XenCustomize News Publisher for XenForo 2
Turn XenForo into a true
news portal, homepage, and publishing system with
XenCustomize News Publisher.
This is not just a forum-style article list. News Publisher adds a dedicated
news content type to XenForo with its own categories, prefixes, fields, story view, comments, widgets, RSS tools, editorial controls, and a beautifully organized
categorized news index.
It is built for communities, magazines, gaming sites, tech sites, sports portals, fan sites, company updates, and any XenForo installation that wants a proper CMS-style publishing layer while still feeling fully native to XenForo.
Why News Publisher stands out
Categorized News Index for a structured homepage-style presentation instead of a plain mixed list
Dedicated News Story View with overview, discussion, custom fields, photos, actions, and sidebar blocks
News Ticker for site-wide headline exposure with rich new admin controls
Native RSS Export plus
RSS Feed Importer for both outbound syndication and inbound automation
Multiple Display Modes so each category can match the style of your site
Editorial Workflow Tools including scheduled publishing, news editors, moderation, change dates, and thread conversion
Full Commenting System with permissions, moderation, reactions, alerts, attachments, and approvals
Deep XenForo Integration with widgets, search, embeds, featured content, trending content, alerts, push, bookmarks, reactions, watches, and structured data
Core highlights
A true News CMS inside XenForo
News Publisher introduces a dedicated news content type with its own creation flow, listing pages, story pages, categories, custom fields, prefixes, moderation, comments, widgets, and permissions.
Categorized News Index
One of the addon’s most distinctive features. Instead of forcing everything into one generic feed, the index can present selected categories in their own organized sections, making your homepage feel like a real editorial front page.
Multiple Category Display Modes
Each category section can be shown using
Compact List,
Expanded List,
Card Grid, or
Standout Card Grid, giving you strong visual flexibility.
Powerful News Story View
Each news story gets a rich presentation with an overview layout, discussion tab, custom fields tab, key points, thumbnails, photos, share tools, reactions, report tools, author details, related stories, and sidebar blocks.
Advanced News Ticker
Show your latest headlines site-wide above the breadcrumb and keep important stories visible throughout the forum. Newer versions add much more control over how the ticker behaves and what it shows.
RSS in both directions
Export your published stories through native RSS feeds and also import external RSS feeds into News Publisher through the built-in feeder system.
Editorial workflow support
Schedule stories, reschedule them, publish instantly, assign editors, moderate submissions, update dates, and convert existing discussion threads into proper news stories.
News index example
Screenshot taken from version 2.3.5. This is for reference only and may not reflect features added in later versions. Please check the changelog in the Releases/Updates tab for the latest details.
News story view example
Screenshot taken from version 2.3.0. This is for reference only and may not reflect features added in later versions. Please check the changelog in the Releases/Updates tab for the latest details.
Feature breakdown
Homepage, Index & Category Presentation
- Categorized News Index that can selectively display categories on the main News Publisher index
- 4 category display modes:
- Card Grid
- Compact List
- Expanded List
- Standout Card Grid
- Per-category control over display mode
- Per-category control over how many stories are shown on the index
- Empty categories are automatically hidden from the index
- Category display order from the ACP is reflected on the front end
- Dedicated category pages with filtering and category watch support
- Side navigation and widget-ready layouts on index/category pages
News Stories & Story View Experience
- Dedicated news creation and editing flow
- Large story presentation designed for editorial content
- Overview tab
- Discussion tab
- Custom fields tab
- Key points support
- Large news thumbnail support
- Attached photos support
- Tags support
- Reactions, reports, edit history, warn and moderation actions
- More stories in the same category
- More stories by the same author
- Information sidebar with author, publish date, last update, views, comments, and reading time
- Optional About the Author block
- News editors block
- Share block and share actions
- Watch / bookmark support
News Ticker
- Displays recent headlines site-wide above the top breadcrumb
- Can be enabled or disabled from the ACP
- User group permission controls who can view the ticker
- Admin option to control how many headlines appear
- Admin option to control ticker cache lifetime
- Admin option to control autoplay / cycling interval
- Admin option to show or hide thumbnails in the ticker
- Admin option to limit the ticker to selected source categories
- Admin option to allow users to hide the ticker from account preferences
- Users can fully hide the ticker for themselves when the admin allows it
- Recently improved ticker query and cache behavior for much better performance on larger sites
Native RSS Export
- Built-in RSS feed for the main News Publisher index
- Built-in RSS feeds for news categories
- Permission-aware feed output
- Admin option to enable or disable RSS export
- Admin option to control feed item limit
- Admin option to choose feed order
- Admin option to choose RSS content mode
- Admin option to include thumbnails in feed output
- Useful for syndication, news readers, aggregators, bots, automations, and external integrations
RSS Feed Importer
- Import external RSS feeds into News Publisher
- Add, edit, enable, disable, preview, and delete feed sources
- Configurable fetch interval
- Choose posting user
- Support for posting as guest using feed identity data
- Choose destination category
- Title template support
- Message template support
- Import a feed immediately on demand
Editorial Workflow & Publishing Tools
- Scheduled publishing with date, time, and timezone support
- Publish now or schedule publication
- Quick rescheduling support
- Quick publish-now support for scheduled items
- Your Scheduled News page for authors
- Moderator permission to view scheduled news
- Cron support to automatically publish scheduled stories
- Change publish date and last update date
- Move news
- Reassign news
- Change linked discussion thread
- Inline moderation tools
- Approve, unapprove, soft delete, undelete, and hard delete workflows
Authors, Editors & Collaboration
- Authors can create and manage their news stories
- Authors can assign up to 10 news editors to a story
- Editors can help manage stories similarly to the author, except for deletions
- Optional About the Author presentation on the story view
- Author view pages
- Author news counters and author-related discovery
Thumbnails, Images & Visual Presentation
- Large news thumbnails (740x416)
- Thumbnail editing after creation
- Thumbnail usage across listings, views, widgets, and ticker
- Fallback image handling for more reliable presentation
- Style property support for default landscape and square thumbnails
- Avatar display toggles for supported list/grid display modes
Categories, Fields & Prefixes
- News categories
- Parent/child category support
- Display order
- Category permissions
- Category filters
- Minimum required tags
- Always moderate news posted in a category
- Automatically feature news posted in a category (XF 2.3+)
- Show or hide category on the index
- Per-category display mode override
- Automatically create a forum thread
- Automatically created thread prefix
- Available fields per category
- Available prefixes per category
- Require users to select a prefix
- News fields
- Custom fields for news stories
- Field locations: below news, below sidebar information, or own tab
- Applicable categories support
- News prefixes
- Prefix groups
- Quick set tools
- Filtering and management tools
Full Commenting System
- Dedicated comments system for news stories
- Rich text editor support
- Attachment support
- Quote reply and multi-quote support
- Quick inline editing
- Edit history support
- Soft delete and hard delete workflows
- Approval queue support
- Warning support
- Report support
- Spam cleaner support
- Reactions support
- Alerts for mentions, quotes, reactions, and watched-news activity
- Pagination support
- Search indexing support for comments
- Recent comments navigation link
Featured, Trending & Discovery Features
- Featured News support (XF 2.3+)
- Manual feature / unfeature support
- Automatic featuring by category
- Custom feature title, snippet, and image
- Supports XenForo featured-content styles: Simple, Standard, Carousel
- Trending News support (XF 2.3+)
- Integrates news content into XenForo’s trending content system
- Search News Headlines
- AJAX instant results as users type
- Dedicated results flow when multiple matches are found
- What’s New integration
- Watched news and watched categories
- Latest comments and recent activity discovery
Widgets & Widget Positions
- Widgets included
- Latest News
- Latest Comments
- Statistics
- Featured News
- Trending News
- Latest News widget display styles
- Simple
- Simple with thumbnail
- Carousel Slider
- Carousel Slider: Card Grid
- Standard: Compact List
- Standard: Expanded List
- Standard: Card Grid
- Widget positions
- Index above news
- Index below news
- Index sidenav
- Index sidebar
- Category sidenav
- Category sidebar
- News sidebar
Permissions & Moderation Control
- Separate user and moderator permissions for news stories
- Separate user and moderator permissions for news comments
- Permissions for viewing news, full news, ticker, images, reactions, creation, editing, deleting, tagging, and editors
- Permissions for comment posting, editing, deleting, attachment uploads, approval bypass, and more
- Moderator permissions for approvals, deletions, undeletions, warnings, reassignments, and inline moderation
- Category-level permission support
SEO, Structured Data & Integration
- Configurable structured data type for news stories:
- Article
- NewsArticle
- BlogPosting
- Meta description support for the News Publisher index
- Embed support for News Publisher stories across the site (XF 2.3+)
- Bookmark integration
- Reaction integration
- Report integration
- Alert integration
- Push notification templates
- Search result integration
- Featured and trending content integration
Admin Experience, Maintenance & Styling
- Tabbed News Publisher admin options for cleaner configuration
- Dedicated option tabs for major areas including News Ticker and RSS Export
- Cron entries for feed fetching, statistics caching, view counter updates, and scheduled publishing
- Rebuild tools for news, categories, user news counts, thumbnails, and embed metadata
- Style properties for News Publisher visuals
- Appearance controls for supported list/grid display modes
Feature documentation & screenshots
Click on each documentation thread below for additional details and screenshots where available.
- News Publisher: News Ticker
- News Publisher: Search News Headlines
- News Publisher: RSS Feed Importer
- News Publisher: Categorized News Index
- News Publisher: Display Mode - Card Grid
- News Publisher: Display Mode - Expanded List
- News Publisher: Display Mode - Compact List
- News Publisher: Display Mode - Standout Card Grid (v2.3.1)
- News Publisher: News Categories
- News Publisher: News Fields
- News Publisher: News Prefixes
- News Publisher: News Key Points
- News Publisher: News Thumbnails
- News Publisher: News Thumbnail Fallback Options (v2.3.1)
- News Publisher: News Editors
- News Publisher: News Story View
- News Publisher: Featured News
- News Publisher: Featured Ribbon (v2.3.1)
- News Publisher: Trending News
- News Publisher: Widget - Latest News
- News Publisher: Widget - Latest News - Carousel Slider (v2.3.8)
- News Publisher: Widget - Latest Comments
- News Publisher: Widget - Statistics
- News Publisher: Widget Positions
- News Publisher: User Group Permissions - News Stories
- News Publisher: User Group Permissions - News Comments
- News Publisher: Comments System
- News Publisher: Rebuild Caches
- News Publisher: Cron Entries
- News Publisher: Style Properties
- News Publisher: Snippet as Fallback Description (v2.3.1)
- News Publisher: Search Box Design Polished (v2.3.1)
- News Publisher: Meta Descriptions for the News Publisher Index (v2.3.2)
- News Publisher: User Group Permission for News Ticker Visibility (v2.3.2)
- News Publisher: Rename News Publisher (v2.3.2)
- News Publisher: Embed your News Stories anywhere (v2.3.3)
- News Publisher: Admin Options Organized into Tabbed Sections (v2.3.13)
- News Publisher: Admin Option to Show or Hide the Search Box (v2.3.6)
- News Publisher: Thread to News Story Conversion (v2.3.6)
- News Publisher: Scheduled News Publication (v2.3.7)
- News Publisher: Change News Dates & Times (v2.3.8)
- News Publisher: Avatar Display Toggle (v2.3.8)
- News Publisher: Configurable Schema.org Markup for News Stories (v2.3.10)
- News Publisher: Restrict authors from reacting to their own news stories (v2.3.10)
- News Publisher: Option to Let Users Hide the News Ticker (v2.3.13)
- News Publisher: Native RSS Export for Index and Categories (v2.3.13)
Optional extension addons for News Publisher
The following addons are
separate extensions for XenCustomize News Publisher and are
sold separately.
They are
not included with the core News Publisher addon.
Each extension has its own dedicated documentation page with full details, screenshots, and usage information:
- Keyword Linking ($15.00)
Adds Keyword Linking support to News Publisher stories (nwp_news) by extending the Siropu Keyword Linking addon, allowing keywords to be linked automatically inside news content.
- All News ($15.00)
Adds a dedicated All News page that neatly displays all published news with pagination, making it easier for readers to browse your complete archive.
- News Resurfacer ($15.00)
Automatically resurfaces selected news on their anniversary date each year, ideal for “On This Day”, historical stories, evergreen content, and recurring engagement.
- Ads Disclosure ($15.00)
Adds a clear ads / sponsored-content disclosure system for News Publisher stories, helping publishers maintain transparency with their audience.
- [Audentio] Feeds ($10.00)
Integrates News Publisher stories and comments with the [Audentio] Feeds addon so your news content can appear naturally throughout the feed experience.

These extensions are ideal if you want to expand News Publisher further for your site’s specific workflow or integrations.
Requirements
License setup
After installation, go to the add-on options and open the
License options tab to enter your license key. If you have a branding-free license key, you may enter it there as well to remove branding.
License verification may use XenCustomize.com with local caching. Normal installation and uninstallation do not depend on our server being available. An expired license does not disable normal use of the add-on, but an active valid license is required for official support and access to new downloads or updates released after the license expires.
Demo
See it in action at
https://xencustomize.com/demo/news-publisher/
Need to confirm a specific feature?
If there is a particular workflow or use case you want to confirm before purchasing, please
contact us first. We’ll be happy to clarify what is currently included in News Publisher.