FAQ IN THE FIRST POST
Most of us are new to Discourse, but some of us are newer than others. As we’re learning our way around, this is a catch-all thread for tips, advice, questions, and so forth. Welcome and good luck. Because whatever feature you want from Discourse, I bet someone in this thread will be able to say, “Hey, it already does that and here’s how!”
As for changes, here is the ongoing list of stuff requested and stuff being updated.
-Tom
Answers to Questions Frequently Raised - FAQ, If You Will…
This first post is a wiki post - anyone can edit it, just hit the pencil to the bottom right of the post:
Help, I can’t access the new forum for /insert reason. I think the biggest issue is some ISP’s at the moment are bouncing invite/password reset emails from the new forum. Best bet is to email Tom - [email protected] Even better is to have a secondary email to use for the time being- gmail is good.
Eek! I can’t find my way back to this FAQ! It’s pinned in the Hardware and Technical forum! Bookmarks are also your friend. Bookmark a post at the bottom right of the post and you can get to all your bookmarks from your profile pic top right:
Holy Crap, I have a lot of unread topics, stuff that is years old in some cases! Answer
Really not sure about this underscore in my username… Answer
Oh my god, It’s full of keyboard shortcuts… (And try hitting ? to pop up the guide!)
Where the heck is my dark theme?! Watch this space over the coming months, but for now check here, here, here and here. Update, seems like official per-user theme support is on the cards, but it will take some 6-8 months dev time for the Discourse team.
I’ve got a suggestion on how the forum should look/operate. This thread seems to be collating a list of things to look into. The thread you’re reading right now is better for 'how do I…" questions.
I want to find all the posts by a user! Hit the search button and type @user. Hit the checkbox to narrow the results to the thread you are in. Alternatively, left click their avatar to enable/disable a filter of in-thread activity:
In-built search engine is actually useful! Discourse has some very nice tag filter functionality, the options button when you search tells you more:
The Old Forums, where are they now? Here for the moment, but they may not be around forever since everything except for the last few days is migrated anyway. Jet fuel cannot melt steel girders. If you posted anything of note over there since the migration snapshot at 8PM PDT, June 27, 2016, re-post it here or it will be lost.
Does Discourse remember my last read position in a thread? Generally, yes, Discourse does a great job of remembering where you were in a thread, but that info may not have transferred nicely during the migration (if at all). In some cases the thread will at least take you to your last post in the thread if you have contributed. Suffice to say, this will be a short term inconvenience while you enter threads here for the first time. To get to the bottom quickly drag the sidebar/timeline bar to the bottom, or just hit End on your keyboard.
How can I link to a particular thread, or even an individual post? Hit this button below the post content:
I’m really disappointed there is no 9/11 false flag/truther references in this FAQ! Yep, me too, obviously. But have at it, anyone can edit this wiki post!
All the stickied/pinned threads take up sooo much screen space on mobile! These can be unpinned client side per user. Go to the end of the thread and action it for those threads you no longer want to see front and center. They will still display more content, but will sink as per regular threads.
Avatars…I hate them and want them gone! There is no per-user setting for enabling/disabling avatars. However, if you use uBlock origin, check out this handy instruction.
I really wish Discourse did not hijack normal CTRL-F browser search functionality! Hit CTRL-F a second time to dismiss the Discourse hijack and initiate browser search instead. Keep in mind that Discourse by its nature purges stuff you have scrolled past at some point, so you won’t find something you read 150 posts ago in browser search.
Does anyone have a way to imitate the old “unread posts” function? Not currently possible.
What is Markdown? Because Discourse supports it, but I don’t even know what it is. Markdown is a breezy and elegant way to include formatting in your post. You should check out this slick tutorial.
How do I sort the topics by number of activities?
In the Latest View, or any other view, each of the title in the column, Category, Replies, Views, Activity, is clickable and therefore it will sort.
The QT3 Front Page, how do I get to it? The eyeball icon at upper right, adjacent to search, will take you there.
I want to Ignore someone, how can I do it? Kind of, but not really. You can mute notifications from certain users in your preferences (mentions, replies, etc):
But, this will not hide their posts during general browsing. This is not something Discourse supports for reasons, valid or otherwise. Thankfully folk have put together some CSS tweaks and a guide to setup here or using a one-stop script here, if this is something that bothers you so much you need to address it.
