nodebb/nodebb-plugin-featured-categories

NodeBB's Featured Categories plugin lets forum administrators highlight specific discussion categories as visual cards on their forum's homepage. Instead of visitors seeing only a standard list of discussion areas, they get a more visually appealing set of featured sections that can draw attention to the most important or active parts of the community. The tool is designed specifically for forums running on NodeBB, which is an open-source forum platform, using its default Persona theme. Once installed through the admin control panel, the administrator can select which categories they want to spotlight. The plugin then displays those chosen categories as cards near the top of the homepage, giving them prime real estate where visitors are most likely to see and engage with them. This would be useful for community managers or forum owners who want to guide new and returning members toward key discussions. For example, if a forum has a "Announcements" category, a "Getting Started" guide, and a "Community Help" section, featuring those as cards ensures visitors notice them immediately rather than having to scroll through a longer list of all available categories. The project is built as an extension of an existing plugin called Recent Cards, which was created by a different developer. This means it borrows and modifies established code rather than being built entirely from scratch, which is a common approach in open-source development. The README is quite brief and doesn't go into detail on advanced configuration options, supported layouts, or specific visual customization beyond the category selection itself.