I’m having some problems with basics here. For instance, I’m looking for something to click on to quote a poster, so that it’s clear which person I’m replying to. But I see nothing. Is there an option to quote?
For that matter, why am I getting pop-ups on the right, imaging that my “topic is similar” to things that are nothing like mine?
Just highlight the text and click the “Quote” button that shows up next to it.
It is a built-in feature of Discourse that tries to find things that might be similar. It tends to work best on sites with lots of posts where people do post similar things, and can avoid accidentally duplicate threads. But it’s not AI, just matching some words. Don’t take offense.
Great answers @Michael_K_Johnson!
Yes, the “helpful box” may be a bit awkward, but what can you do. Occasionally it’s a helpful reminder, though. (If there’s already a post on a specific subject, it may be nice to link it in the new post.) Otherwise, please ignore it.
Generally, the editor supports Markdown formatting (like surrounding asterisks for italic and two surrounding asterisks as in **bold** for bold) and even a bit of basic HTML. Just have an eye on what happens, when you use any of the formatting buttons. E.g., if you want to paste (or type) code, either indent each line by 4 blanks, or put triple back-ticks before and after the first and last line (on a separate line each). Single back-ticks are useful for any inline code expressions. Or simply select the code in the editing window and press the “</>” button. A “>” at the start of the line marks quoted text (e.g., if we want to quote text from another page), which is also what the " button does, etc.
Quoting another post is a bit special, though, since the editor has to “know” what post to use as a reference. If you want to start a reply by quoting another user, select the part in question and click the “Quote” button in the pup-up that will appear. This will open a new reply to this post and insert the highlighted text as a quote. You can also quote another user in a post/comment, you’re already editing, by the same procedure, which will insert the highlighted text at the current insertion point. (That way, you can refer to multiple posts by several users in the same comment.)
Another quirk of the post editor is that it really wants to insert a page’s title for any URL. If this is not what you want, and you want to make sure that a certain URL is displayed, select the URL and use the link button to paste the URL into the “optional title” field, as well.
On the other hand, if you want to point out a site, putting the URL on a line of its own will result in a nice box, including a preview (if there is any). Putting a YouTube link on a line of its own will embed the video in question.
Oh, also… Just in case you didn’t notice this, you should have a message from Discobot when you signed up that offers you a tutorial for how to use Discourse. Click the W at the upper right hand corner and look for a message called “Greetings!” from “discobot” — it tells you how to respond to learn more about how to use Discourse, the software this site is built on. There is also an advanced tutorial available which you will be offered or will have been offered when you’ve done enough here for the system to automatically increase your “trust level”. That message will be from discobot and be titled “Now that you’ve been promoted, it’s time to learn about some advanced features!”
