denvergeeks
Last Updated 2025-01-25
The ever-increasing potential use-cases for the Discourse platform are staggering, and simplifying the default installation can easily overwhelm a site admin.
My current development focus is contributing Theme Components and Site Configuration Recipes for simplifying the Discourse UI for specialized use cases.
Why?
One novelty of the Discourse platform is its breadth and depth of customizable features which is unmatched due to the robust and diverse and friendly global community of open-source developers who utilize the Discourse platform itself to collaborate and co-develop so efficiently and effectively.
All of this has resulted in an ever-increasingly comprehensive set of tightly integrated core features with incredible granularity of possible settings (an “embarrassment of riches”, really.)
Discourse began as a simple forum. Through their business acumen and wisdom, its founders have managed to create even more than a remarkable open-source tool set for building online communities of any flavor.
I’ve shared more of my views on Open Source Culture here…
My Approach
To create a specific use-case “Site Recipe” I utilize a “subtractive” approach to configuring and customizing a Discourse site instance. I disable all unnecessary default features and components and settings, hide extraneous UI components, and rearrange the layout to achieve the most simplified UI for that use-case.
Then I package those settings and modifications as Themes and/or Theme Components.
Example of a Use Case: Personal Hub - i.e. nOObish.me
- An online central “hub” or “portal” site where I consolidate and aggregate, import, embed, collect, and selectively publish my online activities and content collections, social media feeds, etc.
- Sections and items be entirely private or public-facing, or some of each.
- Imported items are auto-tagged and optimized for (built-in) LLM processing.
- Simplified UI shows only what is relevant for the immediate and specific contextual use.
My primary business site is here.
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