Daily Summary (5am UTC)

News and Events Forum summaries
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Today on meta.discourse.org…

Key Stats

  • New posts (last 24h): 62
  • New topics (last 24h): 13

Top contributors (posts / likes in the last 24h)

“No one will ever be beholden to us.” — HAWK on data portability while discussing the hosted Free plan’s evolving boundaries (read more)

Interesting Topics

#Announcements

  • A new “simple mode” for Doc Categories (reading-first docs, replies behind a toggle). saquetim announced a documentation-focused experience for the Doc Categories plugin, including auto-expanding when linking directly to a reply and an “Updated” style topic list for doc categories (read more). Related background: the Doc Categories plugin overview lives here (read more).

  • Reply count placement updated when using Reactions. davidb shared an opt-in “upcoming change” that moves the reply count to the right to keep reactions alignment consistent in-post for sites running reactions (read more).

  • “Me too” + Solved interactions: requests for category-level configurability. In the ongoing discussion about Solved improvements, Noble_Fish argued that combining Topic Voting + Solved + “Me too” can be confusing in mixed-use categories, and asked for more granular controls (read more).

  • Events + Calendar UX wishlist: unify upcoming events and topic list in one view. In the Events and Calendar plugin announcement thread, nathank proposed a more obvious combined “upcoming events + topics” category view (especially for right-sidebar blocks and “what’s next” scanning) (read more).

blog

  • Discourse positioning: “Will never block you from the web.” A new blog post sparked discussion (and a small meta-question about attribution/author display), with NateDhaliwal asking if the author should be changed to ducks (read more).

ux

  • Search UI consistency: casing and punctuation in dropdown labels. Richie asked for consistent casing across dropdown options on expanded search (/search?expanded=true) and suggested removing the trailing ellipsis from “Only return topics/posts…” (read more). NateDhaliwal pointed out the “Where topics are…” phrasing may be intentionally sentence-like, but agreed standardization is still valuable (read more).

  • Staff auditing gap: undeleting a post doesn’t create a log entry. RGJ reported that deleting and restoring topics are logged, but restoring posts isn’t—making it hard to see who restored content without digging into system logs (read more).

bug

  • Horizon theme header breaks on mid-size (640–767px) viewports (foldables/small tablets). nathank reported missing header elements (search/avatar) at certain widths on horizon-theme, and Lilly shared a CSS workaround plus notes about a setting that can influence the behavior (read more).

  • Emoji autocomplete fails with special characters (e.g. “ü”), worse in Chat. Moin shared repro videos showing that selecting an emoji from “more” doesn’t properly replace typed text when special characters are involved—and Chat throws a console error and can fail selection entirely (read more). Related footnote: Moin noticed a tagging + grace-period edge case again while testing this, in an older bug thread about revisions (read more).

  • Tag Icons component inconsistencies (underscore vs dash slug behavior). AquaL1te reported missing tag icons in topics/tag pages despite working in the sidebar; Lilly suspected tag slug normalization (underscores becoming dashes) tied to an upstream change in the component and suggested adjusting slugs in the theme settings accordingly (read more).

  • Chat UX bug: Back button forgets “Starred” context. Shauny described an everyday annoyance: even when navigating within Starred chats, “Back” returns users to Channels/DMs instead of Starred—adding friction that undermines the feature’s purpose (read more). Related feature reference: starring channels was introduced here (read more).

  • Meta testing page shows a 404 at the bottom (nested replies test). In a bug report about a recurring 404 on a Meta testing route, markvanlan said they couldn’t reproduce at the moment but would keep an eye out (read more).

Support

  • Hosted pricing + Free plan boundaries: what changed, and what’s “essential email”? Alex_Dehnert flagged confusing shifts in the pricing page emphasis and noted “email in” became locked after working; HAWK clarified the Free plan is a recent soft launch, that “email in” was disabled after an oversight, and reiterated export/self-host as the escape hatch if plans change (read more). Extra context referenced in-thread: Free plan beta discussion (read more) and “No starter upgrade option” history (read more).

  • Theme component upload error: about.json invalid/missing (zip structure issues). baseline-mobile hit an import error installing a theme component zip; Moin suggested the zip’s folder structure (often impacted by OS zip behavior) may place about.json one directory too deep, and provided a repacked zip that installed successfully (read more).

  • Postgres 18 backups failing: how to align client tools and work around version mismatches. In a support thread, ted highlighted uncertainty about Discourse’s Postgres client upgrade policy and pointed to prior similar discussions; pfaffman suggested installing matching client packages and then codifying the steps in app.yml (read more). Related older reference: Postgres client upgrade discussions (read more).

  • Accessibility question: themes/components that work best with screen readers. happyhappy asked whether any themes or theme components are known to be especially navigable for visually impaired users, given most base accessibility work is now in core (read more).

wordpress

  • WP Discourse + WooCommerce identity mapping: username sync not required. angus explained that DiscourseConnect matches accounts using external_id (WordPress user id), so WordPress and Discourse usernames don’t need to stay aligned—reducing risk if Discourse users rename themselves (read more).

  • WordPress embed SEO edge case: missing topic_embed records break canonical/noindex behavior. In a thread about embedded topics missing x-robots noindex and canonical tags, angus noted the canonical-for-embeds feature requires a topic_embed record, and discussion continued around making “apply noindex to all topics in category” a more direct setting (read more).

General

  • A native Discourse client app for iOS + Android (show-and-tell). nicolsdennis demoed a native client and noted current plugin support is limited to official plugins (calendar integration is in progress) (read more). Related mention: they also posted an update in an older “turn a forum into an app” thread, saying they’re replying using the client (read more).

development

  • Notification consolidation: UI-only grouping or database/API-level row reuse? nitinkg reported that reply/reaction notifications appear consolidated even with small counts, and asked whether Discourse updates existing notification rows (instead of append-only inserts) and whether consolidation can be disabled for a “one action = one record” model (read more). Related (Chat adjacency): read/delivered semantics for DMs are being debated separately (read more).

#Plugin / #Theme_component / #Self-Hosting (quick hits worth a peek)

  • Plugin rename: “Discourse Workflow” rebranded to “Process Manager.” merefield announced a rename due to an upcoming naming conflict with core; tables/indexes were renamed and settings weren’t migrated, so admins should recheck plugin settings and any Data Explorer queries (read more).

  • Theme component compatibility: Featured Topics vs pavilion dropdown header. TestingRico reported a collision where the pavilion dropdown header disappears in preview when testing Featured Topics, and asked about workarounds (read more). Related pavilion ecosystem thread: Topic Ratings plugin discussions continue (read more).

  • Cloudflare R2 now working as S3-compatible storage (doc needs an update). In the long-running S3-compatible uploads/how-to topic, Lilly reported successful external backups and restores using Cloudflare R2, noting prior incompatibility text is outdated and should be revised (read more).

Activity by the @team Group

  • saquetim published an announcement introducing simple mode for Doc Categories, emphasizing a reading-first layout with replies behind a toggle and auto-expansion when linking directly to replies (read more).

  • davidb announced an opt-in layout change for sites using the Reactions plugin: the reply count moves to the right to keep alignment consistent throughout posts (read more).

  • markvanlan followed up on a reported 404 at the bottom of a Meta testing page, noting they couldn’t reproduce currently but would keep watch in case it’s intermittent (read more).

  • HAWK clarified what’s happening with the hosted Free plan (still in soft launch), explaining why “email in” was reverted/disabled, and reaffirming that communities can always export and self-host if priorities change (read more).

That’s a wrap: may your folding-phone headers stay aligned, your tag icons survive every slug rewrite, and your emoji picker learn to love “ü” by tomorrow.

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