Hello everyone,
Your Forum, Only Better: What's New This Week
This week, one simple idea guided us: making your life easier. Less searching, more color, more comfort, and greater visibility. Here's what's changing for you and how to make the most of it today.
All Your Tools in One Place
Never quite sure where to find the portfolio, welcome panel, or image hosting feature? Not anymore! A new Tools tab brings all your forum's features together in one convenient place.
How to use it: open your forum's Administration Control Panel, then click the Tools tab on the far right. Under Features, you'll find everything: Portfolio, News Feed, Welcome Panel, Automatic Polls, Image Hosting, Message Templates, Style Editor, and more.
Give Your Forum a New Look in One Click
Your forum deserves to reflect your personality, and you shouldn't need to be a graphic designer to make that happen. The new Style Editor offers 24 ready-to-use themes. Prefer your own colors? Just choose two, and we'll automatically generate all the others in harmonious shades. A handy indicator even warns you if text becomes difficult to read.
How to use it: go to Tools › Style Editor › Colors. Choose a Theme, or use the Quick Palette (primary color + accent color). You can still fine-tune each color individually. Want to start over? Select the "Prosilver" theme to restore the original appearance.
Preview Before You Publish
No more unpleasant surprises for your members. Your changes remain saved as a draft, invisible to the public, while you preview them live on your actual forum: the homepage, a forum, or a topic, on both desktop and mobile.
How to use it: once you've made your changes, click Save Draft, then check the Preview. Happy with the result? Click Publish to Forum. That's it!
Edit Your Images Without Extra Software
Is your logo a little too big? Do your icons clash with your new colors? A built-in image editor lets you crop, rotate, adjust hue and brightness, make backgrounds transparent, round corners, and more. Even better, you can recolor all your forum or topic icons at once to match your chosen theme.
How to use it: go to Tools › Style Editor › Images, then open the Image Editor for any image you want to customize. The "In Context" button shows how it will look at its actual size. To update an entire group, choose Recolor Forum Icons (or Topic Icons).
Dark Mode Has Arrived
Enjoy browsing your forum at night? Your eyes will thank you! Your forum now features a comfortable dark appearance that's easier on the eyes. By default, it automatically follows your phone or computer's display settings. And here's some good news for creative minds: the colors you've chosen in the Style Editor are preserved, even in dark mode.
How to use it: click the Switch to Dark Mode button next to the language selector. Click again to return to light mode. Your preference is remembered.
A Brand-New Editing Toolbar
Writing a great-looking post has never been easier. Bold text, colors, lists, quotes, images, videos… all the buttons are now organized into one clean toolbar with convenient menus, just like the editors you're already familiar with. It's also available in Quick Reply at the bottom of topics.
How to use it: start a new post or reply, and the toolbar is ready to use. Hover over any button to see what it does. Your existing posts will continue to display exactly as before.
Multiple Characters, One Click
Do you play several characters on a role-playing forum, or manage both a personal account and a team account? Link them together and switch between them without ever logging out.
How to use it: open your User Control Panel, go to the Profile tab, and select Linked Accounts. Click Link an Account, enter the username and password of your other account, then click Link This Account. To switch accounts, open your profile menu and select Switch to Account…. For transparency, moderators and administrators can see linked accounts, and account links only apply to the forum where they were created.
Putting Faces to Names
The member list and team page now display each member's avatar next to their username. Your community feels more lively, and everyone becomes easier to recognize at a glance.
How to use it: nothing to do! It's automatic. Just make sure you've picked a great avatar!
Your Forum, Your Settings
Is your forum growing or evolving? You're now free to update its title, description, and directory category yourself. Prefer to keep things private? You can also remove your forum from the directory. And don't worry: these settings are preserved even if you reinstall your forum.
How to use it: log in to phpBBHost, open your account menu, and click My Forums. Select your forum, update the Forum Settings section, and click Save.
Show Off Your Forums
Your profile now proudly showcases the forums you've created, complete with screenshots, topic counts, post counts, member counts, and creation dates. It's a great way to introduce your communities to the world!
How to use it: nothing to do! It's automatic. Just take a look at your profile.
Keeping Spammers Out
Nothing is more frustrating than a forum flooded with advertisements and fake accounts. From now on, every new registration on your forum is checked against Stop Forum Spam, a worldwide database of known spammers. Suspicious accounts are flagged before they can publish anything. Meanwhile, genuine members can still register just as easily as before.
How to use it: nothing at all! Your forum is automatically protected, with no configuration required. Spend less time cleaning up spam and more time building your community.
Faster and More Reliable
Your pages, images, and styles now load faster, especially when members return to your forum, thanks to improved browser caching. Your forum's emails (registrations, password resets, notifications) are also more reliable: if a temporary issue occurs, messages are queued and automatically retried instead of getting lost. Background tasks (cleanup, email delivery, statistics) now run continuously, even when nobody is visiting your forum.
How to use it: nothing! Everything is already active on your forum, and your members will notice the difference.
Better Visibility on Google
Every forum now has an automatically generated sitemap. It's a list of all your public pages that helps search engines discover and index your forum more efficiently, improving its visibility in search results.
How to use it: it's already active. To take things further, submit your-forum/sitemap.xml to Google Search Console. Want to keep part of your forum private? Simply remove guest read permissions for those sections, and they'll automatically disappear from the sitemap too.
Now It's Your Turn!
A fresh new theme, an updated logo, your first experience with dark mode, or a more inviting forum description… Take ten minutes this weekend to give your forum a makeover, and show us the results!
Don't have a forum yet? Request yours today — it's completely free.
See you next week!
The phpBB Team
Your Forum, Only Better: What's New This WeekThis week, one simple idea guided us: making your life easier. Less searching, more color, more comfort, and greater visibility. Here's what's changing for you and how to make the most of it today.
All Your Tools in One PlaceNever quite sure where to find the portfolio, welcome panel, or image hosting feature? Not anymore! A new Tools tab brings all your forum's features together in one convenient place.
How to use it: open your forum's Administration Control Panel, then click the Tools tab on the far right. Under Features, you'll find everything: Portfolio, News Feed, Welcome Panel, Automatic Polls, Image Hosting, Message Templates, Style Editor, and more.
Give Your Forum a New Look in One ClickYour forum deserves to reflect your personality, and you shouldn't need to be a graphic designer to make that happen. The new Style Editor offers 24 ready-to-use themes. Prefer your own colors? Just choose two, and we'll automatically generate all the others in harmonious shades. A handy indicator even warns you if text becomes difficult to read.
How to use it: go to Tools › Style Editor › Colors. Choose a Theme, or use the Quick Palette (primary color + accent color). You can still fine-tune each color individually. Want to start over? Select the "Prosilver" theme to restore the original appearance.
Preview Before You PublishNo more unpleasant surprises for your members. Your changes remain saved as a draft, invisible to the public, while you preview them live on your actual forum: the homepage, a forum, or a topic, on both desktop and mobile.
How to use it: once you've made your changes, click Save Draft, then check the Preview. Happy with the result? Click Publish to Forum. That's it!
Edit Your Images Without Extra SoftwareIs your logo a little too big? Do your icons clash with your new colors? A built-in image editor lets you crop, rotate, adjust hue and brightness, make backgrounds transparent, round corners, and more. Even better, you can recolor all your forum or topic icons at once to match your chosen theme.
How to use it: go to Tools › Style Editor › Images, then open the Image Editor for any image you want to customize. The "In Context" button shows how it will look at its actual size. To update an entire group, choose Recolor Forum Icons (or Topic Icons).
Dark Mode Has ArrivedEnjoy browsing your forum at night? Your eyes will thank you! Your forum now features a comfortable dark appearance that's easier on the eyes. By default, it automatically follows your phone or computer's display settings. And here's some good news for creative minds: the colors you've chosen in the Style Editor are preserved, even in dark mode.
How to use it: click the Switch to Dark Mode button next to the language selector. Click again to return to light mode. Your preference is remembered.
A Brand-New Editing ToolbarWriting a great-looking post has never been easier. Bold text, colors, lists, quotes, images, videos… all the buttons are now organized into one clean toolbar with convenient menus, just like the editors you're already familiar with. It's also available in Quick Reply at the bottom of topics.
How to use it: start a new post or reply, and the toolbar is ready to use. Hover over any button to see what it does. Your existing posts will continue to display exactly as before.
Multiple Characters, One ClickDo you play several characters on a role-playing forum, or manage both a personal account and a team account? Link them together and switch between them without ever logging out.
How to use it: open your User Control Panel, go to the Profile tab, and select Linked Accounts. Click Link an Account, enter the username and password of your other account, then click Link This Account. To switch accounts, open your profile menu and select Switch to Account…. For transparency, moderators and administrators can see linked accounts, and account links only apply to the forum where they were created.
Putting Faces to NamesThe member list and team page now display each member's avatar next to their username. Your community feels more lively, and everyone becomes easier to recognize at a glance.
How to use it: nothing to do! It's automatic. Just make sure you've picked a great avatar!
Your Forum, Your SettingsIs your forum growing or evolving? You're now free to update its title, description, and directory category yourself. Prefer to keep things private? You can also remove your forum from the directory. And don't worry: these settings are preserved even if you reinstall your forum.
How to use it: log in to phpBBHost, open your account menu, and click My Forums. Select your forum, update the Forum Settings section, and click Save.
Show Off Your ForumsYour profile now proudly showcases the forums you've created, complete with screenshots, topic counts, post counts, member counts, and creation dates. It's a great way to introduce your communities to the world!
How to use it: nothing to do! It's automatic. Just take a look at your profile.
Keeping Spammers OutNothing is more frustrating than a forum flooded with advertisements and fake accounts. From now on, every new registration on your forum is checked against Stop Forum Spam, a worldwide database of known spammers. Suspicious accounts are flagged before they can publish anything. Meanwhile, genuine members can still register just as easily as before.
How to use it: nothing at all! Your forum is automatically protected, with no configuration required. Spend less time cleaning up spam and more time building your community.
Faster and More ReliableYour pages, images, and styles now load faster, especially when members return to your forum, thanks to improved browser caching. Your forum's emails (registrations, password resets, notifications) are also more reliable: if a temporary issue occurs, messages are queued and automatically retried instead of getting lost. Background tasks (cleanup, email delivery, statistics) now run continuously, even when nobody is visiting your forum.
How to use it: nothing! Everything is already active on your forum, and your members will notice the difference.
Better Visibility on GoogleEvery forum now has an automatically generated sitemap. It's a list of all your public pages that helps search engines discover and index your forum more efficiently, improving its visibility in search results.
How to use it: it's already active. To take things further, submit your-forum/sitemap.xml to Google Search Console. Want to keep part of your forum private? Simply remove guest read permissions for those sections, and they'll automatically disappear from the sitemap too.
Now It's Your Turn!A fresh new theme, an updated logo, your first experience with dark mode, or a more inviting forum description… Take ten minutes this weekend to give your forum a makeover, and show us the results!
Don't have a forum yet? Request yours today — it's completely free.
See you next week!
The phpBB Team