Forum Module

A full-featured community forum module for LaraDashboard that enables discussions, Q&A, and community engagement.

Overview

The Forum module provides a complete discussion platform where users can create topics, reply to discussions, and interact with community content. It includes both a public-facing forum interface and a comprehensive admin panel for moderation.

Features

For Users (Frontend)

• Browse Categories - Explore topics organized by categories with custom icons and colors
• Create Topics - Start new discussions with a rich text editor (supports images, formatting, links)
• Reply to Topics - Engage in conversations with threaded/nested replies
• Like Content - Like topics and replies to show appreciation
• Search - Find topics and discussions quickly with full-text search
• User Profiles - See topic authors and their activity
• Solved Indicator - Easily identify topics that have accepted solutions
• Dark Mode - Full dark mode support for comfortable reading

For Administrators (Backend)

• Dashboard - Overview of forum activity and statistics
• Category Management - Create, edit, reorder, and manage forum categories
  • Custom icons (using Iconify)
  • Custom colors for visual distinction
  • Enable/disable categories
  • Drag-and-drop ordering
• Topic Management - Full control over all topics
  • Pin important topics to the top
  • Lock topics to prevent new replies
  • Mark topics as solved
  • Edit or delete any topic
• Reply Management - Moderate all replies
  • Mark replies as solutions
  • Edit or delete replies
  • Manage nested reply threads
• Settings - Configure forum behavior and appearance

Technical Features

• SEO-Friendly URLs - Clean slugs for categories and topics
• View Tracking - Automatic view count for topics
• Soft Deletes - Replies use soft deletes for data safety
• Optimized Queries - Indexed database for fast performance
• RESTful API - API endpoints for external integrations
• Livewire Powered - Real-time updates without page refreshes

Installation

This module is part of the LaraDashboard ecosystem.

# Enable the module
php artisan module:enable Forum

# Run migrations
php artisan module:migrate Forum

# Seed sample data (optional)
php artisan module:seed Forum

Configuration

Configuration options can be found in config/config.php.

Usage

Frontend Routes

Admin Routes

Permissions

Database Structure

• forum_categories - Forum categories/boards
• forum_topics - Discussion topics/threads
• forum_replies - Replies to topics (supports nesting)
• forum_likes - Likes on topics and replies (polymorphic)

Screenshots

Add screenshots of your forum here

License

This module is proprietary software. See LICENSE file for details.