how to add extension to freeflarum

anonymous154

i wanna add extension to my forum

SKevo

anonymous154 request it inExtension Request (also see the guidelines)

hectorism

You seem to be misunderstanding the poster’s request.
He/she doesn’t want to add some home-baked bit of code to some geeky repository…
He/she wants to invoke the functionality of an already existing extension on his/her personal freeflarum!

You’ve got 200+ extensions listed on free flarum, extensions that provide all sorts of different functionality.

But how does a freeflarum site owner add that functionality to THEIR site? How do THEY install or make operational the extension(s)? How do THEY add the extension’s functionality to THEIR freeflarum?

Nowhere can I find any instructions on how to utilise an extension!

HELP!!!

SKevo

hectorism enable the extension you want in the admin page at your forum, then read its README file and settings page to understand how it works and what needs to be configured.

If you are having problems with configuring a specific extension, tell us more so we can help you. Alternatively, you can reach out to the extension’s author(s) at https://discuss.flarum.org (for bug reports or feature requests in extensions, since these are out of the scope of FreeFlarum’s support).

hectorism

Hello SKevo! Thanks for replying.

How do I ‘enable’ the extension I want?….. Are the extensions the same as that long list of functions shown in the left sidebar of the dashboard? ….including all those FoF things? Are they the same as the 200+ extensions listed at https://freeflarum.com/extensions ??

SKevo

hectorism yes, they are the same. You can enable them by clicking the enable button:

Thiago

hectorism To enable an extension, go to your admin setting, search the extension you want to enable, then, on the extension page, click on enable.

hectorism

OK…. thanks both.

When it’s ‘enabled’, I assume it means it is installed and working on my site, no further action needed?

I ask that, because if you go to the ‘read me’ of an enabled extension, there can be varying instructions which seem to require some ‘composer’ thing or other. ?? No idea what that is. I am assuming it’s indepth stuff which the ENABLING of the extension has already taken care of. Right?…

Thiago

hectorism Once an extension is enabled, it is working on your forum, you can change the settings if there are.
The extension README may contains informations about what the extension do and what the differents settings change.
The Composer command is for installing the extension, but since you’re on FreeFlarum, it is already installed for you.

hectorism

Thank you, Thiago, a clear and concise explanation : )

I would make a small point about language…. Much of the talk around Flarum (and by association Freeflarum) is about ‘extensions’. But when you get into your flarum site’s admin dashboard, the word ‘extension’ is not to be seen - extensions are there, but under the heading ‘features’.
So as not to confuse the unwary, I would recommend consistent language and use of the word ‘Extensions’ rather than Features - keep everything correlated 🙂

hectorism

By the way….IF I was rolling my own Flarum via the .org site, would I have to install this composer thing? Is it a mini-programme or app which needs to be installed in order to communicate with or modify Flarum? I’m on Mac OS 12.

Thiago

hectorism ‘feature’ is a category of extensions. There is also others categories like ‘languages’, ‘themes’ and ‘widgets’. They are all extension.

hectorism If you host Flarum yourself, Composer would be needed to install Flarum and the extensions. Some other programs are also needed to install Flarum, you can learn more here.