Hi all, not sure if this the right place to post but I have a question re a project. I want to build a website in which users can have their own profile and exchange messages (either via a chat or via thread). Is it possible to do it and if yes how? What is the best practice?
Here is my site Read-Only: LINK
(how to share your site Read-Only link)
Hello @Haris_Papavasileiou
Yes, this should be possible in Webflow, but you’ll need to use third-party software (at least in part).
Slight disclaimer, I work for Memberstack which is one of these third-party providers – so I might have a slight bias towards our offerings. The user profile portion is a fairly common request we get. I know that Webflow is rolling out its own membership platform now, but I believe it is fairly new and so I am not too familiar with its offering. In Memberstack, public user will involve some kind of API endpoint and some way to manage what users you want other people to see. If you create a CMS collection of users and connect it to a templated “user profile” page you should be able to display a list of users as well as individual user pages. Here is a thread from the Memberstack forums that outlines how to do this.
As for the chat/forum feature, Memberstack integrates directly with the Circle App (circle.so), which is pretty integrative in its offerings of thread and chat between members. Here is a tutorial on how that integration process would happen. You might need to reach out to Circle to activate SSO (Sing sign-on), but once you do that, we’ve build the integration directly into out platform as a “power up”.
If you don’t want all of teh features of Circle, we also recommend Memberchat which does pretty east person-to-person chat (and integrates with Memberstack as well).
For forums, Discourse is by far the most common solution (this Webflow Forum, for exaqmple, is built using this – check out the URL above). Typically, users need to create a secondary account to use Discourse forums though.
Again, I can only talk about Memberstack here, but it is (and has been for a few years now) one of the best membership solutions available for Webflow. We also just released a 2.0 version, so there are a lot of new features.
Let me know if you have any questions/want any clarification on anything.
Building a website where users can have profiles and message each other is doable. In my opinion, Omegle.fm Text Chat - Your New Omegle Alternative for Random Chats! could be a good starting point for inspiration. You’ll need to use web development tools like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, along with a backend language like Python or PHP. You’ll also need a database to store user profiles and messages. As for best practices, make sure to prioritize security, privacy, and user experience. Test your site thoroughly and gather feedback from users to make improvements.