What tech stack is this community built upon?

#1

Hey! I couldn’t find a thread about web tech, so I started this.

I tried to run this site through BuiltWith and couldn’t get any results.

@hankchizljaw is this all custom? :slight_smile:

#2

This is a discourse instance! All it took was a bit of mucking around in the command line and we were off!

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#3

Good choice. I wish more forum sites used Discourse.

#4

Yeh I have forums in the same category as building your own CMS or eCom. So much hidden complexity!

Discourse seems to be really good. Netlify use it for their community and support and it appears to run smooth as butter.

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#5

Also easy to use via the Discourse app. Just added Piccalilli to it on my devices. Was already using it to view Discourse forums (fora?) on Netlify, Bitwarden, MacPowerUsers, and Tidbits.

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#6

Oh really? That’s really good to know, thank you :slight_smile:

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#7

Do you have an URL I can check for setting up a community like this @hankchizljaw? :slight_smile:

#8

Hell yeh I do! https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/discourse

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#9

Hey Bryce! Thanks for the tip on the app, but I really wish there was a desktop app - have to keep switching back and forth between sites :frowning:

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#10

Yes, that would be great, I agree. Looks as if we’re stuck with browser-only for that. I suspect someone out there will eventually come up with an Electron app for it but, since many (most?) Discourse sites are tech-oriented and there’s a lot of opposition among our fellow techies to Electron, it would probably face rough sledding.

#11

I really don’t get the electron hate. Isn’t VS Code Electron?

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#12

Yep. Only common thread I’ve been able to see in the Electron hate is concern over “bloat,” to which this old techy fart would say, “Guys, that train left the station a lonnnnnnng time ago.” :smiley:

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#13

Using Chrome mobile, I was able to install this on my phone. It feels like a PWA! It’s even available offline. Although, it doesn’t sync offline.

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#14

I haven’t tried it with discourse but I recommend checking out Nativefier:


It essentially allows you to create an electron wrapper around any website from the command line, that runs on all major desktop platforms. I use it for several websites that don’t have native apps and although it uses a fair bit more RAM than using it in a browser it works really well.
The only gotcha I have found is that there is no back/forward functionality so sometimes you can get stuck if there aren’t anchors to get you back again.

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