Installing the Forum Plugin

With user authentication in place, you can now add the forum functionality. The RainLab Forum plugin provides discussion channels, topics, posts, member profiles, and moderation tools.

# Installing the Plugin

Navigate to Settings → Updates & Plugins → Install Packages and search for "RainLab.Forum". Click Install to add it to your project.

Alternatively, install via the command line:

php artisan plugin:install RainLab.Forum

The Forum plugin depends on RainLab.User, which you already installed in Part 1. After installation, you will see a new Forum section under Settings in the backend.

# Creating Forum Channels

Channels are the top-level categories that organize discussions. Navigate to Settings → Forum Channels and create a few channels to get started:

You can always add more channels later or reorganize them from the backend.

# Updating the Navigation

Now add a "Forum" link to your layout navigation so visitors can find the forum. Update the nav section in your default layout:

<div class="flex items-center gap-4">
    <a href="{{ 'forum/index'|page }}" class="text-sm text-gray-600 hover:text-gray-900">
        Forum
    </a>
    {% if user %}
        <a href="{{ 'forum/member'|page }}" class="text-sm text-gray-600 hover:text-gray-900">
            Account
        </a>
        <a
            href="javascript:;"
            data-request="onLogout"
            data-request-data="redirect: '/'"
            class="text-sm text-gray-600 hover:text-gray-900"
        >
            Sign out
        </a>
    {% else %}
        <a href="{{ 'account/login'|page }}" class="text-sm text-gray-600 hover:text-gray-900">
            Sign in
        </a>
    {% endif %}
</div>

The "Forum" link is outside the {% if user %} block so it appears for both guests and logged-in users.

# Next Steps

Continue to Forum Pages to create the forum index and channel pages.