A user, dolanator, is seeking to customize a Discourse theme/template to have a specific format, with each forum category displaying subforums, latest posts, and last posters in a 2-column table layout. awesomerobot confirms this layout is not currently available in Discourse but can be achieved through customization, possibly by contracting someone in the Marketplace category. dolanator has some experience with website front-ends and JS backends, but is unfamiliar with Discourse’s stack. pfaffman provides a link to the Developer’s Guide to Discourse Themes, which dolanator finds useful, learning that Discourse uses Handlebars for templating and SCSS for styling.
I need each forum category to have subforums listed like that and to be able to see a link to the latest post in each subforum on the right. You should also be able to see who the last poster was and the name of the last active thread. All in just a 2-column format, as you can see in this picture. There needs to be a clear association, on the same row, between the name of the subforum and the latest active thread in that respective subforum. So I don’t need a disconnected “last reply” column on the right. I need something that looks like a table layout.
Is this possible with Discourse? I am looking for a forum software that can support such a layout.
The picture is just an outline, btw, it’s not how the theme would actually look like.
That’s not a layout currently available in Discourse, but it would be achievable through customization. It’s probably a bit complex for someone who’s new to Discourse to achieve — but you may be able to contract someone to build it for you in the Marketplace category.
One of our default category layouts, “Categories with Featured Topics” is somewhat close to what you’re asking for, but it shows topics from all subcategories (rather than showing one per subcategory) and it’s also missing the poster details you’re asking for.
I have some experience in working with website (and forum) front-ends and some familiarity with JS backends. I’ve installed and customised phpBB3-based forums before. But I’ve no idea what’s the exact stack on which Discourse is built. From what I could gather it’s based on a ruby/JS app with a JS backend, a Postgres database – all configured to run in a Docker container.
Can you tell me in just a few words how templating and layout is handled by Discourse? Or maybe point me to the link where this is explained in the documentation. Maybe I can get an idea on how such a layout can be achieved. Is it based on Pug or some similar templating engine?
