Jtech Tools

The plugin behind JTech Forums: everything we run on top of Discourse, in one place.

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We built these tools for our own forum as the need came up. Some help moderators work, some keep private things private, and one makes the forum usable on a flip phone. They live in one plugin so there's one thing to install and update. Every piece has its own switch, so you only run what you want.

What's inside

For moderators

• Moderator tools. Whispers to specific people inside a topic, private staff notes, alerts when another moderator acts, checklists before posting, and small topic tools like footer messages and reply approval.
• Mini-mod. A few extra rights for people who moderate a single category: managing their categories, moving topics, tags. None of it reaches past what they can see.
• Listing format. Sale threads where every post is a listing in a set format, with no links to other sites. Buyers reach the seller with REQ-PM instead of replying.
• Dislike. In the categories you choose, likes stop counting: no notifications, no history, no leaderboard.

For members

• REQ-PM. The forum has no private messages. Members ask each other for contact details, and choose exactly what to share.
• Dumbcourse. The whole forum at /dumb, built for flip phones and old browsers, driven by the D-pad and keypad.
• Smart search. When a search finds too little, it tries again with synonyms, so "k8s" finds "kubernetes".
• Desktop pop-ups. A small card in the corner when a notification arrives.
• JTech theme. The forum's own look: black and white, hairlines, rounded corners and Geist, with topic cards, a ⌘K menu and a redesigned header, sidebar and profiles. Installed with the plugin; you choose when to use it.

Behind the scenes

• Disteleplus. A chat room for staff, mirrored both ways with a Telegram group, with the review queue in Telegram too.
• Another SMTP. Send forum email through a different mail server.
• Translator tweaks. A proxy for the Translator plugin's Google requests.

Screenshots

Real screens from JTech Forums (the whisper and note in the moderator board are from our docs, with made-up users). Private things (staff chat, contact details, mod notes) are blurred.

Dumbcourse: the whole forum on a flip phone

Moderator tools: whispers, private notes, staff alerts and checklists

REQ-PM: contact details instead of private messages

Disteleplus: one staff room, in the forum and in Telegram

JTech theme: light, dark and dim

On a phone: topic cards, Quick look and a listing card

Installing

Add the plugin to your app.yml and rebuild:

hooks:
  after_code:
    - exec:
        cd: $home/plugins
        cmd:
          - git clone https://github.com/TripleU613/JtechTools.git jtech-tools

cd /var/discourse
./launcher rebuild app

Keep the folder name jtech-tools (lowercase). Discourse builds the plugin's stylesheet address from it.

Turning things on

Everything is under Admin → Plugins → Jtech Tools, one tab per feature. Some features start switched off; each feature's page says what to set first.

jtech_enabled is the master switch. Turning it off stops everything at once, including the permission changes and background jobs. Private things stay private either way: switching whispers off never makes an existing whisper public.

Upgrading? CHANGELOG.md lists what changed and anything worth checking afterwards.

Working on it

Start with the repository rules and CONTRIBUTING.md. The developer docs cover how it's put together and how to run it and its tests. Everything else is in docs/.

Found a security problem? Please report it privately; see SECURITY.md.

License

GPL-3.0. Made by TripleU, Shalom Karr and Ars18 for JTech Forums.