When creating an OP, window opens saying “Your topic is similar to…”
I always check it to ensure I am not duplicating a conversation.
Occasionally I will starte a thread, only to be told that I posted a similar thread in the past. Most recent example:
I’m curious as to why the software does not identify such seemingly similar past threads - by the same poster, but instead, lists far les similar appearing threads.
Not a big deal. I just would like to avoid overly repeating myself. I suppose I could run searches, but seeing as the window opens, I guess I began relying on it.
Also, I quoted another thread in this post. ISTM that I always used to cut/paste with the [url=] brackets. When I do that now, it comes out weirdly, so I edit it and the quote appears as a window. Am I correct in assuming this is a somewhat recent change?
..unless you’re in the “new rich text editor”, where you don’t get a preview
screen. The toggle/slider switch in the upper left hand corner of the
post composition window toggles between the “new rich text editor” and
the “standard markdown editor”.
OK - I guess I never internalized the term “post composition window.” And “preview screen” to the right? Do you mean the vertical slider that allows you to moved within a thread? Because that is all I’m seeing to the right.
But I’m fine with knowing that quoting has changed and it wasn’t something I was doing wrong. Now about those “similar OP” notices (which was my primary reason for posting).
And now I see the thread has been moved to “Site feedback.” Certainly not a forum I check regularly.
I was commenting on what I saw as I was typing a reply. I’m typing right now, and see nothing that I could call a “preview screen” to the right. All I see is a slide saying “7/7, August 18, 5m”
I don’t care enough to try to figure it out. I simply want to read and post - as I have for 20-some years. When folk talk about their browsers and whatever, I am lost. I never try to customize things on my computers because it always seems that my customizations/preferences get changed/lost whenever someone does an update or something. So I do the lowest tech approach with whatever is handed me.
I’ll stop reading replies about preview screens, and likely only check back in here if someone mentions the “similar posts” window.
The preview area appears only on a PC or tablet. If you’re used to composing on a phone, you need to push a button to see the preview. A button that many phone posters have never noticed.
As to the “similar threads” feature, that’s widely acknowledged to be useless. Whatever logic their selection system uses, it sucketh utterly. Do not rely on it to protect you from yourself or from anything else.
I NEVER post from my phone. Wouldn’t know how to if I wanted to. ALWAYS from my MacBook Air laptop.
Thanks re: the “similar threads.” I’ll start doing more searches. But, in the past, I’ve perceived that I do not seem to run my searches in a way that renders useful results.
It is modestly embarrassing when I repeat myself. Confirms that many of the same things seem to concern/interest me year in/out.
In the top-left corner of the window when you’re posting is a button that switches between markdown view and WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). The button should switch between a box with an M and a downward arrow for markdown, or a capital “A” for WYSIWYG mode.
With markdown view, you have two windows, one on the left showing all of the code (aka “markdown”) including tags, asterisks for bold and italics, the URL for a link or photo if you’ve added it, and so on. The right window will show you a preview what the post will look like once you submit it.
With WYSIWYG view, which I’m sure you have enabled, there is just one window. You won’t see any tags or other code, you will just see your post as it will look once you submit it. I’m pretty sure that’s why you don’t see side-by-side windows.
I think you’re bringing up my reply on your other thread.
I was scrolling, and at the bottom of the page the first “similar” topics had the green “D” (Dinsdale) avatar and nearly the same title. I opened it and saw nearly the same wording. I didnt go and search for anything similar, it just matched “suggested” historic posts as displayed on the bottom.
However, Ill say it’s interesting how we can change our ideas on some things, as you did with the old truck and a couple things in that older post.
It is curious that it would show the similar thread to you as you read the thread after I started it, but would not show it to me as I was composing it. Someone somewhere might be able to try to explain why that is a good thing, but for me, I doubt the explanation would dmake sense to or stick with me.
I’m looking at the top-left corner right now, and all I see is an arrow to the left of DaveUnknown’s name. When I click on the arrow, it gives me the option to Reply as linked topic or Reply to topic.
Under the arrow is a ribbon starting with a capital “A” on the left. When I click on that, the screen shows what I would call “reveal codes” from decades ago use of WP. And the “A” changes to an “M” with a downward arrow. I don’t care which of those screens/formats I see. Neither helps/hurts my posting.
Of the icons to the right of the “A”, I DO recognize B for bold and I for italic. That’s about it. Oh yeah - there is an emoji icon second from the right.
Thanks for trying to explain. I am such a luddite that I don’t even try to figure out what all of the various icons/buttons/tabs do. And when someone attempts to explain something, I often find I lack the vocabulary.
A Discourse search for [in:created in:title whatever words] will find every thread which you created whose title contains all of the trailing words in any order together or separated by other words.
So for me [in:created in:title last buy] would find all threads I started with “Last” and “buy” somewhere in the title. If you (any you) ran the same search, it’d be for threads you started.
Changing in:title to in:first looks in the OP bodies, not titles, containing those words: [in:created in:first last buy].
When you switch to “M” that puts you in markdown mode and should give you a preview window unless you’ve hidden it. To unhide it, click the >> double right arrow in the bottom-right corner of the window. (Again, this is only in markdown mode, where the button is “M”.)
The only reason I’m mentioning this is because this should explain what people mean about a preview window/screen.
Thanks for explaining. That shows me the 2d window.
I really need instructions that explicit. So many folk who are adept with computers tend to take so much for granted. Until you mentioned them, I never even saw the >>, and had never (knowigly) switched to “markdown.”
The smart way to do searches is to click the magnifiying glass, then click the little three horizontal sliders icon at the right end of the search input box. That opens the advanced search page where all the options are laid out in plain English with no need to remember secret codes like “in:first”. I search many times a day so I’ve memorized most of them.
The section that starts out
Only return topics/posts…
Matching in title only
is a bit tricky.
You see 4 choices with checkboxes and then a drop-down. The dropdown includes 10 additional choices that all ought, IMO, to just be more checkboxes. In the course of trying to save screen real-estate, they made something confusing.
One thing I think some people in this thread didn’t make clear: all those references to the preview pane, they’re now obsolete. That’s how it used to work, but it’s been replaced, and no longer available. So if you never noticed it… well, it’s gone now.
I sympathize 10,000%. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to Google up a help page or even video for some issue that I can’t otherwise resolve, and invariably, every single f. time, they’ll either mention some feature, button, or menu that simply doesn’t exist on my PC here, and/or expect me to know what and where the “Thingamadoodle Button” is. I’m sorry, but there IS no Thingamadoodle Button anywhere on my f. screen, thanks. Close tab in utter frustration. rinse, repeat.
The preview pane is still there for me, if I switch the upper left button to M+. Again, language, maybe what you call a “preview pane” is something different that the window which has a double down arrow AND a double-headed arrow in the upper right, and a double left arrow in the bottom right, and which mirrors what I am typing in the left-hand window (which has 13 buttons above it)…