Discourse Tips and Tricks; TO-DOs and Community Wishlist

[alms]

Tips and tricks

• Are you on mobile? Make sure to check the Discourse apps:
  • Android
  • iOS
• To one-box a link:
  • make sure your link is posted on a line by itself, no other text

          lorem ipsum
          http://www.rockpapershotgun.com
          the quick brown fox jumped

• To prevent a link from being one-boxed:
  • post as a link: Chain button in editor, or use Markdown or BBCode tagging.
    • Markdown linking: [Try Discourse](http://try.discourse.org)
      Try Discourse
    • BBCode linking: [url=http://try.discourse.org]Try Discourse[/url]
      Try Discourse
    • Simplified BBCode [url]http://try.discourse.org[/url]
      http://try.discourse.org
  • enclose link in < >

          lorem ipsum
          <http://try.discourse.org>
          the quick brown fox

• There is no way to jump to the end of a thread!
  • On a computer, press the End key. Home will bring you back at the top.
  • Click or tap on the timestamp right under the scrollbar
  • Use the scrollbar on the right; besides dragging, it can also be used to jump directly to a post.
  • Graham explains
• Where has the quote button gone?
  • Select text from the post you want to reply to; a Quote button will appear.
  • Press the Reply button on the relevant post; there is a Quote button in the editing pane (first icon left)
• What the hell is wrong with my quote?
  • make sure the opening [quote] tag, and the closing [/quote] tag, are both on a line of their own. Like this:

          [quote]
          quote
          [/quote]

• Ctrl-F is hijacked in threads
  • Simply press Ctrl-F a second time
• Threads unpinning themselves? Take a looksee
• How to start a linked thread, and avoid derailing
• Press ‘?’ for a list of keyboard shortcuts.

Known Issues / TO-DOs

• Preview is broken
• Formatting in old posts is broken, but not in all of them
  • Detailed post
• Inline images appear as links in some instances Example
• Search isn’t working well
  • Detailed post
• TOS and FAQ pages should be updated (Update: both now fixed.)
• Tables ?
  • tables seem to be working fine - if you reported this, please let us know the exact nature of the problem.
• Popular threads automatically locking themselves
  • this should have been solved?
• “all of the notification email tickboxes in Profile are ticked by default. I’d default those to opt out”
• RPS Logo partly invisible with White Theme
  • Screenshot here
• Auto-unpin thread when reaching bottom defaults to on?
  • confusing
• OPs in long-running threads cannot be edited anymore
• Inline images semingly getting uploaded to the forum
  • is this just caching? or space may run out?
• Prevent posting to the Uncategorized Category

That’s just the way it is

• “Too much” empty space on wide-screen and ultra-wide monitors
  • The line length has been chosen for readability.
  • vB’s post container wasn’t wider, though it may have looked that way because the poster’s information was displayed in a cell left of the post body.
  • what kind of information would you like to be displayed on the sides anyway?
  • some suggest: don’t keep the forum window maximized, keep two windows side-by-side
  • still unhappy? try this: [HACK] Wide post & forum body with Stylish
• Read watermarks incorrect, erratic.
  • This is a left-over of migration. Keep using the forum, it will solve by itself.
• An option to disable infinite scrolling
  • Developers have stated pagination will never be an option.
  • You may get it by disabling JavaScript (and lose everything else that makes possible) - note: this workaround doesn’t seem to work for me.
• Pictures uploaded to profiles have disappeared

Community Wishlist

• Ability to log in using existing social networks accounts (Steam, Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc)
• True spoiler tags ~spoiler text~
  • BBCode spoiler now available [spoiler]spoiler text[/spoiler]
• An option to make the column for posts and category listing wider
  • Try this [HACK] Wide post & forum body with Stylish
• More themes
• Make the Light Theme less retina-searing
• Make the Dark Theme more beautiful
  • Contrast issues, top row in particular fixed
  • Text in bold isn’t visible enough
• An option to have square avatars
• Rules and Announcements categories should be removed (Update: Rules has been removed.)

[alms]

[BillButNotBen]

There is no way to jump to the end of a thread!

Can you not click the number in the “activity” column?

[alms]

Can you not click the number in the “activity” column?

The forum should instantly bring you to the last unread message wherever you click (the topic name should be fine, too), IF the read watermarks are correctly set. Users that have just logged in, however, may find that the watermarks have been lost or set incorrectly, and they are placed at the beginning of a thread, or maybe years back imagine the reaction if it’s something huge like WAYP.

[BillButNotBen]

Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but when I click on a forum thread title it takes me to the first unread post or the start of the thread if i haven’t read it on discourse yet.
But when i click on the “8h” or “2d” in the activity column it takes me to the end of the thread.

If I’m logged out then clicking on the title usually takes me to the start of the thread, but clicking on the activity number takes me to the end of the thread.

Or is that something different from what we’re trying to achieve?

[alms]

Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but when I click on a forum thread title it takes me to the first unread post or the start of the thread if i haven’t read it on discourse yet.

But when i click on the “8h” or “2d” in the activity column it takes me to the end of the thread.

If I’m logged out then clicking on the title usually takes me to the start of the thread, but clicking on the activity number takes me to the end of the thread.

Or is that something different from what we’re trying to achieve?

Or maybe I am. The behavior you’re describing is indeed correct: clicking on the timestamp is also documented among the tips and tricks.

What I’ve been trying to say, is that I get the feeling the ‘jump to end’ problem is mostly seen (and reported) because, after the migration, the forum would, in many occasions, send a user not to their last unread post in nya given thread, but at the beginning or in the middle.

I had threads where it would send me to some post dating back to 2015. This is most likely because vB and Discourse handle these things differently and the fidelity of the conversion isn’t 100%.

If you’ve followed my posts whenever matters of forum switches came up, the issue with fidelity is one I’ve warned people time and again - in a previous life, I ran my own forum and experimented with these things myself.

Based on that experience, I can definitely agree with everybody saying that, by the standards of forum migrations, this has hardly been a train-wreck.