Link Robins Blog

A Ghost-style blog for Flarum. Standalone post storage, member-only post gating, a clean reading layout, real Flarum discussions for comments, and a built-in newsletter with broadcast over your existing SMTP.

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Features

Reader

• /blog — hero header (text / forum logo / custom image), featured first post in a large card, grid of remaining posts with pagination
• /article/{date}-{slug} — centered reading column, optional cover image with credit line, body, comments, "Read more" recommendations from the same category
• /category/{slug} — same layout as /blog, filtered to one category
• Auto cover-image fallback to a gradient when no image is set
• Theme-aware — picks up your forum's primary color

Member-only posts

Posts marked visibility: members show the excerpt and a login-wall card to guests. Logged-in users (or only specific groups, configurable) see the full content. Search engines see only the excerpt.

Comments are real Flarum discussions

Each blog post gets one normal Flarum discussion behind the scenes. Comments below the post are posts in that discussion. This means:

• All standard Flarum moderation works out of the box — edit, delete, flag, hide, restore, mentions, likes (if installed), notifications, search
• Replies inherit your existing permission groups, post throttling, BBCode/Markdown setup
• The discussion is kept out of /all and other listings (so it doesn't clutter your forum) but is fully accessible via direct link and via the API
• The first post of each discussion is an auto-generated "bookmark card" linking back to the blog article

There is no shadow comment system. If you can moderate forum discussions, you can moderate blog comments.

Newsletter (built in)

• One-click subscribe star button at the top of the blog sidebar (filled star = subscribed, outline = not). Logged-in users only.
• Admin "Subscribers" tab with live count and CSV export of email, username, subscribed_at (RFC-4180 quoted, chunked for large lists)
• "Send newsletter" button on the post editor — broadcasts via Flarum's configured SMTP to every current subscriber
• Per-recipient List-Unsubscribe header so Gmail/Apple Mail show their built-in unsubscribe button in the inbox
• Token-based public unsubscribe page — works from any device, no login required
• broadcast_sent_at guard prevents accidental re-sends; explicit "Re-send" requires confirmation

Admin

• Tabs for Posts, Categories, Subscribers, Settings
• Full WYSIWYG-ish post editor with cover-image upload (fof/upload), excerpt, slug, category, visibility, and comments-enabled toggle
• Custom HTML widget for arbitrary sidebar content (about blurb, social links, anything)
• Configurable hero header per blog (text title, forum logo, or custom background image with overlay)

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Installation

composer require linkrobins/blog
php flarum migrate
php flarum cache:clear

Then enable the extension from the admin extensions list.

Required Flarum

Flarum core, recent. If your Flarum is old enough that Extend\Routes('api')->post(...) doesn't exist, this won't work; otherwise it should.

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Upgrading

This release adds:

• linkrobins_blog_subscribers table (newsletter subscribers)
• unsubscribe_token column on subscribers
• broadcast_sent_at column on linkrobins_blog_posts

All three are applied by php flarum migrate after upgrading. The migrations are additive — no data is dropped or transformed.

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Newsletter deliverability

The extension sends mail via Flarum's configured SMTP. Whether those mails arrive in inboxes vs spam folders depends on your sending domain, not on this code:

• SPF, DKIM, DMARC records on your sending domain matter. Without them, Gmail in particular will spam-folder your broadcasts.
• For lists over ~50 subscribers, set Flarum's queue driver to database or redis. The default sync driver runs the broadcast inline in the admin's HTTP request, which will time out on larger lists.
• The first time you broadcast, subscribe yourself first and check where the email lands. Mail-tester.com is a free way to grade your sending domain.

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Configuration

All in Admin → Extensions → Link Robins Blog → Settings:

• Blog title and tagline (displayed in the hero)
• Nav label and icon for the "Blog" link in Flarum's main sidebar
• Posts per page on the blog index
• Header mode: text, forum logo, or custom background image (with overlay)
• Members-only teaser length (characters of body shown to guests)
• Custom HTML widget content for the blog sidebar

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API

Mostly JSON:API for posts and categories. A few non-resource endpoints:

Method	Path	Purpose
GET	/api/linkrobins-blog/subscription	Current user's subscription state
POST	/api/linkrobins-blog/subscription	Subscribe (idempotent)
DELETE	/api/linkrobins-blog/subscription	Unsubscribe (idempotent)
GET	/api/linkrobins-blog/subscribers	Admin: { count }
GET	/api/linkrobins-blog/subscribers?format=csv	Admin: CSV download
POST	/api/linkrobins-blog/posts/{id}/broadcast	Admin: trigger newsletter send (?force=1 to re-broadcast)
GET	/linkrobins-blog/unsubscribe/{token}	Public token-based unsubscribe

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License

MIT.