Categories are the basic way to organize posts. In this initial setup of Discourse, we created a limited the number of categories to keep the home page simple. As we get acclimated, we expect to create additional categories that will provide a structure for organizing the site’s content.
(this is a bit long - you can use the Table of Contents on the right to move around)
Creating a topic in a specific category
Selecting where to post a topic, as you’ve seen, is the choice of the person creating the initial post. When you’re on line and click the New Topic button, you fill in the topic title and below that you select the category. When using email, to keep things simple, we asked everyone who creates a topic to use the email address for submitting topics to the General category.
Topic threads are easily rearranged and even if one is moved, all replies will find their way to the thread. On the flip side, it’s better to not move topics around so they stay where people expect to find them.
As we are still in the keep it simple phase, you can continue to create topics via email in the General category.
Or, you can use these addresses -
General nonsuch+general@discoursemail.com
Questions and Answers nonsuch+q-a@discoursemail.com
Upgrades and Great Ideas nonsuch+upgrades@discoursemail.com
Site Feedback nonsuch+feedback@discoursemail.com
Viewing Just One Category
Method 1 - The Categories column on the left
The CATEGORIES choice in the left hand column is a drop down list that gives you a shortcut way to select postings from just one category. You can manage the Categories that you want to appear in this dropdown list. If you hover over the word CATEGORIES, a pencil (edit icon) will appear.
If you click on the pencil, a selection box will open that lets you pick the categories that you want to have in the left hand column list.
You can check or uncheck the ones you want to see. And, of course, Save Changes.
- N.B. - If we add a category, it fill not automatically appear in your dropdown list. You will have to open this box and select it.*
Method 2 - The Categories choices over the topics list.
Among the choices across the top of the topics list - the left one is a Categories drop down list. This lets you select the view topics from one category. The right hand Categories choice selects an entirely different layout with Categories and their descriptions down the left, and the familiar list of Latest topics down the right. Here again, you can select one category and see topics from just that category.
NOTE - When viewing a single category, you have the option to control the level of notification that you will receive when there are postings in that category by using the Bell icon (over on the right, under your profile picture). Click on the Bell and the choices are explained. One use is - if you choose “Mute” the topics will not appear in the “Latest” view, and you will not receive postings from that category in emails in Mailing List mode. You can still see postings in the category by selecting it using method 2
Filtering/Restricting a Search by Category (a quick overview)
The other thing about organizing topics into categories is that you can focus a search by restricting it to a specific category or group of categories. You can use the full category name or we have set up some abbreviations (called category “slugs”) to make it easier:
For -
General use gen
How To Use Discourse use howto
Questions & Answers use q-a
Upgrades and Great Ideas use upgrades
So to do a search, you could use:
category:general reefing or category:gen reefing
Even simpler, use the # as a substitute for the word category like:
# gen: topping
# wiki: gelcoat
(there should be no space after the “#”, but as soon as I tried that, it came out looking like
General topping)
(there will be another How To covering other basic search techniques)
And don’t forget - there is a Site Feedback category if you have any comments or suggestions.
