Overview — Screens, Database, Layout Settings, Use Cases
With the Forum feature template, you’ll have everything you need to get a user forum up and running in your app. The template comes equipped with all appropriate database properties and relationships
Screens Overview
📚 Instructions Screen
Quickly get an overview of the template with quick tips, a help doc, and associated templates that may be of interest. This screen may be deleted at anytime.
User Screens
📋 All Topics
Users can view the list of topics and click into one to see the associated conversations. By default, only admins can create new topics (you can change this).
📑 All Posts within Topic
This screen shows the top level posts within a topic. Each post has some basic action icons that allow the creator to edit or delete a post, and an admin-only icon that allows admins to hide the post. Other viewers can click a button to reply to the post.
💬 Post Detail with Replies
This screen shows the full original post in addition to allowing users to post and view replies.
✏️ Edit Topic, Edit Post, Edit Reply
These modals allow users to edit existing content.
🗑️ Delete Topic, Delete Post, Delete Reply
These modals confirm the user wants to take the action before deleting content.
Database Overview
The Forum Template comes with a database that contains sample data. Each Adalo database contains Collections and each collection comes with the associated Properties. Any necessary relationship between the collections is set up, as well.
Important Note About the Database:
If you delete a Collection or Property from the Feature Template, this could impact the functionality of your app.
If you add a Collection or Property to your Feature Template, this will not impact the functionality of your app.
Below is an outline of the included Collections and their Properties. The Collection name is bolded and includes a description. The Properties include their name, property type (in brackets), and a description.
Basic Collections & Properties
👥 Users
The Users Collection automatically comes with every Adalo app. This collection will hold all the information related to anyone who uses the app. This information is initially collected from a user when they sign up to use your app.
Email [Text] — the user’s email address.
Password [Encrypted] — the user’s password which is not visible to anyone, including Admins.
Username [Text] — a user’s username, set by the user.
Full Name [Text] — the user’s first and last name, collected during sign up.
Messages Received [One-to-Many Relationship] — this relational field shows that one user can receive many messages, however, each received message can only belong to one user.
Profile Photo [Image] — a user’s profile photo. This is not automatically collected during sign up, but can be via the sign-up form.
TopicsCreated [One-to-Many Relationship] — one user can create many topics, and all topics were created by one user.
PostsCreated [One-to-Many Relationship] — one user can create many posts, and all posts were created by one user.
📣 Topics
The topics of conversation, created by admins.
Name [Text] — the name of the topic being discussed.
UserCreator [One-to-Many Relationship] — one user can create many topics, and all topics were created by one user.
PostsWithinTopic [One-to-Many Relationship] — One topic can have many posts and all posts belong to one topic.
💬 Replies
The Replies Collection is where all of the replies to each post are stored.
Reply Text [Text] — the message body of the reply.
Reply Image [Image] — an optional image associated with the reply.
UserReplied [Many-to-One Relationship] — One user can have many replies and all replies belong to one user.
PostParent [Many-to-One Relationship] — each reply belongs to one parent post and a post can have many replies.
Hidden [True/False] — if true, the reply is hidden and will not be visible to non-admins.
Published [True/False] — when a reply is first being written, it is created in a non-published state and then switched to published when it is posted.
📝 Posts
The Posts Collection holds all of the posts that belong to a given topic.
Post Text [Text] — the message body of the post.
Post Image [Image] — an optional image associated with the post.
UserPosted [Many-to-One Relationship] — One user can have many posts and all posts belong to one user.
Topic Parent [Many-to-One Relationship] — each posts belongs to one topic and a topic can have many posts.
Hidden [True/False] — if true, the post is hidden and will not be visible to non-admins.
Published [True/False] — when a post is first being written, it is created in a non-published state and then switched to published when it is posted.
RepliesToPost [One-to-Many Relationship] — One post can have many replies and all replies belong to one post.
Layout Settings
Each screen in the Browse Classes Feature Template is created using responsive design. The screens will look good on any device or tablet.
Most screens have been designed with Custom Layouts. If you add a new component to a screen, you might notice that the other screen sizes are impacted.
Layout Overview
To view or edit the layout for different screen sizes — click the Screen title to reveal the dropdown.
The default view for this template is Desktop. When you change the screen size for one screen in the Builder, it does not change the screen size of the rest of the screens on the canvas.
Hidden Components
In each view, there may be components that do not appear on Desktop, but are visible on Mobile. These are grayed out in the lefthand panel & denoted with an icon.
Another way to view which device components are visible on is the Layout Tab here:
Custom Layout
Some components come with custom layouts based on screen size. To view those settings, check the Layout Tab & scroll to the Custom Layout Settings.
Example Use Cases
A chat experience for pickleball club members to talk with one another.
A messaging experience for teachers to communicate with parents or students.
A conversation feature for landlords to converse with their tenants.
and many more!
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