Have a look at the XML version of the quilt (that little switch on the top right), some components come with XML attributes for configuration, I don't know by heart if message-list is one of them, but I could imagine. The quilt should be ForumPage. Then copy the component code with attributes from the quilt XML and insert an @ when you include it in FreeMarker, does that change anything?
Second factor could, as you already stated, be the CSS, the context in particular. Check the wrapper structure & classnames of the original page. Maybe you have to replicate that outer div structure in your tabbed component so the default styles are properly applied.
Thanks, I thought it might be something like that because it almost looks like a "slim" version of the message list or something, but it has no attributes added.
Hm, and you can't find that avatar markup at all when you include it in your custom component?
I know there are some custom configs we as mortal devs have no access to, but Khoros support does, so maybe it's such a case (they can basically move around the individual table-cells of one of those message-list items and or add new ones)?
but I'm not entirely sure why that would then not translate to you using the same component elsewhere... so inspect the output and check if everything is the same (can even do a diff to make it easier) in terms of HTML and the only difference are styles. If so, try to recreate the HTML wrapping structure of the original page in your custom component (you have to dig into the CSS to figure out what is basically the "scope" for those native styles).
