Forumax – AI Powered Advanced Community Forum Plugin

Forumax is the ultimate standalone community forum solution for WordPress. Designed for forum administrators, content creators, and community managers, Forumax provides a complete suite of powerful features to create professional, engaging forums with minimal effort—no external forum dependencies required. What is Forumax? Forumax provides a complete, self-contained platform for building support forums, knowledge bases, or discussion communities. It includes everything you need to foster engagement, manage content effectively, and create an exceptional user experience right out of the box. Video Overview [youtube https://youtu.be/8yilxZM4KNI?si=6EGIfHJWy2fydWx7]

Note: We have renamed our plugin from BBP Core to Forumax. All features previously available in BBP Core are still here and fully supported. Important: After updating to version 2.0.0, the plugin will be renamed to forumax. This may cause WordPress to deactivate the plugin. If deactivated, please simply reactivate it.

Key Features of Forumax 🎯 Unified Forum Builder Take complete control of your forums with our intuitive, built-in builder. View all forums and topics in one organized dashboard, filter by status (open, closed, pending, spam), and manage discussions efficiently without navigating multiple pages. 🔐 Private & Confidential Replies Enable users to post private responses visible only to forum owners and moderators. Perfect for sensitive discussions, support tickets, and confidential advice while maintaining full transparency where needed. ✅ Solved Topics System Help community members quickly identify answered questions. Mark topics as solved to display a prominent 'Resolved' badge, reducing duplicate questions and improving user experience. Visitors instantly know which topics have solutions. ⭐ Smart Voting & Reputation System Empower your community with a built-in AJAX-powered voting system. Users vote on the most helpful replies, automatically elevating quality answers to the top. Build reputation-based authority and encourage quality contributions. 📎 Media Attachments & File Sharing Allow users to attach files, documents, images, and media directly to replies. Organized attachment sections make it easy for community members to share resources, code snippets, documents, and collaborate effectively. 💡 Advanced Forum Statistics Widget Display real-time forum information including topic count, reply count, last activity, and most active users. The 'Current Forum Info' widget provides visitors with a quick overview of forum vitality and engagement. 🎨 Elementor Page Builder Integration Create stunning forum layouts using Elementor's drag-and-drop builder. Use specialized Forumax widgets to display forums, topics, and replies on any page with full customization control. No coding required. ⚡ Lightweight & Performance-Optimized Forumax is built for speed. It loads assets intelligently—CSS and JavaScript only when needed. Minimal footprint ensures your forum runs fast without bloat. 🔧 Intuitive Admin Interface Create, edit, and delete forums and topics directly from the Forumax admin dashboard. Streamlined interface eliminates confusion and reduces admin overhead.

Getting started with Forumax is quick and easy. Follow these simple steps: Prerequisites Before installing Forumax, ensure you have:

• WordPress 5.0 or higher
• PHP 7.4 or greater
• MySQL 5.6 or greater

Installation Method 1: Install from WordPress Admin Dashboard (Recommended)

1. Go to Plugins → Add New in your WordPress dashboard
2. Search for "Forumax" in the plugin search box
3. Click the Install Now button
4. After installation completes, click Activate Plugin
5. Navigate to Forumax → Settings to configure features (optional but recommended)
6. Start building your community!

Installation Method 2: Manual Upload via FTP/cPanel

1. Download the forumax.zip file from the plugin page
2. Extract the ZIP file on your computer
3. Upload the extracted forumax folder to /wp-content/plugins/ directory via FTP or cPanel File Manager
4. Go to Plugins in your WordPress admin and locate Forumax
5. Click Activate Plugin
6. Configure settings in Forumax → Settings

Installation Method 3: Upload ZIP from WordPress Admin

1. Download the forumax.zip file
2. Go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin
3. Select the downloaded ZIP file and click Install Now
4. After installation, click Activate Plugin
5. Configure your forum settings

Troubleshooting Installation Getting PHP errors? Verify your PHP version is 7.4 or higher. Contact your hosting provider to upgrade if needed. Still need help? Visit our Documentation or check our Support Repository WHAT’S NEXT? If you like Forumax, then consider checking out our other WordPress Plugins: EazyDocs – Powerful knowledge base plugin to easily create and manage professional documentation, wikis, and helpdesk sections. Antimanual – AI-powered assistant that automates content creation, documentation, and support, transforming static sites into dynamic experiences. Advanced Accordion Block – Lightweight Gutenberg block for creating visually appealing, organized accordion sections with extensive styling options. Changeloger – Transform plain text changelogs into visually stunning, organized representations with pagination and version links. Jobus – Comprehensive job board solution transforming your site into a recruitment platform with dashboards and ATS. Spider Elements – Versatile library of 20+ creative widgets to enhance Elementor and build professional websites.

2.4.0 (10 June 2026) New: Added Layout 3 for the Forums Elementor widget with a fresh new design and improved forum presentation. Fixed: Improved forum styling compatibility to ensure a consistent appearance across different website setups. Improved: Reply Editor UI – Completely modernized the reply editor with a clean, borderless container, refined toolbar, and a unified design system. Improved: Reply Form Options – Grouped attachments and notification settings into a newly structured bottom grid layout for a cleaner composing experience. Improved: Inline Editing – Enhanced the inline reply editing experience with unsaved changes warnings, live character counts, loading indicators, and smooth transitions. Improved: Reply Actions Menu – Redesigned the reply options dropdown with action-specific icons, grouped menu sections, and color-coded destructive actions for a cleaner, more intuitive experience. Improved: Reply Count Display – Reply counts in the topic lead now use accurate data and display correct singular/plural forms across all languages. Improved: Topic Editor UI – Matches the reply editor design with consistent styling and Visual mode as default. Optimized: Topic Page Performance – Removed an unused database query that was running on every topic page load. Fixed: Reply sorting was not re-initializing the admin dropdown properly after changing the sort order. 2.3.0 (10 April 2026)

• New: Forum Subscription — users can subscribe to any forum and get email notifications when new topics are posted.
• New: Inline Topic Editing — edit topic title and content directly on the page with a built-in visual editor, no page reload needed.
• New: Topic Actions Menu — admin action links now appear in a clean three-dot (⋮) dropdown menu in the topic header.
• New: Active Members Section — see who's participating in a topic with profile pictures and hover info cards in the sidebar.
• New: Profile Photo Upload — users can now upload their own profile picture from the profile edit page.
• Improved: Forum Page Design — tighter spacing, smaller headings and badges, and softer card corners for a more modern look.
• Improved: Reply & Reaction Buttons — the Reply and Reactions buttons now sit side by side for a cleaner layout.
• Improved: Threaded Reply Avatars — avatar sizes now reduce at each nesting level for a cleaner look in deep threads.
• Improved: Thread Collapse Button — the expand/collapse button for nested replies now has a smoother, more polished design.
• Improved: Profile Pagination — updated to match the forum page style with flat square buttons and brand color highlighting.
• Improved: Forum Description Box — redesigned with a modern flat style, accent border, and full dark mode support.
• Improved: Forum Builder Tabs — filter tabs now reset properly when switching between forums.
• Improved: Block Theme Compatibility — shortcodes, hybrid themes, and forum layouts all work reliably on block themes.
• Improved: Vote History Migration — existing vote records are automatically updated to the new privacy-safe format without losing any data.
• Security: Voting Privacy — anonymous votes now store encrypted identifiers instead of raw data, fully GDPR compliant.
• Fixed: Forum page detection was not returning results correctly in some cases.
• Fixed: Filter tab highlighting was not updating properly when switching forum tabs.
• Fixed: Forum Builder pagination was showing even when there were fewer than 10 topics.
• Fixed: Duplicate pagination on profile pages (Subscriptions, Favorites, Engagements, Replies) — now shows only one.
• Fixed: Reply date links were pointing to the wrong page.
• Fixed: Topic and reply content was showing formatting codes instead of clean text.
• Fixed: Search results styling issue on the forum page.

2.2.1 (26 February 2026)

• Fixed: Forumax widgets not appearing in Elementor editor by updating to the latest widget registration hook.
• Fixed: Duplicate block registration conflict between bbp-core and forumax-pro plugins.
• Fixed: Search icon visibility issue by syncing compiled CSS and correcting SVG styling.
• Fixed: Duplicate ID conflict that caused missing login form fields on the single topic page.
• Fixed: Forumax license activation issue resolved.
• Fixed: Styling issue in forum single block.
• Restored: Missing Single Forum layout 3 & 4 templates, styles, and recompiled frontend assets.
• Optimized: Voting sort backfill process and initialized required meta for consistency.
• Improved: Forum statistics caching mechanism for better reliability and performance.

2.2.0 (21 February 2026)

• New: Advanced styling controls for Forum Posts block with border, spacing, shadow, and typography options.
• New: Auto-Close Stale Topics feature with cron scheduling and admin settings support.
• New: Unanswered Topics count and list added to the admin dashboard.
• Added: Nonce verification in reply sorting AJAX handler for improved security.
• Added: Post type selector and dynamic keyword links in Search block.
• Added: Comprehensive style controls for search input, button, and results dropdown.
• Improved: Forum Posts block design flexibility with enhanced typography, colors, and layout controls.
• Improved: Gutenberg blocks architecture by splitting render logic into dedicated render classes.
• Improved: Overall Gutenberg blocks structure and performance.
• Fixed: REST API 403 error for forum and topic post types in Gutenberg editor.
• Updated: POT file with new translatable strings for search and block controls.

2.1.1 (14 February 2026)

• Added: Backup & Restore settings for safer configuration management.
• Improved: User topics pagination redesigned with proper templates and updated styling.
• Improved: “Topics Started” list now limited to 10 items per page for better performance.
• Improved: User profile pagination styling enhanced for topics, subscriptions, favorites, and engagements.
• Improved: Forum layout refined for small screen devices.
• Improved: Avatar border radius, reply voting position, and reaction wrapper responsiveness updated.
• Improved: Expensive forum and topic count queries cached for faster performance.
• Updated: Theme compatibility notice expanded to include child themes.
• Updated: Keymaster badge and voting styles refreshed.
• Fixed: Empty pagination template issue in user topics list.
• Fixed: Duplicate pagination removed from single forum topic page.
• Fixed: Reply author role detection issue.
• Fixed: CSRF vulnerability in solved topic actions.
• Fixed: Forumax admin panel filter pagination issue.

2.1.0 (28 January 2026)

• New: Dashboard page added with comprehensive forum statistics overview
• New: Quick Actions section for easy access to Forum Builder, New Forum, New Topic, and Settings
• New: Recent Topics and Recent Replies activity sections on the Dashboard
• New: Engagement statistics showing average replies per topic and total discussions
• New: System Info panel displaying Forumax, bbPress, WordPress, and PHP version details
• New: Helpful Links section with quick access to Documentation, Support, and Live Demo
• New: Demo data import option for easy setup
• New: Emoji reactions for topics and replies
• New: Social sharing option for topics with configurable sharing settings
• New: Reply timeline option and sticky topic injection
• New: Real-time alert options in topic settings
• New: Social login options with hook support for login form
• New: Chat settings options
• New: Forumax sidebar registration
• New: Topic view tracking functionality
• Improved: Modern, premium dashboard design with card-based layout, gradient header, and enhanced sidebar including Upgrade to Pro section and system information
• Improved: Forum single page redesigned with improved UI
• Improved: Forum, widget, avatar, support info, and voting button styles for better consistency and theme compatibility
• Improved: Forum CSS optimized for responsive layout and theme compatibility
• Improved: Admin review notice UI
• Tweaked: Bootstrap removed, responsive issues fixed, unused CSS and old assets cleaned up
• Tweaked: Admin notices removed on Forumax admin pages
• Tweaked: Topic and reply revision logs visibility restricted to authors only
• Fixed: Hide theme sidebars on forum pages to prevent duplicate sidebar display
• Fixed: Topic count issue after import
• Fixed: Trash filter label hidden on small screens
• Fixed: AJAX actions secured with nonce verification and proper input sanitization See full changelog and version history →