Table of Contents
Note: this post was made before the transition. Any or all of it may already be wrong, outdated, or muddleheaded. I’ll try to update as necessary.
I have a bunch of pretty pictures to go along with it, but images take forever to upload tonight
Important: Discourse is always infinite scroll. There is currently no (good) way to add pagination or a nested view. Sorry.
- Basic Tutorial (Took it out. Ran out of characters.)
- Setting the Default View
- Trust Levels (Had to delete. Ran out of characters.)
- Reading
- Posting
- Forum & Thread Notifications
- Flagging Posts
- Blocking Users
- Setting a Title
- Miscellaneous Issues
Setting the Default View
You should see is a listing of the categories. This is a good place to land, but you can change it if you want to. It should show all the forums.
If that’s not the view you want, you can change it to show different things by using this navigation bar (if you have one). It should say Categories, Latest, Top. Probably in orange.
There may be more or fewer entries there than shown.
If your device doesn’t display the navigation bar, use the listbox to select your view.
If you want to change the default view permanently, you can do that in your preferences. To get there, click on your avatar in the upper right corner, and you’ll get a drop-down menu.
Choose the little bell to get to your control panel.
Click on Preferences or change the first box to read Preferences.
Click on Interface or change the second box to Interface, and you should see some options.
Change the value in Default Home Page to choose which view you want to see whenever you log in.
You can also play with the various themes and text sizes while you’re here, but see more on that later.
Don’t forget to Save Changes!
Setting Up Notifications
While you’re in Preferences, go ahead and click on the Notifications link or change the second box to say Notifications.
Here, you’ll be able to change how and when you receive notifications. You can stop being notified when somebody likes one of your posts, for instance, or you can keep other posters from PMing you.
Of note are setting what threads are considered new and whether you automatically track any topic that you enter.
When you have things set up the way you want them, don’t forget to save your changes.
Theme and Text Size
Go to Preferences >> Interface, and you’ll find a box marked Theme. Pick one.
Themes change as soon as you select one, but you gotta save to make it permanent. Click the Save Changes button when you find the one you like.
Below that is a box marked Text Size. Choosing anything other than Normal adds a check box for Make this the default text size on all my devices. It’s checked by default.
Like themes, the change is immediate, but you have to click Save Changes to make it permanent.
Reading
Replies to Posts
Depending on what device you’re using, it can be difficult to find out who replied to a post. A post that has received replies will show a reply box in the lower left-hand corner.
Click on it, and it’ll show the replies. (That’s assuming that everyone replying to the post actually used the correct reply button–they don’t always.)
But not all devices show that pseudo-nested view.
On some devices, the only thing you can do is look at the replies.
If the reply contains a full direct quote, then an up-arrow will be shown
Clicking on the arrow will take you up to the quoted post.
If the reply does not contain a full direct quote, then there will be a box showing who the reply is directed to.
On some devices, clicking on the box will show the quoted post, but on other devices, it’ll take you up to the quoted post.
Yes, it’s complicated.
Navigating Threads
Discourse should automatically take you to the last post you read, but there are ways to get to any post. Discourse is also continuous scroll. The only way to paginate is with an add-on that sometimes breaks other functions. Been about a year since I looked into it, though, so that might’ve changed.
If you get to the bottom of a thread and want to go back to the top, you can click on the thread title in the bar above the thread.
On some devices, a timeline is shown to the right of the thread. On others, there’s not one.
Click anywhere on the vertical line to move to that part of the thread. Clicking on the date at the very top will take you to the first post, and clicking on the date at the bottom will take you to the last post.
Additionally, in the thread list for each forum (category), there will be a column showing the number of replies. Click on that number, and you’ll see a submenu that can take you to the top or the bottom of the thread.
Posting
Replying to Posts
Find a thread you have some interest in and write a post.
You do that by clicking the Reply button at the bottom of a post or at the bottom of the thread.
The Reply To Post button is beneath every post. On some devices, it says Reply. On other devices, it’s just a curled arrow.
The Reply To Thread button is at the bottom of the thread. It always says Reply
Whichever one you click on, a reply area will be displayed.
On some devices, it’ll be blank at first, but once you start typing, an automatic preview should appear.
On other devices, there is no automatic preview, but you can enter preview mode by pressing the button that looks like an old-style TV.
Get back to the post with the Hide Preview button.
Type your post, read over it to make sure it’s what you want to say, and click the Reply button.
If you want to cancel the post, you can click the word Cancel or the trashcan icon. You’ll be asked if you want to abandon the post or keep it.
If you abandon, it’ll be erased and forgotten. If you keep it, next time you open the thread, the post you typed will automatically be put back into the reply box.
Important: you may also find that the New Topic buttons have all become Post Draft buttons, preventing you from starting new threads.
You can check your Drafts folder under Activity in your control panel to see if you have any undiscarded drafts.
You can use the Resume or Remove buttons to either keep working on the post or delete it.
Quoting Posts
Lots of times, you’ll want to quote what somebody else has said. There are several ways to do that.
The easiest way is to reply to somebody else’s post. Under each post is the Reply To Post button mentioned earlier.
When you click on it, the reply area will open. But it’s still blank, so you’ll want to click on the Quote Whole Post button in your editor.
You’ll see that your reply box now contains the post you quoted.
Skip a line at the very bottom and write your reply.
Important: don’t forget to include the direct quote from the person you’re responding to–it makes it much easier to understand what you mean and who you’re replying to, especially in long threads.
Sometimes you’ll want to quote multiple people in the same post. You do that just like quoting one person, except you do it multiple times.
Click the Reply button (the grey one) for the first post you want to quote. Then click the Quote Whole Post button on your edit bar (the speech bubble). Scroll to the next post you want to quote and click that post’s Reply button. Click the Quote Whole Post button on your edit bar again. Continue until you’ve got all the quotes you want.
Another way to quote is to use tags.
BB Code:
[quote]
Hello there!
[/quote]
[quote=GreysonCarlisle]
Hello there!
[/quote]
HTML:
<blockquote>
Hello there!
</blockquote>
Markdown:
>Hello There!
Important: If using BB Code style tags, put the [quote] and [/quote] tags on lines all by themselves.
Quotes can be nested.
Yet another way is to use Quote Reply. With that, you highlight the part of somebody’s post that you want to quote and a Quote button will appear. Click it to open a reply box with the highlighted section already quoted, complete with a link and attribution.
Just know that if you have Quote Reply enabled, it can interfere with normal copy/paste functions, and it will keep some dictionary and search apps from working. You can turn it off in Preferences >> Interface.
Formatting Posts
Most of the formatting you’ll want to do can be done from the edit bar. But sometimes it’s easier or faster to use code. Discourse supports some BB Code, some Markdown code, and some HTML.
Note: there is generally no way to change font, font size, font color, background color, or to left-center-right justify text.
| Format | BB Code | HTML | Markdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| italic text | [i]italic text[/i] | <i>italic text</i> | *italic text* |
| italic text | - | <em>italic text</em> | _italic text_ |
| bold text | [b]bold text[/b] | <b>bold text</b> | **bold text** |
| bold text | - | <strong>bold text</strong> | __bold text__ |
| bold italic | [b][i]bold italic[/i][/b] | <b><i>bold italic</i></b> | ***bold italic*** |
| underline | [u]underline[/u] | - | - |
| strike thru | [s]strike thru[/s] | <s>strike thru</s> | ~strike thru~ |
| - | <strike>strike thru</strike> | - | |
| inserted text | - | <ins>inserted text</ins> | - |
| - | <del>deleted text</del> | - | |
| superscript | - | <sup>super</sup>script | - |
| subscript | - | <sub>sub</sub>script | - |
| small text | - | <small>small</small> text | - |
| big text | - | <big>big</big> text | - |
(horizontal rule) |
- | <hr> | - |
| keyboard text | - | <kbd>keyboard text</kbd> | - |
pre formatted |
- | <pre>pre formatted</pre> | - |
Hyperlinks:
BB Code: A link to the [url=Straight Dope Message Board - Your direct line to thousands of the smartest, hippest people on the planet, plus a few total dipsticks.]Forums[/url]
HTML: A link to the <a href=“https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/”>Forums</a>
Markdown: A link to the [Forums](Straight Dope Message Board - Your direct line to thousands of the smartest, hippest people on the planet, plus a few total dipsticks.)
A link to the Forums
Email:
BB Code: Send me some [email=johndoe@fakeaddress.com]email[/email]!
HTML: Send me some <a href="mailto:johndoe@fakeaddress.com">email</a>!
Send me some email!
Code:
There are a couple of different versions of the code format.
BB Code gives this:
[code]
10 Goto 20
20 Print “Hello World!”;
[/code]
10 Goto 20
20 Print "Hello World!";And Markdown gives this: (Note that these are backticks):
`10 Goto 20`
`20 Print “Hello World!”;`
10 Goto 20
20 Print "Hello World!";
Quotes:
The different ways to quote were given earlier, but here they are again:
Reminder: put the [quote] and [/quote] tags on lines by themselves when using BB Code.
BB Code gives this bare quote:
[quote]
Hello there!
[/quote]
and this attributed quote:
[quote=GreysonCarlisle]
Hello there!
[/quote]
and this nested quote:
[quote=GreysonCarlisle]
When I said
[quote=GreysonCarlisle]
I don’t want pineapple on my pizza
[/quote]
I meant that I don’t want any freakin’ pineapple on my pizza!
[/quote]
HTML gives this:
<blockquote>
Hello there!
</blockquote>
Hello there!
And Markdown gives this:
>Hello There!
Hello There!
Spoiler Text
Spoilers can be inserted from the edit bar, but here’s the code:
The BB Code for clickable spoilers:
[details=“Click to show or hide”]
SPOILER!
[/details]
The same thing in HTML:
<details>
<summary>Click to show or hide</summary>
<p>SPOILER!</p>
</details>
Both show this:
Click to show or hide
SPOILER!
Blurred spoiler
Only BB Code for this:
[spoiler]Spoiler here[/spoiler]
Spoiler here
A couple of more esoteric tags that work are <abbr> and <iframe>.
He’s a <abbr title=“A Trock is a TRoll + a sOCK”>Trock</abbr>.
posts as
He’s a Trock. (Hover over the word Trock.)
Mods’ll probably wanna keep an eye out for that.
<iframe> doesn’t have any specific code here because you’ll almost always copy that code from another website. Admin has an editable list of sites that can be iframed. There are only like 3 or 4 that come standard with Discourse, and you can’t use any others unless they’re added to the list. You’ll have to ask admin which ones are allowed.
Tables
Here’s a way to make a table with BB Code / Markdown:
| Cat 1 | Cat 2 | Cat 3 | Cat 4 | Cat 5 | Cat 6 | Cat 7 |
|:—|:—:|:—:|:—:|:—:|:—:|:—:|
|Element A|Element B|Element C|Element D|Element E|Element F|Element G|
|Element 1|Element 2|Element 3|Element 4|Element 5|Element 6|Element 7|
The first line is the header row. The second line is the justification. — is no justification, :— is left, :—: is center, and —: is right. Those lines are 3 dashes. Discourse automatically changes them to solid lines. So colon, dash, dash, dash to left-justify. And Discourse will also try to change anything with a colon into a smiley face while you’re typing, so watch for that.
It gives this (notice the first column is left-justified and the rest are centered):
| Cat 1 | Cat 2 | Cat 3 | Cat 4 | Cat 5 | Cat 6 | Cat 7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Element A | Element B | Element C | Element D | Element E | Element F | Element G |
| Element 1 | Element 2 | Element 3 | Element 4 | Element 5 | Element 6 | Element 7 |
To make a table with HTML (I haven’t found a way to center using this method):
<table><tbody>
<tr><td><strong>Cat 1</strong></td><td><strong>Cat 2</strong></td><td><strong>Cat 3</strong></td><td><strong>Cat 4</strong></td><td><strong>Cat 5</strong></td><td><strong>Cat 6</strong></td><td><strong>Cat 7</strong></td></tr>
<tr><td>Element A</td><td>Element B</td><td>Element C</td><td>Element D</td><td>Element E</td><td>Element F</td><td>Element G</td></tr>
<tr><td>Element 1</td><td>Element 2</td><td>Element 3</td><td>Element 4</td><td>Element 5</td><td>Element 6</td><td>Element 7</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
| Cat 1 | Cat 2 | Cat 3 | Cat 4 | Cat 5 | Cat 6 | Cat 7 |
| Element A | Element B | Element C | Element D | Element E | Element F | Element G |
| Element 1 | Element 2 | Element 3 | Element 4 | Element 5 | Element 6 | Element 7 |
Bullet Lists
Here’s how to make a bullet list with Markdown. An asterisk followed by a space shows the first level. Two spaces, then asterisk + space shows the second level. Four spaces, then asterisk and space is for third level.
So this:
* level 1
* level 2
* level 2
* level 3
* level 1
* level 1
* level 2
* level 3
* level 2
* level 1
shows up as this:
- level 1
- level 2
- level 2
- level 3
- level 1
- level 1
- level 2
- level 3
- level 2
- level 2
- level 1
You can use dashes instead of asterisks if you want.
You can also mix a numbered list with a bulleted one (like the ToC for this post). You’ll have to use a third space for the bullet points (and a fourth once your numbers get into the double digits).
Use 1., 2., 3. or 1), 2), 3) for the numbered list.
Emojis in Thread Titles
You can use emojis in thread titles. One per title. But please don’t. Thanks.
Links to Posts
Each post has the date/time it was posted in the upper right corner. It’s usually something simple like 2 d or 4 h. Hover over it for an exact date and time.
But it’s a hyperlink, so if you copy the link address, you’ll have a link to that particular post. It’s like getting the address from the post number on the old SDMB.
It’ll look something like boards.straightdope.com/t/thread-title/thread-number/post-number?u=your-username. Discourse uses the username for stuff, but you can safely erase the question mark and everything after it.
Forum & Thread Notifications
Both individual threads (called topics on Discourse) and entire forums (categories) can be set to give you notifications, not give you notifications, or even be entirely hidden from your view.
Forums:
To adjust what you want to see from a forum, click the bell button near the top of the forum’s main page. (If you–or admin–have already changed the settings for some categories, it may not be a bell.)
That will bring up a menu where you can select when to be notifed of changes.
You may have to scroll down inside the menu to see all the options. Pick whichever of these you prefer:
-
Watching–You will watch all threads in these forums and be notified of every new post in every thread.
-
Tracking–You will track all threads in these forums and be notified if someone mentions you or replies to you.
-
Watching First Post–You will be notified of new threads in the forum but not replies to those threads. You will be notified if someone mentions or replies to you.
-
Normal–You will be notified if someone mentions you or replies to you.
-
Muted–You will never be notified of anything about new threads in these forums, and they will not appear in the Latest list.
If it’s a forum that you have no interest in, you can set it to Mute. That’ll cut down on the screen clutter. But if you’ve already replied to a thread in a muted forum, you might still get notifications when someone replies to that thread.
You can change that by muting the thread, itself.
Threads:
At the bottom of each thread is a selection button.
The button, itself, might say Watching, Tracking, Normal, or Muted. Click the button, and change your viewing preference for that particular thread.
For threads, you have these options:
-
Watching–You will be notified of every new reply in this thread.
-
Tracking–You will be notified if someone mentions you or replies to you, and the number of new replies to the thread will be shown.
-
Normal–You will be notified if someone mentions you or replies to you.
-
Muted–You will never be notified of anything about this thread, and it will not appear in the Latest list.
Yes, you can mute your own threads.
Futz around with it until it works the way you want it to.
Flagging Posts
You’ve just read something that’s inappropriate. Maybe some jerk is acting up. Maybe it’s spam. Maybe it’s in the wrong forum. How do you report it? You flag it.
The flag icon isn’t normally visible. On some devices, you’ll need to click on the three little dots at the bottom of the offensive post.
On other devices, click the box marked Topic Controls:
That will expand the menu to include flags.
Click the flag button, and you’ll be asked why you’re reporting the post. That will bring up a menu.
Only the Something Else choice will allow you to type in a reason for the report.
Important: you should wait at least 30 seconds after opening a thread before you flag something. Earlier than that might trip an anti-spam feature and your report won’t get sent.
On most Discourse boards, you’ll get a much faster response to your report by flagging the post instead of by trying to call a mod or admin to the thread with a mention. Usually best to just flag it and move on.
Note: I’m not sure yet how the SDMB handles community moderation, so I’ll leave that relationship to flagging out for now.
Blocking Users
So the jerk just won’t knock it off. Well, we’ve got no choice. Gotta block 'em!
There are two options for that–muting and ignoring. If you mute somebody, you won’t be notified when they post something. If you ignore somebody, you won’t be able to read their posts.
If you’ve ignored someone, you won’t see their replies. There will be a link for 1 ignored comment that you can follow if you want. If they are the OP of a thread, you will see that they started the thread, but their OP will say Ignored content. Likewise, if someone quotes them, you’ll see that they were quoted, but the text will either say Ignored content or be blank.
Unless they’ve also ignored you, they will still be able to read your posts.
The easiest way to block someone is to visit their profile. You get to their profile by clicking their username, which brings up a mini-profile called a Card. To get to the actual profile, click the username on the card.
On their actual profile, there will be a button marked Normal:
Click it and change the value to either Muted or Ignored. If you choose to ignore, you’ll be asked for a timeframe. Because it is against the Discourse philosophy, there is no Forever and ever, amen selection available, and six months seems to be the maximum (it used to be four months).
Select one, then click Ignore.
To unmute or unignore someone, just change it back to Normal.
You can also block people by going to your preferences, then selecting Users.
Using that method, type in the first letter or so of their name into the box and select from the list. If you just copy/paste their name, it sometimes won’t work.
To restore someone, just click the x beside their name in the box.
Save changes!
Setting a Title
Note: I don’t yet know how Charter Members and regular Members will be handled by the system.
How do you change your title? Well, you can’t, not unless you have a badge that can be used as a title. But you probably have at least one.
To set your title, go to Preferences >> Account and scroll down to the listbox that says Title.
Change it to whichever option you prefer and click Save.
If you see someone with an unusual title, they’re either on staff or somebody on staff changed their title.
Miscellaneous Issues
New User Posting Restrictions
Except for mods and admin, every new user–regardless of Trust Level–is restricted for 24 hours (and 3 seconds!) from making too many posts. This includes PMs. That’s 24 hours from your first post, not from account creation.
There doesn’t seem to be any way to turn that off or for admin to clear it for any individual user or group. So make your first post as soon as you’re able, and don’t expect unfettered posting for a full day (and 3 seconds!) afterward.
These restrictions have no relation to Trust Level, and I don’t yet know whether members imported from the old board will be so restricted.
Blue Bar Bug
You may see a blue bar above your avatar. Sometimes it’ll be there all the time. Sometimes it’s only there while you’re in your control panel.
It’s really just the blue notifications bubble that tells you how many notifications you have. It can look like a blue bar, but it’s actually just that empty bubble.
Or it can fill up with numbers (it seems to prefer 1 and 2, so it might tell you that you have 121212121212121212 notifications, but it can be any number). It’s a known bug in Discourse, and there’s no way to stop it from happening.
If it appears as a blue bar, ignore it. If it’s full of numbers, dismiss your notifications, and that’ll clear it (often turning it into a blue bar).
Some people have contests to see who can get the largest number.
Internet Explorer
Users with Internet Explorer will have problems. Site likely won’t even load.
Discourse Updates
Discourse updates frequently. Afterward, the site will be slower and more laggy than usual for a few hours. Nothing to be done about it. Just know that it doesn’t herald the return of the timeouts and gateway errors.
On rare occasions, the search function will be automatically disabled to reduce load. Give it a little while and try again.
Space Bug
A blank line and 5 spaces turns the text that follows into a quote with a different font and an oversized quote box. If you write:
Lorem ipsum dolor
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
it will look like this when you post:
Lorem ipsum dolor
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Why would you use 5 spaces? It’s usually a copy/paste from a text document.
Quotes Automatically Removed
If you’re quoting the most recent post in its entirety, the software removes your quote. Click on the orange pencil to see the edits made to the post, and you’ll find that system edited your post.
Minimum Character Count
I think the lowest setting is 5.
If I want to post a one- or two-character reply, I stick at the end of my post. It’s ASCII for “backspace.” It counts as 5 characters but shows up either as nothing at all or as a space, depending on your viewing system.
Editing Window
You have some time–roughly 5 minutes–to edit without an editing notice. After that time, you can still edit, but an orange pencil appears that anybody can click on to see the edit history.
Edits within 5 minutes–no orange pencil, posters can’t see the original, and neither can mods, but admin can see it.
After 5 minutes–orange pencil displayed, everybody can see the edit history. The pencil is grey on other people’s posts, but anybody can click on it to see the edit history.
Reply by Email
This function should probably be turned off ASAP. Save everybody a lot of headache.
Pinned Thread Release
You can let pinned threads sink to the bottom after they are read. At the bottom of a pinned thread, look for a box that says Pinned.
Just change it to Unpinned, and the thread will take its proper place in the thread listing.
Bookmarks Limits
While bookmarking a bunch of threads, you may get a notice telling you that you can’t set any more bookmarks.
It just means that you’ve reached the limit of how many bookmarks you can save in a day. Try again tomorrow.
3, 6
