Hi Long ago I was a techie but not these days. I’ve said elsewhere I’m interested in the design of digital community. Sociology built with technology I don’t know what the architecture of discourse is but I’m aware it has themes and plugins. If there are other bits I’m ignorant of those Help Pls :slight_smile: I’ve tried searching on the pair in various ways but I don’t get anything returned that suggests “here is the 101 on what/ why to. EG: there is a presentation layer, a storage layer and a selection process between the two that uses This information to establish context to select from one into the other. Out of the box you get x y and z. a plug-in is a… any in directory will be loaded at initiation of the server process (or whatever) they hook into UI/ back end/ front end etc by…, the ones that exists are…, A theme affects the presentation layer(?) of the out the box plus plugins in the following ways…” Is there such a description that somebody couldn’t signpost for me to and will take me from 0 to sufficient comprehension to be able to find what’s currently in existence and have enough understanding to do some imaginative thinking because then I can use them as conceptual building blocks in the design of community for different purposes . I’m interested in…: whether discourse could be ‘hardened’ to meet #medical_grade standards - no I don’t know what they are in any particular jurisdiction yet, but I know there will be necessary for the purposes of interest and different across geographies. I’m interested in interfacing to instrumented rehab tools and coding for anonymized data extraction (#gdpr compliant) of progress and efficacy metrics has improvement data for research. I’m interested in how the best of the best posts can rise to the top like cream so that new users aren’t faced with a discourse UX that is alien in a subject that they have newly discovered an acute need for at a time of disorientation with a body of information in front of them that runs to thousands of posts and threads with only a hierarchical structure that is academic and not visceral for them… Hierarchical structures generally are better trawled for topics of potential interest if one can take a breath first search pattern but generally only support depth first search patterns - discord appears to be a case in point - where the presumption is one already knows the subject - that might be slightly ameliorated by hashtags which is another topic on my reading backlog Maybe some of the AI bot stuff bridges are gap? Another backlog item… :slight_smile: I’m also going through some videos via the blog with @jonobacon and maybe able to ask more intelligent questions when I finished them In order to think creatively within the context of discourse I need more understanding of what components and what interfaces exist Can you help signpost to me :slight_smile: Thanks in anticipation

Having a browse of the existing plugins, themes, and theme components may give you a sense of what’s possible customisation-wise: Plugin A directory of Discourse plugins, both official and third-party. Theme Themes are expansive customizations that change multiple elements of the style of your forum design, and often also include additional front-end features. Theme component Theme components can be used to add front end features or change elements of your forum design.

:wave: Hi @51mon - if you’re interested in Discourse forum development the info here may be of interest to you. :slight_smile:

Thanks :slight_smile: I think you just gave me a dictionary when I hoped for guidance about how to read ! - have you a gentler introduction on the topic of what these things are and how they work rather than what they do :-)? There is lots of stuff in your links but there’s nothing in overview that says what the architecture of discourse is - I’m less concerned with what capabilities are provided in the plugins etc at the moment - I’m still trying to work out what they actually are

Thank you I will have a look :slight_smile: I am a bit reticent since they are headed “developing…” and I’m not interested in writing code - I want to understand the architecture I’ll look because it’s not obvious at the moment whether the texts will meet my need (fingers crossed) I’ll let you know - unless of course you have some other suggestions :). ?

@51mon I assume you have studied these? [image] use cases - Discourse [image] Discourse features Discover features your community will love. [image] What is Discourse? Discourse is the 100% open source discussion platform built for the next decade of the Internet. [image] Discourse Demo Demonstration sandbox for Discourse

I hadn’t :slight_smile: Thnx ~~ "~~ [[Edits]] Yikes! Link number one takes me to the header for 15 threads Link two and three are sales pages but at least there only one page - there feature lists not architectural descriptions though. And yikes I’m not even sure what last link is except an invitation to login to try.discourse.org with has threads with more than 100 entries against plus one with more than 1,000 on its own - no map. Must be a bit like Cook felt when he spotted Australia and then spent days sailing along its coast Edit The features list The page names a long list of things. Some of the things are conceptual. When a name refers to a concept that isn’t described all it tells you is that there is a thing here but doesn’t convey any understanding or what the thing is - so I know from the features that there are a lot :slight_smile: but it don’t have a concept of what I can do from many of the named features. Good for establishing breadth, a good aid memoir for those who already know, but hard for somebody questing for understanding to gain understanding. Also I have no idea from this features list whether they’re plugins, themes, out of the box, unique to discourse or common in every platform I’m not saying that I should do for that page really at this stage I’m just making notes because I’ve got a continent to explore. What my OP was asking for was a picture of the earth as taken from the moon so far I haven’t even managed to climb to the top of HMS Endeavor’s mast :grin: Link number three “what is discourse” is a mix of sales pitch with other things. It doesn’t give architecture either - I’m not saying it should but since it doesn’t it isn’t what I I’m looking for. It also doesn’t quite ring true for me - for example it claims discourse got rid of complexity however the colour red that’s used in the UI changes based on the number of likes vs posts. That’s a very esoteric element of the UI. Also whether you click in the lists of unread posts on the title, the reply count or a third field I don’t know how to name you get taken to different places in a thread. These are all unintuitive, unannounced unsignaled variations in the UX that until you know that they exist in the UI will be confusing.

To be honest @51mon, I don’t think I understand your question. Could you ask it in simple terms, and I’ll try my best to give you an answer.

That’s a kind outreach @JammyDodger - and I will when I can but I can’t at the moment . I think my initial post said it clearly in my ears but clearly it doesn’t convey it clearly to your ears (eyes!) Let’s try this If we were both standing and looking at a car then we could have a discussion like “you can sit in it and it will take you to the supermarket or the beach”. Or alternatively we could have a conversation like “it’s got wheels and an engine that’s powered by petrol or a battery and a steering device and a breaking device”. The conversation about the brakes and indicators and whether the interior light comes on and goes off automatically is a developer conversation. The conversation about going to the beach and taking the kids to school in the morning and whether or not you can get wheelchair in the back or tow a caravan is a user oriented discussion that borders the technical. To tow a caravan you need a hitch installed because that isn’t out of the box. When you buy the car you got a choice of white or grey or black or maybe blue They’re one-time choices -maybe they’re admin topics in the context of discourse. Now one aspect amongst many I am interested in is could I power a community with discourse where the information that sits somewhere across admin and accumulation of contributors posts and the user IDs etc etc might need to comply with medical grade regulations for the protection of data CIA (confidentiality integrity and availability). But I can’t assess that question when I don’t know what the underlying architecture is . If this hasn’t made it any clearer you’ll have to wait till I’ve read all the resources that people have signed posted to me so that I can ask a question that is intelligible to those who can answer it because currently I can’t frame the question any better Thanks - :slight_smile: It’s a voyage of discovery and I’m content that it will take some time. When I’ve made the discoveries I need I’m quite likely to write them up and donate them back to the community here in the hope that they help others in the future

I’m afraid that has not made it a whole lot clearer. :slight_smile: Hopefully someone else can jump in and give you what you need. :crossed_fingers: Have you created a forum to have a play around in yet? That may help you explore your ideas and get a feel for what’s possible.

Hi @51mon. I suspect part of the problem is metaphors. Anything one types will often be understood to the Author. However others may have difficulty understanding. So… here goes: Discourse Meta is designed at the core to be a base community framework. It provides a basic foundation…That out the box kind of bland. With your age group and mine you might have been involved or aware of Dos Electronic BBSes. A fair number were derivatives of Telegard BBS aka Telegard Hacks. (drifting sideways…) Back on track. So you want to build a Discourse Meta forum for… This is you starting point.. Sit down an figure out an idea of what your community’s purpose and what you want to have it offer in terms if function & features. Then take 1 step back. To get a clearer idea of where you can go. Explore the list of communities already using Discourse. Atm don’t have a link off hand. Checking out existing communities will give you an idea of what can be accomplished…Abd how similiar some communities are to how very different they can be in scope and function. From here you can jot down features different communities have that you want in your community idea. You can decide if you want paid hosting that can make quality if life easier or go full control and self host for total control of powerful extensibility of choosing whatever plugins you want. But at a cost of maintaining the vps yourself. Either way you will need to research what you will need to have the functions and features available to design your community. So from here let’s perform a thought experiment. Provide a sample community idea. We can even use an existing community and ask us what #plugin (if needed), #theme and #theme-component would we need to accomplish what this community has?

Questions about the technical architecture of Discourse

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JammyDodger August 31, 2023, 10:37am 2

Having a browse of the existing plugins, themes, and theme components may give you a sense of what’s possible customisation-wise:

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Questions about the technical architecture of Discourse

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