Ability to modify or add a Featured Link (URL) to Topics after posting

[nathank (Nathan Kershaw)]

The long standing but little known (by regular users) Featured Link functionality is very helpful. It would be more helpful (and visible) if there was the ability to edit or add a link.

Current functionality

When creating a new topic:

When you paste a URL directly into the Title field (as your first action in that field), the Title of the site is pulled through and you get a nice little link at the end of the title:

In addition the link is copied into the body of the post so it (hopefully) Oneboxes like this:

URL

Deleting:

Once the link has been set, it can be removed by someone with edit privileges:

Limitations

1. You cannot edit or change the link

2. You cannot add a link subsequently

There is a workaround for both of these which involves diving into the Rails Console:

Set or update a featured topic link via the rails console

You can set or update a featured link on a topic by using the rails console. From your server, enter the rails console from your Discourse folder: ./launcher enter app rails c You can then use the @nathank’s form to generate your command: Topic.where(id: =topic_id=).update(featured_link: "=featured_link=") Copy-paste the generated command inside your rails console and press Enter. It will set or update the featured link accordingly. Example of the raw syntax for …

Feature Request

Could we please have a way in the UI to edit these featured links and add them later?

[drreen]

Has anyone been able to find a workaround for this?

[Jagster (Jakke Lehtonen)]

Starting new topic using new link, moving posts from old to new and deleting that old one. And there is loss of some meta data and OP has newer datum than posts.

Little bit too much manual work for such low level functionality that has only one purpose: being direct link to original source that will be offered in topic too.

[nathank (Nathan Kershaw)]

Did you see this?

@nathank

There is a workaround for both of these which involves diving into the Rails Console:
Set or update a featured topic link via the rails console

[drreen]

I am using Managed Hosting, so I don’t have access to console. But I found another workaround by editing first post and deleting all post content, but can’t find the exact link to the steps. There was a topic walking through those steps.