DLE Forum

DLE Forum — a forum module for DataLife Engine

DLE Forum is a complete forum and community module built natively for DataLife Engine. It plugs into an existing DLE site and adds a structured forum with categories, sections, topics, posts, private messages, notifications, user profiles, reputation, badges, reactions, moderation and flexible permissions. Every part of it runs on standard DLE mechanisms: templates, user groups, routing and the admin panel.

It is made for sites that need a real forum inside their DLE project: product support, a niche community, discussion of the site’s content, questions and answers, private sections for certain user groups and social interaction between registered members.

The big picture

DLE Forum is much more than a basic message board. It combines several layers: the classic forum structure, profiles with covers and social links, a notification centre, messenger-style private messages, attachments with per-group permissions, post reactions, trust levels, badges, a moderation log and a visual appearance editor. Your DLE site gets not just a “forum” section but a community platform built into the site you already have — with no third-party frameworks or external dependencies.

Forum structure

The forum follows the classic hierarchy: categories → sections (forums) → topics → posts. Every level has its own page with breadcrumbs, counters and metadata.

• The forum home page shows all active categories and their sections.
• A category page lists its sections with icons, descriptions, topic and post counters and information about the latest post.
• A section page lists topics with pagination, pinned and locked states, reply counters, and the date and author of the latest reply.
• Pinned topics (pinned) appear at the top of the section.
• Locked topics (locked) stay visible, but no one can reply.
• Topics with a chosen best answer are marked as solved (solved).
• Breadcrumbs are built dynamically on every forum page.
• Pagination works on section and topic pages; the number of topics and posts per page is set in the admin panel.

Topics and posts

Topics and replies are written in the integrated TinyMCE editor. Every action with a topic or a post runs through AJAX, without a full page reload.

• A signed-in user can start a new topic in any section they have access to.
• Replies support formatting in the built-in TinyMCE editor.
• Your own posts can be edited for a configurable time (or with no time limit).
• Deleting your own posts works the same way with a time limit; a deleted post is replaced by a placeholder (soft delete).
• Quoting posts is supported in the editor.
• The topic author or a moderator can mark one reply as the best answer (the “solution”), after which the topic becomes “solved”.
• Moderators can lock, pin, unlock, unpin, move, delete and restore topics.
• Moderators can delete, restore and approve posts.
• Every action with topics and posts is recorded in the moderation log.
• Files can be attached to posts and topics (see “Attachments”).
• Users can report any post or topic through the built-in report form.

User profiles and social features

Every forum member has a profile page that shows their activity, statistics, badges and trust level.

• The avatar comes from the DLE profile.
• A profile cover can be uploaded — a wide banner on the profile page.
• The profile contains name, about, signature, country, profession and year of birth.
• Links to social networks are supported: Telegram, website, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, GitHub, LinkedIn.
• The statistics tab shows topics, posts, reputation, reactions received, registration date and last visit.
• Profile tabs: “Profile”, “Topics”, “Posts”, “Badges”.
• Each tab has its own pagination for the user’s topics and posts.
• Users can make their profile private and hide it from other members.
• Private message privacy: a user can stop others from sending them messages.
• Every profile has a “Send message” button that opens the private messages panel.
• The profile edit page lets users change every field, upload or remove the cover and manage social links and privacy settings.

Private messages

Private messages are one of the module’s key features. They work like a messenger built right into the forum, so members talk to each other on your DLE site without leaving it for external services.

• The messages page (/forum/messages) shows the list of conversations on the left and the chat on the right.
• The conversation list updates via AJAX; new messages load without reloading the page.
• Send a message with a button or the Enter key.
• Each message has a status: “Sent” / “Read”.
• Emoji can be inserted with the built-in picker.
• The unread counter is shown in the forum interface and is available as a global DLE template tag.
• The messages panel opens from the “Write” button on a user’s profile.
• Flood control limits how often messages can be sent, to prevent abuse.
• Users can stop others from messaging them in their privacy settings.
• The administrator can turn private messages off completely or limit them to certain user groups.
• The administrator can also restrict messaging for a specific user.

Notifications

The module has its own notification centre, independent of the standard DLE mechanisms.

• The notifications page (/forum/notifications) shows every event that concerns the user.
• Users are notified about new replies in topics they watch.
• Users are notified about new topics in sections they watch.
• Users are notified when they receive a new badge.
• Any topic or section can be watched with the corresponding buttons.
• “Mark all as read” is supported.
• The unread notification count is available as a global template tag for the site header or navigation.
• Some events (replies in a topic, new topics in a section, badges, reports) also send emails through configurable email templates.

Attachments and media

Files and images can be attached to topics and replies. Uploading and downloading are controlled on several levels.

• Files are uploaded via AJAX right in the topic or reply form.
• Drag-and-drop and the file dialog are both supported.
• Images get a thumbnail preview and open in a lightbox.
• Temporary files are stored separately and cleaned up automatically if the user never sends the post.
• Attachments are downloaded through a protected endpoint (/forum/download/{id}) that checks the user’s rights before serving the file.
• Upload limits are set per user group: permission to upload images, permission to upload files, allowed extensions and maximum file size.
• Extra barriers: a minimum user rating and a minimum number of forum posts.
• Trust level requirements for downloading files are set per section.
• The maximum number of files per post and the global maximum size are set in the admin settings.
• Admin tools clean up orphaned and expired temporary attachments.

Reactions, reputation and trust levels

Post reactions

• Users can react to any post in a topic.
• The set of reactions is configured by the administrator: icon (emoji, HTML, image), colour, name and status.
• Each user can leave one reaction of each type per post; clicking again removes it.
• Reaction counters are shown under every post.

Reputation

• Users build reputation through forum activity and the reactions they receive.
• Reputation is shown on the profile page and in the post sidebar.
• Reputation is the foundation of the trust level system.

Trust levels

• The administrator creates trust levels with a name, icon, colour and minimum reputation threshold.
• Trust levels are assigned automatically when users reach the required reputation.
• The trust level is shown on the profile and in the sidebar of every post by the user.
• For each section, the administrator can set a minimum trust level for viewing, starting topics, replying, uploading and downloading files.
• For each topic, a minimum trust level can be set for viewing and replying.

Badges

• The administrator creates badges manually or sets them to be awarded automatically on a condition.
• Automatic conditions: first topic, first reply, number of posts, number of topics, reputation reached, reactions received, likes, a popular topic, number of best answers (solved), number of reports, reaching a certain trust level.
• Badges appear on a separate tab of the user’s profile.
• When users earn a new badge, they get a notification and an email (if enabled).

Moderation and reports

Moderation tools cover every level of forum content and separate the rights of administrators and moderators.

• Any signed-in user can report a topic or a post and give a reason (spam, abuse, off-topic, illegal content, duplicate, other).
• Reporting the same content twice is blocked.
• Reports appear in the “Reports” section of the admin panel with statuses: open, reviewed, closed, rejected.
• A moderator can mark a report as reviewed, close it or reject it.
• Moderator actions on topics: lock, unlock, pin, unpin, move to another section, delete, restore.
• Moderator actions on posts: delete, restore.
• Every moderator action is logged with the moderator, action, target and time.
• The moderation log is available in the “Logs” section of the admin panel.
• The admin dashboard shows a summary: open reports, deleted topics, hidden posts and active restrictions.

User restrictions

An administrator or moderator can place individual restrictions on a specific user for specific forum actions.

• Restriction types: forum access, starting topics, replying, uploading attachments, reactions, reports, private messages.
• Duration: 1 day, 7 days, 30 days or permanent.
• A reason is required when a restriction is applied.
• A restriction can be lifted early, with a reason for lifting it.
• Users see a notice about active restrictions when they try a restricted action.
• Protected users (administrators, moderators) cannot be restricted.
• All active restrictions are listed in the “User restrictions” section of the admin panel.

Permissions

Permissions work on several levels and rely on DLE user groups.

• Global settings allow or deny forum viewing and search for guests.
• User groups are configured in the “Permissions” section of the admin panel: each group gets permissions to view, start topics, reply, upload files, use reactions and so on.
• Sections can require a trust level (minimum reputation) for viewing, starting topics, replying, uploading and downloading.
• Topics can require a trust level for viewing and replying.
• Groups with extended rights (moderators, administrators) can bypass trust level requirements and individual restrictions.
• The forum can be switched off for regular users entirely without affecting moderators and administrators.
• Attachment permissions are set per group: allowed extensions, maximum file size, permission to upload images and regular files.

Search

• Full-text search across forum topics and posts.
• Filters by section, author and date range (last day, week, month, year or any time).
• Results show whether each match is a topic or a post.
• Guest access to search is a separate setting.

Admin panel

The module’s admin part is built into the DLE control panel and follows its native style. Every section is available from a single menu.

Main sections

• Dashboard — summary statistics: categories, sections, topics, posts, users, conversations, private messages, attachments, active restrictions. Tables of the latest topics, open reports and recent moderator actions.
• Settings — more than 50 options across tabs: General, Navigation, Default permissions, Attachments, Features, Private messages, SEO, Anti-spam, Post editing, Group overrides, Caching. Settings are searchable.
• Categories — create, edit and delete categories. Icons (HTML, emoji, image), description, position and status. Drag-and-drop sorting.
• Sections — full management of sections: icons, description, parent category, position, permissions and trust level requirements.
• Topics and posts — view and manage every topic and post on the forum.
• Permissions — a permission matrix by DLE user group.
• Trust levels — create and edit trust levels with a name, icon, colour, minimum reputation threshold and position.
• Reports — all reports with statuses and review tools.
• User restrictions — view and manage active restrictions.
• Badges — create badges, set icons, colours, types (manual / automatic) and auto-award conditions.
• Reactions — add, edit and remove available post reactions.
• Email templates — edit the email notification templates for each event type, with variables.
• Appearance — a visual editor for the forum’s CSS variables (see below).
• URLs and SEF rules — SEO route settings (see below).
• Template tags — a reference page listing the global tags you can use in your DLE template.
• Tools — recalculate statistics, clean up orphaned attachments and outdated temporary files.
• Logs — the log of all moderator actions.

Appearance editor

DLE Forum includes a visual appearance editor in the “Appearance” section of the admin panel. It changes the forum’s look without editing CSS files by hand.

The editor controls more than 50 CSS variables, grouped by category:

• Colours — primary colour, hover colour, success, error, warning and info colours.
• Backgrounds and text — page background, card background, soft background, hover background; heading, body, secondary and muted text colours.
• Borders and radii — border colour, soft border colour; small, medium and large radius, card radius.
• Buttons and inputs — button height, padding and font size; input height.
• Forum cards — section card padding and inner spacing; category and section icon sizes, section title size.
• Topics and posts — topic title size, author sidebar width, post padding, reaction button and reaction icon size.
• User profile — cover height, avatar size, profile sidebar width.
• Private messages — conversation list width, message panel height.
• Attachments — thumbnail width and height.
• Spacing and typography — global spacing and font settings.

Every setting shows its current value, its default value and a field for the new one. A live preview block — a forum card with buttons, an input, a badge and a post — reflects changes instantly.

A “Reset to defaults” button restores the original style. The generated variables are written to app.custom.css, which loads on top of the base app.css, so your customisations survive module updates.

SEO and routing

The forum supports SEO-friendly URLs with a configurable prefix.

• The base internal forum handler, index.php?do=forum, works without any server configuration.
• The administrator sets any SEF prefix (for example forum, community, talk), which produces URLs like /forum/ or /community/.
• For DLE 19.0+: routing rules are written directly to engine/data/rules.json with the “Update rules.json” button in the admin panel.
• For DLE 18.1 and older: the admin panel generates ready-made rules for Apache (.htaccess) and Nginx to copy into your server configuration.
• The “Reset to defaults” button sets the prefix back to forum and recreates the routing rules.
• The module generates canonical meta tags and Open Graph data for forum pages.

Integration with the DLE template

The module provides global tags for the main DLE template (main.tpl, header, footer, navigation). Show links to the forum, the profile, notifications and messages right in the site’s shared interface for any signed-in user.

• {forum-link} — link to the forum home page.
• {forum-profile-link} — link to the current user’s forum profile.
• {forum-profile-notify} — link to the notification centre.
• {forum-profile-messages} — link to the private messages page.
• {forum-unread-total} — total unread notifications and messages.
• {forum-notifications-link} — direct link to the notifications page.
• {forum-messages-link} — direct link to the private messages page.
• [forum-logged]...[/forum-logged] — a block shown only to signed-in forum members.
• [not-forum-logged]...[/not-forum-logged] — a block shown only to guests.

A reference page with every available tag is in the “Template tags” section of the admin panel.

Native DLE integration

The module is built as a native extension for DataLife Engine and needs no third-party frameworks, Composer dependencies or external libraries.

• It uses DLE’s users and groups — there is no separate user table.
• The admin part is built into the DLE control panel and follows its style.
• Forum templates load through the standard DLE template mechanism and live in the active site template folder.
• The module’s language loads through the standard DLE language mechanism; a full Russian translation is included.

Security and protected downloads

The module implements several layers of protection, without claiming to be absolutely secure.

• Every POST request that changes data is checked for a valid security token (CSRF protection).
• Access to every action is checked on the server, regardless of the state of the UI.
• Uploaded files are checked by extension; attachment storage paths are validated and unsafe paths are replaced with the default one.
• Files are downloaded through a protected endpoint rather than a direct link: user rights are checked before the file is served.
• Flood control limits how often messages, replies and other actions can be sent.
• All SQL queries use parameterised statements.
• Output is escaped before it is rendered in templates.

Use cases

• Product or service support forum — themed sections, pinned important topics, the “solved” status and notifications for staff.
• A niche community on a DLE site — profiles, badges, trust levels and reputation build an engaged audience.
• A community of webmasters and developers — sections gated by trust level, attachments, code quoting, reactions.
• Q&A discussions — marking the best answer turns topics into a question-and-answer format.
• Private sections for specific groups — access by DLE user group and trust level makes private or VIP sections possible.
• Social interaction inside a DLE site — private messages, profiles and notifications let members talk without moving to external messengers.
• Feedback and discussion of site content — the forum complements standard DLE comments with structured, themed sections.

In short

DLE Forum is a complete forum and community layer for DataLife Engine that brings together the classic forum structure, modern social features and management tools in one native module. The forum, user profiles, reputation and trust levels, private messages, notifications, attachments, badges, reactions, moderation, flexible permissions and the visual appearance editor all work together and are managed from a single DLE admin panel.

The module suits any DLE site that needs a structured discussion area with a modern level of communication between users.