Add-ons, automation and our Marketplace

Thanks to some great feedback, ForumSpark is in a much better shape than ever. But we're not slowing down. On the contrary...

The Marketplace is now the official place for releases

From today we will start using our official Marketplace on the support board. I will be converting all current resources to the Marketplace. Everything released there gets automatically linked in the Extension Directory and gets its own topic in the forums, so you can follow and discuss new stuff like before. One place to release, visible everywhere.

Template add-ons

The Extension Directory in your admin panel now has template add-ons. These are small packs you install in one click: template snippets, profile fields and styling, no code needed. We made five official ones to get you started: Character Sheets, Gamer Tags, Post Rail Flair, Profile Showcase and Thread Meta. Install one and it just works. Uninstall it and your board is exactly like before. And further improve to your preference.

And if you build something nice yourself in Custom Templates, you can now export it as an add-on and publish it through the developer portal. Your work can end up on every board.

Automation

There is a new Automation page in the admin panel, free on every 2.0 board. You make rules like "when a topic reaches 50 replies, add the Hot label" or "when a report comes in, lock the topic and email me". Pick a trigger, add conditions, add actions, done. Every rule keeps its own run history so you can see exactly what it did. You are free to suggest new rules anytime.

Developer boards

If you build extensions or themes, you can now request a free developer board from the developer portal. It is a real board with every plan feature turned on, just for building and testing. You can install your draft packages on it directly, and templates show detailed errors instead of failing silently.

App data

For developers: installed apps can now push live data to a board through the API, and templates can show it. Think a Discord widget with a real online count, or your game server status in the post rail. Your code runs on your own server, the board just shows the numbers.

Docs

Guides for all of this are up. Admin guides in the normal docs, developer guides (with a few examples) on the developer portal.

Have fun with it, and show me what you build.

Originally published on the ForumSpark blog

Love to see it, been enjoying the new updates as they come out. I'll do my best to keep pointing out bugs and glitches as I stumble upon them.