Create a link to start a new topic with pre-filled information

Discourse now supports composing a new (pre-filled) topic via URL! To compose a new pre-filled topic, modify URL params like this:

https://discourse.example.com/new-topic?title=topic%20title&body=topic%20body&category=category/subcategory&tags=email,planned

This will open composer window pre filled with topic title, body, category and tags.

Breaking down the link / URL to show the available options, we have:

  • the base URL / link: https://discourse.example.com/new-topic
  • the ? URL operator to add the different options
  • the topic title: title=topic%20title
  • the & URL operator to include multiple options
  • the body of the topic: body=topic%20body
  • the & URL operator again to include multiple options
  • the category and subcategory separated by a slash / if you want to include them: category=category/subcategory
  • the & URL operator again to include multiple options
  • and the tags separated by comma(s) , if you want to include multiple tags: tags=email,planned

Try it out live, here on meta! :smile:

https://meta.discourse.org/new-topic?title=topic%20title&body=topic%20body&category=support/wordpress&tags=wordpress

Also, instead of providing category/subcategory name, you can also specify a numeric category_id, like:

https://meta.discourse.org/new-topic?title=topic%20title&body=topic%20body&category_id=3&tags=wordpress

This feature also supports “Start a topic by pasting a link (like Reddit)”, provided that the body is not present.
:information_source: The URL must be URL encoded for the link to work.
For example, to create a topic with the following URL https://www.xkcd.com/556, the link will be:

https://meta.discourse.org/new-topic?title=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.xkcd.com%2F556

In general, if you have a lot of text to add, you can use w3Schools’s HTML URL Encoding Reference to find what text characters are encoded as in the URL, there is a text to URL converter in the Try It Yourself section in the page linked above in this paragraph.


Want to create / compose a new pre-filled personal message instead? See: Create a link to start a new personal message with pre-filled information

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