Adding a Nabble embeddable forum to Blogger

So you want to put a forum / bulletin board on your Blogger/blogspot blog. A chatbox, shoutbox or comment widget in a sidebar just doesn’t cut it, you want a real forum, for free. You heard that it can’t be done.

Well it can be done really, with Nabble embeddable forum (thanks to Ralph for sharing the info). Here is a step by step guide to make your real forum a reality:

 

Create a forum

1. Go to Nabble.com and register.
2. Select Start a Free Forum.
3. Enter your forum name inside and click Create Forum.
4. Click Yes, create sample sub-forums button.
5. To add a sub-forum go to Options > Structure > Create a new sub-forum.
6. Once you’re satisfied with the results, click Embedding Options link on top right corner.
7. You will see a simple code in a text box, similar to the sample below.

   <a id="nabblelink" href="http://n3.nabble.com/Blogger-Sentral-Forum-xxxxxx.html">Blogger Sentral Forum</a>
   <script src=http://n3.nabble.com/embed/xxxxxx></script>

8. Copy the code.

 

Embed the forum in a page

1. Go to Edit Posts > Edit Pages and click New Page button to create a new page.
2. Switch to HTML mode and paste in the forum code.
3. Click Publish. That’s it your forum is installed.
4. Now, view your page. You should see the forum added to the page. It will look something like this:

Hey, you call this a forum?

 

Customize the appearance of your forum page

I have to agree looking at screenshot, it is nothing to brag about. You probably wish  you could remove all the unnecessary stuff from the page and make the forum fill up the entire blog width.

Well, wish granted, provided you follow the instructions in Apply different layout/styling to static pages. When you’re done with that, your forum page might as well look something like this:

Now that’s more like a forum

 

Forum features

• The forum comes with all the features similar to any other forums.
• Readers will browse, search, post, and navigate without ever leaving your page. The same applies to forum maintenance.

Enjoy!