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SpaceBay – Community, Activity Feed, Group Chat & Events

v1.1.0 · by WPAnchorBay

Build a community on your own site: spaces, activity feed, group chat, events, member directory, points, badges and a leaderboard.

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About this plugin

SpaceBay is a WordPress community plugin that turns your site into a private social network your members actually come back to.

Spaces, an activity feed, private messages, group chat, events, a member directory, points, badges and a leaderboard all sit in one fast, app-like portal. It runs on your own WordPress site, so your members, your content and your data stay with you.

No page builder is needed. SpaceBay brings its own community portal and fits any theme.

Plugin page | Documentation | Support

Who is SpaceBay for?

SpaceBay is built for makers, clubs, schools, creators and small teams who want an online community they own:

  • A membership site that needs a members-only community area
  • A club or association that wants a member directory and events with RSVP
  • A school or course creator who wants a discussion space for students
  • A brand that wants a customer community instead of a social media group
  • A small team that wants a private space for posts, chat and events

Spaces: a group for every interest

Create a space for every topic, team or interest. Each space has its own feed and its own members. Members join the spaces they care about and see those posts in one place.

Activity feed that keeps the conversation going

  • Posts with photos, link previews and videos
  • A focused window for writing, with a live character counter
  • Post and comment length limits that you set
  • @mentions, #hashtags and topics
  • Likes, replies and comments
  • Pinned posts and saved posts
  • A feed in every space the member joins

Private messages and group chat

  • One-to-one private messages
  • Group chat for several members
  • Images in chats
  • Unread counts and read receipts

Events with RSVP

  • Online or in-person events
  • An event calendar
  • “Going” and “Maybe” answers
  • “Add to calendar” for every event

Member profiles and member directory

  • Profile photo and cover image
  • Headline, about text, location and website
  • Level and badges shown on the profile
  • A member directory with search by name. It lists the people who belong to your community, not every user of your site.

Points, levels, badges and a leaderboard

Give members a reason to come back. Members earn points for posts, comments, likes and events.

  • Nine badges
  • Custom levels
  • A community leaderboard

Notifications, in-app and by email

  • A notification bell with unread counts
  • A notifications page
  • Email notifications sent through your site’s own mail
  • Every member chooses which emails they get

Search, dark mode and mobile

  • Search posts, spaces and members
  • Light and dark mode, following the visitor or your choice
  • A phone layout that feels like a native app

Built for community managers

Everything lives under one WordPress menu.

  • Setup wizard – get your community running in minutes
  • Community dashboard – totals, items to review, members waiting and your community address, right in wp-admin
  • One Settings page – access, look, login, messages, points, events, moderation and emails in one place
  • Branding – your logo and brand color, light or dark mode, and a full-page app or a page inside your theme

Moderation that stops spam before members see it

  • Reported posts wait in a review queue
  • First posts from new members wait in the review queue
  • Approve or delete in one click
  • Blocked words
  • Member suspension

Works with the WordPress you already have

  • Any theme – full-page app or inside your theme
  • Multisite – works on network sites
  • RTL – right-to-left languages are supported
  • Google and Facebook login – with your own free apps
  • Privacy tools – export and erase personal data with the WordPress privacy tools
  • REST API and hooks – actions, filters and template overrides for developers
  • WP-CLI – fill a test site with sample content

SpaceBay Pro

SpaceBay Pro is a separate add-on for bigger communities. The free plugin works fully on its own. If you deactivate Pro, your data stays.

  • Member shops – members open a shop on their profile and list what they make. Each product links to their own store. You approve shops and products.
  • Voice and video calls – start a call from any chat, browser to browser, for up to six people
  • Two-factor login – authenticator app or email codes, backup codes, and a policy for everyone or only for staff
  • Signup form builder – choose the fields, mark the required ones and set their order, with a live preview
  • Extra profile fields – add your own fields to member profiles
  • Badge editor – create badges with your own rules
  • Manual badges and points – give badges and points by hand
  • Event place limits – show “3 places left”
  • Event reminders – remind members before an event starts

Learn more about SpaceBay Pro

Source code

The community portal and the admin screens are Vue 3 apps. Their full, readable source code is included in this plugin, in the src/ folder. The files in assets/build/ are built from it with Vite and are not minified.

To build them yourself, use Node.js 20 or later and run these commands in the plugin folder:

npm ci
npm run build

package.json, `package-lock.json` and `vite.config.js` list the build tools and settings.

Credits

The portal and admin screens are built with Vue, Vue Router and Pinia, all under the MIT license. Their license notices are kept in the built files. Interface icons are from Phosphor Icons (MIT), https://phosphoricons.com. Illustrations and the SpaceBay mark are made for SpaceBay and are GPL-licensed with the plugin.

External services

SpaceBay works without any external service. The features below are optional and only contact a third party when you turn them on.

Google login

If you turn on Google login and add your own Google app credentials, members who choose “Log in with Google” are sent to Google to sign in. Google then returns the member’s basic profile data (such as name, email address and profile photo) to your site. No data is sent to Google until a member chooses this login.

Facebook login

If you turn on Facebook login and add your own Facebook app credentials, members who choose “Log in with Facebook” are sent to Facebook to sign in. Facebook then returns the member’s basic profile data (such as name, email address and profile photo) to your site. No data is sent to Facebook until a member chooses this login.

Link previews

When a member adds a link to a post, your site requests that web page to read its title, description and image for the preview. The website being linked to receives a request from your server. Previews need the PHP cURL extension and a direct connection: when your site sends its requests through a proxy, no previews are fetched.

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