A thread with tips and tricks for the new Discourse based Arduino forum

Community Website and Forum
#1

At the beginning of April 2021, the Arduino forum was revamped and it’s now based on Discourse.

For plenty of people, this required a big adjustment. Being used to the way the old forum worked, many of us have been looking for answers how to do things in the new forum.

This thread is about tips and tricks that we figured out and hopefully will be useful for people. Post anything that you think can be useful for others.

There are no requirements for layout although a subject title marked with heading level 2 is suggested; you can use ## subject title to achieve that.

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#2

Searching a forum thread

Tested with Firefox 87 on Win10

Due to the pagination of the threads, a search using e.g. Firefox’s search will only search the visible part of the thread. Below the way that you can search the full thread.

The reason why I placed this first is that you quickly can search a thread if something was already posted :wink:

Click on the forum search box in the right top; you can do the search first or you can select the option Search this topic first. Below the result

02_searchCurrentThread.highlight

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Reply mechanism
#3

Inserting an image

Tested with Firefox 87 on Win10

There are several ways to insert an image and Robin’s old post is now obsolete.

Before starting, make sure that the images that you upload are not too big; there are still people in this world that don’t have fast internet or unlimited bandwidth; 200 kB or so sounds acceptable in my opinion.

  1. You can simply drag and drop and image file from your PC into the editor window of the forum. The result in the editor window looks like
    ![FB_IMG_1598934423922|500x500](upload://BjYTRJZBJjqz7DVs4BHtRJ7KK7)

  2. You can also click the upload button image in the toolbar in the editor window of the forum and follow the instructions; the result will be the same as the above.

  3. A neat feature of the new forum is that you can dump a screenshot of (a part of) your screen in the editor window; please take size into account ! In Windows, I use the snipping tool and the image of the upload button under (2) was placed that way by selecting the button in the snipping tool, copy it using < ctrl >C and next paste it in the editor window < ctrl >V.

The below image often reflects my state of mind :smiley:

FB_IMG_1598934423922

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Linking a png file to a post
#4

Like this? image

#5

Discourse apparently permits you to download all of the content you’ve posted, and saves it as a .csv (spreadsheet) file.
That’s very good; I’d been occasionally saving my content the hard way for some time, and this is much better. I think.
(Let’s not have all the long-time participants do this at once! That would probably be bad.)
(I don’t know if it’s possible to have this accept a date range instead of “all content.” That would be better.)

What are the alternatives for human-friendly readers/translators for this .csv file? My Google-foo is failing me “discourse offline reader” doesn’t seem to be correct. And I’d sort-of expect that there would be “many” alternatives for converting the .csv to other formats (PDF, HTML, assorted mail readers…)

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#6

The “SHIFT ?” is worth noting.

Along with vastly improved “@name” including “moderator” options and a few more semi secret ones.

#7

I wonder, might that be a way to edit pre-apocalypse threads and clean
up the formatting? I’m thinking: download, edit for markdown environment, post in new thread then delete original thread (possibly with mod. assistance).

#8

It probably will take longer that way than waiting for the script that currently seems to be running and is fixing images and codes and possibly some more.

#9

:crossed_fingers:t2:

#10

Advanced search tricks

  • Search for your muted topics, https://forum.arduino.cc/latest/?state=muted
  • Search for all deleted topics (only for staff users), https://forum.arduino.cc/latest/?status=deleted
  • Search for file type, enter filetype:pdf to search for .pdf files, search for multiple file extensions with filetype:pdf,csv,png etc
  • Search quickly by sorting the topics from the most recent to the oldest, enter your query and then type l (for latest), for example tips and tricks l
  • There are other more common parameters that can be chosen in the advanced search page (the ones above are not there)
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#11

I like the markdown compatibility. I’m already familiar with Typora as I use it for documentation on GitHub. Now, it looks like I could use that as a full screen editor for here if needed, especially if there’s some info that’s best presented in a table format (their table creation and editing is super easy). I did some quick cuts and pastes and the previews looked good … even tables with embedded links or images. Here’s a test of a table from here …

Bill of Materials

Item Qty Reference Part Number Description
1 1 — PCB design OSHPARK PCB shared design
2 1 — A000005 Arduino Nano
3 3 D1, D2, D3 SDM03MT40-7-F DIODE ARRAY SCHOTTKY 40V SOT26
4 1 D4 MM3Z12VST1G DIODE ZENER 12V 300MW SOD323
5 1 LED1 150080BS75000 LED BLUE CLEAR 0805 SMD
6 1 R4 RC0805JR-0710KL RES SMD 10K OHM 5% 1/8W 0805
7 2 R2, R3 RC0805JR-071K2L RES SMD 1.2K OHM 5% 1/8W 0805
8 1 R1 RC0805JR-07100RL RES SMD 100 OHM 5% 1/8W 0805
9 4 C1, C2, C3, C4 CL21B104KBFNNNG CAP CER 0.1UF 50V X7R 0805
10 1 C5 CL21A475KAQNNNE CAP CER 4.7UF 25V X5R 0805
11 1 Q1 NX3020NAK,215 MOSFET NX3020NAK/TO-236AB
12 1 J1 (UPDI) — Pin strip male header, 2.54mm, 3-position, BLUE
13 1 J2 (MODE) — Pin strip male header, 2.54mm, 3-position, RED
14 1 J3 (Write Protect) — Pin strip male header, 2.54mm, 2-position, YELLOW
15 2 — — Female socket header, 2.54mm, 15-position

I don’t mind the new forum … I really appreciate the speed improvement (except that it makes my own typing capabilities seem even slower).

#12

Hey, that’s a great tip for editing the readme.md on GitHub, thanks :sunglasses:
You just have to be careful not to send it by mistake :wink:

#13

Go to a specific post number (in win10).

<shift> # brings up this box.

image

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#14

Plain # gets that dialogue for me in Win 10

1 Like
#15

See more keyboard shortcuts by typing ?

#16

For me, that’s < shift > /
:rofl:

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#17

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