Thredded
Thredded is a Rails 4.2+ forum/messageboard engine. Its goal is to be as simple and feature rich as possible.
Some of the features currently in Thredded:
- Markdown (default) or BBCode post formatting.
- (Un)read posts tracking.
- Email notifications, topic subscriptions, @-mentions, per-messageboard notification settings.
- Private group messaging.
- Full-text search using the database.
- Pinned and locked topics.
- List of currently online users, for all forums and per-messageboard.
- Flexible permissions system.
- Basic moderation.
- Lightweight default theme configurable via Sass.
Thredded works with SQLite, MySQL (v5.6.4+), and PostgreSQL. Thredded has no infrastructure dependencies other than the database and, if configured in the parent application, the ActiveJob backend dependency such as Redis. Currently only MRI Ruby 2.2+ is supported. We would love to support JRuby and Rubinius as well.
If you're looking for variations on a theme - see Discourse. However, It is a full rails application and not an engine like Thredded.
Table of Contents
- Installation
- Views and other assets
- Email and other notifications
- I18n
- Permissions
- Moderation
- Plugins
- Development
Installation
Creating a new Rails app with Thredded
Thredded provides an app generator that will generate a Rails app with Thredded, Devise, SimpleForm, RSpec, PostgreSQL, and a basic theme and navigation that is configured to work out of the box.
gem install thredded_create_app
thredded_create_app path/to/myapp
See thredded_create_app --help
and the thredded_create_app repo to learn about the various options.
Then, see the rest of this Readme for more information about using and customizing Thredded.
Adding Thredded to an existing Rails app
Add the gem to your Gemfile:
gem 'thredded', '~> 0.14.5'
Add the Thredded initializer to your parent app by running the install generator.
rails generate thredded:install
Copy emoji images to your public/emoji
directory.
rake thredded:install:emoji
Thredded needs to know the base application User model name and certain columns on it. Configure these in the initializer installed with the command above.
Then, copy the migrations over to your parent application and migrate:
rake thredded:install:migrations db:migrate db:test:prepare
Mount the thredded engine in your routes file:
mount Thredded::Engine => '/forum'
You also may want to add an index to the user name column in your users table. Thredded uses it to find @-mentions and perform name prefix autocompletion on the private topic form. Add the index in a migration like so:
DbTextSearch::CaseInsensitive.add_index(
connection, Thredded.user_class.table_name, Thredded.user_name_column, unique: true)
Upgrading an existing install
1) To upgrade the initializer:
rails g thredded:install
But then compare this with the previous version to decide what to keep.
2) To upgrade the database (in this example from v0.11 to v0.12):
# Note that for guaranteed best results you will want to run this with the thredded gem at v0.12
cp "$(bundle show thredded)"/db/upgrade_migrations/20170420163138_upgrade_thredded_v0_11_to_v0_12.rb db/migrate
rake db:migrate
Migrating from Forem
Are you currently using Forem? Thredded provides a migration to copy all of your existing data from Forem over to Thredded.
Views and other assets
Standalone layout
By default, thredded renders in its own (standalone) layout.
When using the standalone thredded layout, the log in / sign out links will be rendered in the navigation.
For these links (and only for these links), Thredded makes the assumption that you are using devise as your auth
library. If you are using something different you need to override the partial at
app/views/thredded/shared/nav/_standalone.html.erb
and use the appropriate log in / sign out path URL helpers.
You can override the partial by copying it into your app:
mkdir -p app/views/thredded/shared/nav && cp "$(bundle show thredded)/$_/_standalone.html.erb" "$_"
Application layout
You can also use Thredded with your application (or other) layout by by setting Thredded.layout
in the initializer.
In this case, you will need to reference your paths/routes carefully and pull in thredded assets (styles and javascript):
Reference your paths so that Thredded can find them
In your layout you will probably have links to other paths in your app (e.g. navigation links).
For any url helpers (like users_path
or projects_path
or whatever) will need to have main_app.
prefixed to them so that they can be found from thredded (main_app.users_path
will work from both thredded and your app).
Add Thredded styles
In this case, you will also need to include Thredded styles and JavaScript into the application styles and JavaScript.
Add thredded styles to your application.scss
:
@import "thredded";
Thredded wraps the views in a container element that has a max-width
and paddings by default.
If your app layout already has a container element that handles these, you can remove the max-width
and paddings
from the Thredded one by adding this Sass snippet after @import "thredded";
:
.thredded--main-container {
// The padding and max-width are handled by the app's container.
max-width: none;
padding: 0;
@include thredded-media-tablet-and-up {
padding: 0;
}
}
See below for customizing the styles via Sass variables.
Add Thredded JavaScripts
Include thredded JavaScripts in your application.js
:
//= require thredded
Thredded is fully compatible with deferred and async script loading.
Alternative JavaScript dependencies
Rails UJS version
By default, thredded loads `rails-ujs`. If you're using Rails before v5.1, you need to add `rails-ujs` to your Gemfile. If you'd like it to use `jquery_ujs` instead, run this command from your app directory: ```bash mkdir -p app/assets/javascripts/thredded/dependencies/ printf '//= require jquery3\n//= require jquery_ujs\n' > app/assets/javascripts/thredded/dependencies/ujs.js ```Timeago version
By default, thredded loads `timeago.js`. If you'd like to use `jquery.timeago` or `rails-timeago` instead, run this command from your app directory: ```bash mkdir -p app/assets/javascripts/thredded/dependencies/ echo '//= require jquery.timeago' > app/assets/javascripts/thredded/dependencies/timeago.js ``` You will also need to adjust the `//= require` statements for timeago locales if your site is translated into multiple languages. For `jquery.timeago`, these need to be require after `thredded/dependencies` but before `thredded/thredded`. E.g. for Brazilian Portuguese with jquery.timeago: ```js //= require thredded/dependencies //= require locales/jquery.timeago.pt-br //= require thredded/thredded ```Thredded page title and ID
Thredded views also provide two content_tag
s available to yield - :thredded_page_title
and :thredded_page_id
.
The views within Thredded pass those up through to your layout if you would like to use them.
User profile page
Thredded does not provide a user's profile page, but it provides a partial for rendering the user's recent posts in your app's user profile page. Here is how you can render it in your app:
<%= Thredded::ApplicationController.render partial: 'thredded/users/posts', locals: {
posts: Thredded.posts_page_view(scope: user.thredded_posts.order_newest_first.limit(5),
current_user: current_user) } %>
The user
above is the user whose posts are rendered, and current_user
is the user viewing the posts or nil
.
The policy scopes that limit the posts to the ones current_user
can see are applied automatically.
The code above uses the ApplicationController.render
method introduced in Rails 5. If you're using Rails 4,
you will need to add the backport_new_renderer
gem to use it.
Customizing views
You can also override any views and assets by placing them in the same path in your application as they are in the gem. This uses the standard Rails mechanism for overriding engine views. For example, to copy the post view for customization:
# Copy the post view into the application to customize it:
mkdir -p app/views/thredded/posts && cp "$(bundle show thredded)/$_/_post.html.erb" "$_"
NB: Overriding the views like this means that on every update of the thredded gem you have to check that your customizations are still compatible with the new version of thredded. This is difficult and error-prone. Whenever possible, use the styles and i18n to customize Thredded to your needs.
View hooks
Thredded provides view hooks to customize the UI before/after/replacing individual components.
View hooks allow you to render anything in the thredded view context.
For example, to render a partial after the post content textarea, add the snippet below to
the config/initializers/thredded.rb
initializer:
Rails.application.config.to_prepare do
Thredded.view_hooks.post_form.content_text_area.config.before do |form:, **args|
# This is render in the Thredded view context, so all Thredded helpers and URLs are accessible here directly.
render 'my/partial', form: form
end
end
You can use the post content textarea hook to add things like wysiwyg/wymean editors, buttons, help links, help copy, further customization for the textarea, etc.
To see the complete list of view hooks and their arguments, run:
grep view_hooks -R --include '*.html.erb' "$(bundle show thredded)"
Theming
The engine comes by default with a light and effective implementation of the views, styles, and javascript. Once you mount the engine you will be presented with a "themed" version of thredded.
Styles
Thredded comes with a light Sass theme controlled by a handful of variables that can be found here: https://github.com/thredded/thredded/blob/master/app/assets/stylesheets/thredded/base/_variables.scss.
To override the styles, override the variables before importing Thredded styles, e.g.:
// application.scss
$thredded-brand: #9c27b0;
@import "thredded";
If you are writing a Thredded plugin, import the thredded/base
Sass package instead.
The base
package only defines variables, mixins, and %-placeholders, so it can be imported safely without producing
any duplicate CSS.
Email and other notifications
Thredded sends several notification emails to the users. You can override in the same way as the views. See this page on how to style the emails.
If you use Rails Email Preview, you can include Thredded emails into the list of previews by adding
Thredded::BaseMailerPreview.preview_classes
to the Rails Email Preview preview_classes
config option.
You can also turn off the email notifier totally, or add other notifiers (e.g. Pushover, possibly Slack) by adjusting
the Thredded.notifiers
configuration in your initializer. See the default initializer for examples.
Enabling auto-follow
In some cases, you'll want all users to auto-follow new messageboard topics by default. This might be useful for a team messageboard or a company announcements board, for example. To enable user auto-follow of new topics, run the following migration(s):
change_column_default :thredded_user_preferences, :auto_follow_topics, 1
I18n
Thredded is mostly internationalized. It is currently available in English, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese (Simplified), German, Polish, Italian, Russian, French, and Spanish. We welcome PRs adding support for new languages.
Here are the steps to ensure the best support for your language if it isn't English:
Add
rails-i18n
andkaminari-i18n
to your Gemfile.Require the translations for timeago.js in your JavaScript. E.g. for Brazilian Portuguese:
//= require thredded/dependencies/timeago
//= require timeago/locales/pt_BR
//= require thredded
Note that it is important that timeago and its locales are required before //= require thredded
.
- To generate URL slugs for messageboards, categories, and topics with support for more language than English,
you can use a gem like babosa.
Add babosa to your Gemfile and uncomment the
Thredded.slugifier
proc for babosa in the initializer.
Permissions
Thredded comes with a flexible permissions system that can be configured per messageboard/user.
It calls a handful of methods on the application User
model to determine permissions for logged in users, and calls
the same methods on Thredded:NullUser
to determine permissions for non-logged in users.
Permission methods
The methods used by Thredded for determining the permissions are described below.
- To customize permissions for logged in users, override any of the methods below on your
User
model. - To customize permissions for non-logged in users, override these methods on
Thredded::NullUser
.
Reading messageboards
- A list of messageboards that a given user can read:
# @return [ActiveRecord::Relation] messageboards that the user can read
- A list of users that can read a given list of messageboards:
# @param messageboards [Array<Thredded::Messageboard>]
# @return [ActiveRecord::Relation] users that can read the given messageboards
self.()
Posting to messageboards
A list of messageboards that a given user can post in.
# @return [ActiveRecord::Relation<Thredded::Messageboard>] messageboards that the user can post in
Messaging other users (posting to private topics)
A list of users a given user can message:
# @return [ActiveRecord::Relation] the users this user can include in a private topic
Moderating messageboards
A list of messageboards that a given user can moderate:
# @return [ActiveRecord::Relation<Thredded::Messageboard>] messageboards that the user can moderate
Admin permissions
Includes all of the above for all messageboards:
# @return [boolean] Whether this user has full admin rights on Thredded
thredded_admin?
Default permissions
Below is an overview of the default permissions, with links to the implementations:
Read | Post | Message | Moderate | Administrate | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Logged in | ✅ All | ✅ All |
Readers of the messageboards the user can post in |
moderator_column
|
admin_column
|
Not logged in | ❌ No | ❌ No | ❌ No | ❌ No |
Handling "Permission denied" and "Not found" errors
Thredded defines a number of Exception classes for not found / permission denied errors. The complete list can be found here.
Currently, the default behaviour is to render an error message with an appropriate response code within the Thredded
layout. You may want to override the handling for Thredded::Errors::LoginRequired
to render a login form instead.
For an example of how to do this, see the initializer.
Moderation
Thredded comes with two options for the moderation system:
- Reactive moderation, where posts from first-time users are published immediately but enter the moderation queue (default).
- Pre-emptive moderation, where posts from first-time users are not published until they have been approved.
This is controlled by the Thredded.content_visible_while_pending_moderation
setting.
Users, topics, and posts can be in one of three moderation states: pending_moderation
, approved
, and blocked
.
By default, new users are pending_moderation
, and new posts and topics inherit their default moderation_state from
the user's.
When you approve a new user's post, all of their later posts will be approved automatically.
Additionally, users always see their own posts regardless of the moderation state. For blocked users, this means they might not realize they have been blocked right away.
Blocked users cannot send private messages.
Disabling moderation
To disable moderation, e.g. if you run internal forums that do not need moderation, run the following migration:
change_column_default :thredded_user_details, :moderation_state, 1 # approved
Requiring authentication to access Thredded
To require users to be authenticated to access any part of Thredded, add the following to your initializer:
# config/initializers/thredded.rb
Rails.application.config.to_prepare do
Thredded::ApplicationController.module_eval do
# Require authentication to access the forums:
before_action :thredded_require_login!
# You may also want to render a login form after the
# "Please sign in first" message:
rescue_from Thredded::Errors::LoginRequired do |exception|
# Place the code for rendering the login form here, for example:
@message = exception.
render template: 'sessions/new', status: :forbidden
end
end
end
Plugins
The following official plugins are available for Thredded:
- BBCode formatting for posts, e.g.
[b]for bold[/b]
. Can be used alongside Markdown. - Code Syntax Highlighting in Markdown using Coderay.
- TeX math via KaTeX in Markdown, fast, accessible, JS-free math rendering.
Thredded is built for extensibility, and writing plugins for it is easy. If you plan on extending Thredded functionality in a way others may benefit from, please consider making it a plugin.
Development
To be more clear - this is the for when you are working on this gem. Not for when you are implementing it into your Rails app.
First, to get started, migrate and seed the database (SQLite by default):
bundle
# Create, migrate, and seed the development database with fake forum users, topics, and posts:
rake db:create db:migrate db:seed
Then, start the dummy app server:
rake dev:server
Testing
To run the tests, just run rspec
. The test suite will re-create the test database on every run, so there is no need to
run tasks that maintain the test database.
By default, SQLite is used in development and test. On Travis, the tests will run using SQLite, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and all the supported Rails versions.
The test suite requires Chromium v59+ and its WebDriver installed:
On Ubuntu, run:
sudo apt-get install chromium-chromedriver
On Mac, run:
brew cask install chromium
brew install chromedriver
Ruby
Thredded Ruby code formatting is ensured by Rubocop. Run rubocop -a
to ensure a
consistent code style across the codebase.
Thredded is documented with YARD and you can use the inch gem or the Inch CI to find code that lacks documentation.
JavaScript
Currently, Thredded JavaScript is written in the subset of ES6 that does not require Babel polyfills. We're waiting for the ES6/7 support on Rails to improve before updating this to full Babel.
All Thredded JavaScript is compatible with the following Turbolinks options:
- No Turbolinks.
- Tubrolinks 5.
- Turbolinks Classic.
- Turbolinks Classic + jquery-turbolinks.
Thredded JavaScript is also compatible with being loaded from script elements with
[async]
and/or [defer]
attributes.
To achieve the above, all the Thredded code must register onload via
Thredded.onPageLoad
, e.g.:
window.Thredded.onPageLoad(() => {
// Initialize widgets
autosize('textarea');
});
Additionally, all the thredded views must be wrapped in a <%= thredded_page do %>
block.
On Turbolinks 5 onPageLoad will run on the same DOM when the page is restored from history (because Turbolinks 5 caches a clone of the body node, so the events are lost).
This means that all DOM modifications on window.Thredded.onPageLoad
must be
idempotent, or they must be reverted on the turbolinks:before-cache
event,
e.g.:
document.addEventListener('turbolinks:before-cache', () => {
// Destroy widgets
autosize.destroy('textarea');
});
Testing with all the databases and Rails versions locally.
You can also test the gem with all the supported databases and Rails versions locally.
First install PostgreSQL and MySQL, and run:
script/create-db-users
Then, to test with all the databases and the default Rails version (as defined in Gemfile
), run:
rake test_all_dbs
To test with a specific database and all the Rails versions, run:
# Test with SQLite3:
rake test_all_gemfiles
# Test with MySQL:
DB=mysql2 rake test_all_gemfiles
# Test with PostgreSQL:
DB=postgresql rake test_all_gemfiles
To test all combinations of supported databases and Rails versions, run:
rake test_all
Developing and Testing with Docker Compose
To quickly try out Thredded with the included dummy app, clone the source and start the included docker-compose.yml file with:
docker-compose build
docker-compose up -d
The above will build and run everything, daemonized, resulting in a running
instance on port 9292. Running docker-compose logs
will let you know when
everything is up and running. Editing the source on your host machine will
be reflected in the running docker'ized application.
Note that when using boot2docker
on a Mac make sure you visit the boot2docker host ip at
http://$(boot2docker ip):9292
.
After booting up the containers you can run the test suite with the following:
docker-compose run web bundle exec rake
The docker container uses PostgreSQL.