using variables more effectively.

The goal is to make the system cleaner, easier to maintain, and easier to customize, especially for admins who don’t want to touch CSS and just want to use the theme editor.

I'm assuming this current approach is why some images/buttons are still the same color as the light mode when in dark mode?

eg: "Message" "Profile" "Add Reply" etc, is that a fair assumption @Cedric ?

Smokey said:

I'm assuming this current approach is why some images/buttons are still the same color as the light mode when in dark mode?

eg: "Message" "Profile" "Add Reply" etc, is that a fair assumption @Cedric ?

There are some defaults from the light theme that weren’t fully made to dark yes. Changing to variables will make this all go more seamlessly.

PWA is top-notch! However, I noticed that the What's New page shows a preview of the topic when you click the topic title link. I think you have to click the topic title link twice to access the topic.

Cory said:

PWA is top-notch! However, I noticed that the What's New page shows a preview of the topic when you click the topic title link. I think you have to click the topic title link twice to access the topic.

Yeah, the hover needs to be removed for mobile view. I'll add that to my tracking and make sure that's done in 1.3.6.