Transforms your XenForo forum into a modern social platform by adding ephemeral, visual stories that your members already know and love. Users can share images, videos, and stylized text stories that appear in a familiar stories bar — creating a fast, casual way to engage beyond traditional threads and posts.
Story Types
- Image Stories — Upload photos with optional captions. Supports all common image formats with configurable file size limits.
- Video Stories — Share short video clips directly in the story viewer. Permission-controlled so you can limit video uploads to specific user groups.
- Text Stories — Create text-only stories with customizable background colors and font styles (Default, Serif, Mono, Handwriting, Bold). Perfect for quick thoughts, announcements, or quotes. Admins can configure preset background colors.
Immersive Story Viewer
- Fullscreen modal experience that feels native and polished
- Keyboard navigation (arrow keys to move between stories)
- Auto-advance timer with configurable duration per slide
- Touch and swipe gesture support for mobile devices
- Smooth transitions between stories and story groups
Privacy Controls
Four levels of privacy give your members full control over who sees their stories:
- Public — Visible to everyone, including guests (up to the guest preview limit)
- Members Only — Visible to all registered members
- Following — Visible only to users they follow
- Only Me — Private, visible only to the story author
A default privacy level can be configured globally by the admin, and individual users with the appropriate permission can override it per story.
- Inline Reactions — Members can react to stories using XenForo's built-in reaction system
- AJAX Comments — Real-time commenting directly within the story viewer, no page reload required
- Comment Reactions — React to individual comments as well
- Toggleable — Both reactions and comments can be enabled or disabled globally via admin options
Highlights
Stories are ephemeral by default, but Highlights let members preserve their best stories permanently:
- Create named highlight collections (similar to Instagram Highlights)
- Add stories to highlights before or after they expire
- Custom cover images for each highlight
- Highlights are displayed on the user's profile, giving their page a richer, more personal feel
Streaks and Gamification
Encourage daily participation with a built-in streak system:
- Tracks consecutive days a user posts stories
- Displays current streak and personal best streak
- Configurable badge thresholds (default: 7, 30, 100, and 365 days)
- Top Streaks leaderboard widget to fuel friendly competition
- Streak badges appear on story avatars, giving active members visible recognition
Pinning and Story of the Day
- Pinned Stories — Moderators and authorized users can pin important stories to the top of the stories bar
- Story of the Day — An automated cron job selects a standout story daily, giving members a chance at the spotlight. Selected users receive an alert notification.
View Tracking and Analytics
- See exactly who viewed each story (permission-controlled)
- View counts displayed on stories
- Story authors get insight into their audience
- Admins can enable or disable view tracking globally
Four ready-to-use widgets that can be placed anywhere in your XenForo layout:
| Widget |
Description |
| Stories Bar |
The primary horizontal scrolling stories bar, typically placed at the top of the forum list |
| Recent Stories |
A list of the latest stories, ideal for sidebars |
| Story of the Day |
Showcases the daily featured story |
| Top Streaks |
Leaderboard of members with the longest active streaks |
Badges
Contextual badges appear on story avatars to help members identify who they are hearing from:
- Admin and Moderator — Staff role indicators
- Veteran — Long-standing community members
- Newcomer — Recently joined members
- Streak Milestones — 7-day, 30-day, 100-day, and 365-day streak badges
- Top Contributor — Recognizes prolific story creators
- Story of the Day — Marks stories selected as the daily feature
Granular Permissions
16 permissions allow fine-grained control per user group:
- View stories
- Create stories (image, video, and text controlled separately)
- Comment on stories
- React to stories
- Delete own stories
- Delete any story (moderator)
- Edit any story (moderator)
- View hidden/deleted stories (moderator)
- View story viewers list
- Pin stories
- Create and manage highlights
- Set story privacy
- Daily story limit (configurable per group)
Admin Options
17 configurable settings to tailor the experience to your community:
- Stories per page
- Story expiration time (hours)
- Expired story retention period (days)
- Maximum file upload size
- Maximum attachments per story
- Auto-play slide duration
- Enable/disable comments, reactions, view tracking, highlights, streaks, pinning, and text stories
- Guest preview count (how many stories guests can view before being prompted to register)
- Background color presets for text stories
- Streak badge thresholds
- Default privacy level
Alerts and Notifications
Members stay informed through XenForo's native alert system:
- New comment on your story
- Reaction on your story
- Reaction on your comment
- Story pinned by a moderator
- Your story selected as Story of the Day
Mobile-First Design
- Fully responsive layout that adapts to any screen size
- Touch-friendly swipe gestures in the story viewer
- Mobile-optimized comment and reaction panels
- Stories bar scrolls horizontally on smaller screens
Guest Engagement
Convert visitors into members with a configurable guest preview:
- Guests can view a set number of stories before being prompted to register
- The preview count is configurable in admin options (set to 0 to require login immediately)
- Registration prompt appears naturally within the story viewer
Full Localization
- 215+ translatable phrases covering every label, button, message, and notification
- All phrases follow XenForo naming conventions for easy translation
- Ready for any language your community speaks
