Choose your plugins and start from a ready-made site
Choose your plugins and start from a ready-made site
Section titled “Choose your plugins and start from a ready-made site”Reign is the design layer. The features your members use, such as profiles, discussions, courses or events, come from plugins. This page tells you which ones to install for the site you have in mind, in what order, and how to get a finished-looking site on screen before you write your own content.
Pick plugins by the site you are building
Section titled “Pick plugins by the site you are building”Start with one row. You can add more later; each plugin works on its own. Every plugin here is free: what you can build with the free plugins shows what each free edition gives you.
| You are building | Install | Reign gives you |
|---|---|---|
| A member community (profiles, activity, groups) | BuddyNext | Header user area, login and register routing, community results in site search |
| Discussion forums or Q&A | Jetonomy | Discussions in site search |
| Online courses | Learnomy | Courses in site search |
| Events and RSVPs | Eventonomy | Events in site search |
| Member photo, video and document sharing, and member-to-member messages | MediaVerse | Media and documents in site search; powers BuddyNext’s messages |
| A job board | WP Career Board | Theme form styles kept out of its forms |
| A member directory or listings site | Listora | Works inside the Reign layout |
| A services marketplace | WP Sell Services | Works inside the Reign layout |
| Points, badges and leaderboards | WB Gamification | Works inside the Reign layout |
| Any site: page-building blocks and Elementor widgets | Wbcom Essential, part of Reign | Hero sections, pricing tables, sliders, FAQs, member and product grids |
| An online shop | WooCommerce | Shop, cart, checkout and account styling |
Install every Wbcom plugin above from Reign Settings > Extend with Install free. No licence is needed for that. WooCommerce comes from Plugins > Add New.
Not sure yet? Every Wbcom plugin has a live demo you can open in your browser before installing anything. Wbcom plugins lists each one with its website, documentation, download and live demo.
Already run BuddyPress, BuddyBoss Platform or PeepSo? Reign supports them too: see the community setup pages. Use only one community plugin. BuddyNext and BuddyPress cannot run together.
Install in this order
Section titled “Install in this order”-
The community plugin first (BuddyNext for a new site), then complete its own setup screen. It creates the pages other plugins link to, such as profiles and login.
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The feature plugins you picked above. Run each one’s setup if it offers one, and load its demo content if you want sample data (see below).
BuddyNext’s setup wizard can do this step for you. Its What’s powering your community? step lists the companion plugins (MediaVerse, Jetonomy, Gamification, Career Board, Learnomy, Listora, Eventonomy and WB Member Blog) with every one ticked. Untick the ones you do not need before you select Continue, or they are all installed and switched on.
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Reign settings last. Map your login and register pages, then work through first configuration. Doing this last means the menus and pages you pick already exist.
Start from a ready-made site
Section titled “Start from a ready-made site”Demo content comes from the plugins, not the theme. Each Wbcom plugin creates sample content shaped for what it does, and Reign styles it as soon as it exists. Reign then fills in the pages around it.
1. Load each plugin’s demo content
Section titled “1. Load each plugin’s demo content”| Plugin | Where |
|---|---|
| BuddyNext | Last step of the setup wizard: Add sample content (12 members, 14 spaces, 22 posts) |
| Jetonomy | Jetonomy Setup: Create sample data instead |
| Learnomy | Learnomy > Learnomy Setup, Demo step: Load demo academy |
| Eventonomy | Eventonomy > Setup & Health: Set up with sample data |
| WP Career Board | Setup wizard, step 6 Sample Data (ticked by default) |
| Listora | Setup wizard, Want some sample listings?: pick a pack |
| WP Sell Services | Setup wizard, last screen: Import Demo Content |
| MediaVerse, WB Gamification | No sample content; add a few items yourself |
Load the community demo first, so the other plugins’ sample content has members to belong to.
2. Add Reign’s pages and sections
Section titled “2. Add Reign’s pages and sections”Two built-in tools give you the homepage, About and Contact pages and the sections in between.
Starter pages on a fresh site
Section titled “Starter pages on a fresh site”On a brand-new WordPress site, Reign offers a set of starter pages the first time you open the Customizer:
- Welcome: a community hero, a member directory promo and an activity call to action
- About, Community (leaderboard and testimonials) and Contact
- A Privacy Policy placeholder
- A primary menu linking those pages, and the light and dark mode toggle switched on
To use them:
- Activate Reign on a site where nothing has been published yet.
- Go to Appearance > Customize. The starter pages appear in the preview.
- Select Publish to keep them.
- Go to Settings > Reading, choose A static page, and set Welcome as the homepage.
WordPress only offers starter content until the first post or page is published. If Appearance > Customize shows no starter pages, the site is no longer fresh. Use the patterns below instead.
Reign block patterns
Section titled “Reign block patterns”Every page can be built from Reign’s ready-made sections. In the block editor, open the inserter, select Patterns, and pick a Reign category:
| Category | What is in it |
|---|---|
| Reign Hero | Opening sections: image-led, split-screen, typography-led, community hero |
| Reign About | Founder and story sections |
| Reign Features | Feature rows, services, steps, team, member directory promo, leaderboard |
| Reign Social Proof | Logos, stats, testimonials |
| Reign Pricing & FAQ | Pricing table and an FAQ block |
| Reign CTA | Full-width and newsletter calls to action, activity stream CTA |
| Reign Footer | Five footer layouts |
| Reign Query | Post grids and lists for blog and news pages |
Patterns take on your colour palette and switch with light and dark mode, so they match the rest of the site without extra styling.

