I’m just getting started with Discourse and am looking for a comprehensive guide on how to configure/setup and administer our instance. There are some rather confusing/odd items that I’m not finding information about. Specifically, with the "Calendar and Events” plugin, the instructions are to add a calendar by making a post with codes in it. First of all, this does not seem to work, and, second, I have yet to find general information about how/why to use codes in posts. Beyond those specifics, I’m looking to understand the components, features, functions, and overall structure of Discourse, basically all of the stuff a Discourse admin needs to be aware of and deal with. Is there such a guide? Where can I find it? Is there a guide for troubleshooting process for issues like the Calendar and Events plugin instructions not working? Thanks!
Newbie question: Is there a comprehensive guide to configuring and administering Discourse instance?
Checkout the Documentation & Community wiki categories
As for cleaning what issues or problems are you having?
It’s often helpful to visit https://ask.discourse.com/ with your questions.
“cleaning”? I’m not sure what you mean. The problem I’m having with the Calendar plugin is that I configured the plugin with the category ID and entered the codes in a category post, as instructed, but the calendar does not appear… just the codes. I’m not sure exactly how the codes work but I presume they are interpreted by the app and not displayed, which is not happening. So, I’m looking for more details and general information about codes and how they work.
Thanks! I wasn’t aware of that resources, but… it doesn’t seem to know anything about “codes” such as those used to display a calendar, as stated in step 2 of these instructions:
Does this only work for topics, not entire categories? 
Yeah, the Categories calendars are a whole different thing, and it is governed by a site setting where you pop in the Category.
Somewhat confusingly there is also a site-wide upcoming events calendar.