Standard Answer "button"

Many, many, many times a standard response is

"Post your code in code tags, post your schematic, and a image of your project".

I was wondering if there could be a button, that just replies with the standard answer?

The reply could include links to hints or clues. A link with images of what is a code tag, where it the code tag insert button located and what does it look like, what is a schematic, why put a schematic, why include a image, and so on and so forth.

3 Likes

I am not sure whether it is available to standard users but mods have access to a list of canned replies from the icons in the heading of the text box in which replies are created. It is part of the tools menu available by clicking the cog icon on the far right
image

From that gear a member rank can hide spoilers
and make poles

  • Add canned response for member and regular users
  • Don't add them

0 voters

The Discourse "Canned Replies" feature is configured to only be available to "staff" users. I don't use the forum's "canned replies" feature because the replies are not up to my standards, but I have an extensive collection of my own replies to the things that come up over and over again here.

When used responsibly, this can improve the efficiency of the helpers and also allow them to refine their replies far more than would be worth doing for a one-off. However, when used irresponsibly, they can have a harmful effect on the forum. Such replies are a substitute for typing, but they can never be a substitute for thinking. You still must study the posts just as carefully as ever. This is a place for humans helping humans. For this reason, I do not support enabling the "canned replies" for all forum users. But of course everyone is welcome to implement their own version of the "canned replies" if they like.

Another problem is that the sheer number of canned replies would, I suspect, soon get out of hand making them unusable

Separately from canned comments I have my own set of stock replies held in Evernote that I use a lot

I really need to look into a better software solution for my collection. I was originally using this program called "The Guide", which I was reasonably satisfied with at that time. Unfortunately, The Guide became unmaintained and it was never cross-platform, which is becoming increasingly important to me. After carefully evaluating the available options, I switched to the recommended replacement, CherryTree. But I have never been happy with CherryTree.

Would a python solution that looks like the guide work?

@pert
Does TL 3 or 4 allow use of the canned replies?

If you don't think the canned replies are good enough I'm sure we'd be happy to see better ones :wink:

Here are the settings:
Clipboard01
Here is what the folks at Discourse call "documentation":
https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-canned-replies/48296

LOL

I don't care what language it's written in.

One of the biggest pain points for me with The Guide and CherryTree is their horrible text editors. For this reason, I'm actually thinking of just using VS Code, with each "node" a folder containing a Markdown file, and the "tree" the structure of those folders in the file system. That is not ideal, since the sorting of nodes at a given level can't be controlled cleanly, but I probable would be better off in the end to have the "nodes" automatically sorted in lexicographical order anyway. This would also have a beneficial effect on version control of the content. Some of the options I evaluated used a somewhat similar system of one file per node, so it would be interesting to take another look to see what they did.

Why does there have to be a sheer number?

How many times per day is it applicable to write "Please post your formatted code in code tags, a schematic and photo of your project"?

I'm not asking for each member to have their own set of canned responses. Heck, the forum gives me a message about so and so is making their first post be kind and so forth and so on.

The site can detect "setup()" or "loop()" and go oh no code tags remind the poster to use code tags.

A lot of posts start off with responses about formatting the post, use code tags, schematics. 5 to 10 message go by before any real info gets exchanged or the whole post devolves into an endless loop of how to get the OP to properly do the thing.

I am sure the site DB can be queried for the words "code tags" just to see how many times blah blah blah.

2 Likes

Started working on a program for it already. In Python for portability. Let me know what you want and I'll try to get it all in.

Human nature if users are allowed to create their own in a common pool of canned replies

I strongly suspect that the forum software is not currently capable of this and it will not be customised to do it

Yea, it is a small trivial thing and not worth even the time and effort to bring it up, much less discuss it. Sorry for bothering you.

Why the sarcasm ?

It is my understanding that the previous forum software was customised so much that it became impossible to apply updates to it to fix problems.

By customised, I mean changes to the code, not just turning available features on and off so I am sure that the Arduino team will be wary of making the same mistake again

Frankly, if all you have to say can be contained in a "standard answer", you probably shouldn't both answering at all.

I'm not sure making it easier for "many" people to post standard replies would be a good thing - we already have a significant number of new users complaining about floods of "unhelpful & bullying" replies, even when their posts were sorely lacking. But we surely don't need such posts to end up with "many" copies of the same standard response...

1 Like

And yet...
How do you deal with the same basic problem over and over again, which is requests for help without the necessary information to provide the requested help? There's only so many ways to say 'please provide a schematic, code and a proper description of the problem'. The information is there if you spend a few minutes looking for it but too many don't.

If the responses are identical shouldn't the spam filter catch that?

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