We’ve made it easier to create support / question-and-answer type categories on Discourse! This update leverages our existing Discourse Solved plugin, but simplifies the setup process and establishes new defaults for this category type to best serve this use case.
Note: On our hosting, Discourse Solved is not available on the Free or Starter tiers.
In this topic, we’ll review the major changes and share how you can start using this today.
What’s changed
When creating a new category, you’ll now see two types:
When you select the Support category type, we’ll set up everything you need for this category type. Most importantly, this means we’ll automatically enable Allow topic owner and staff to mark a reply as the solution which lets members mark a response to their topic as a solution (see our Support category here on Meta for an example of how this looks).
- On the General tab, the Category name and Style are automatically configured
- On the Support tab, the most useful settings for this type of category are preset:
- Auto close solved topics is set to
2 days - Notify topic creator when staff marks a solution is enabled
- Display an empty checkbox next to unsolved topics in the topic list is enabled
- Show filter by solved status is enabled
- Auto close solved topics is set to
All these settings can be customized to meet your exact specifications. These defaults are based on how we use this type of category in our own community and how we’ve seen it be most successful in other Discourse communities.
Turning on support type category setup in your community
For now, this is considered an experimental change! We’re welcoming your feedback, which will help us make improvements and roll this out further.
To turn this on, head to the Upcoming changes page in your admin area (/admin/config/upcoming-changes) and find the Enable support category type setup item. Update the Enabled for… field to opt your site in to this new design:
What do you think?
Over to you: we’d love to hear what you think of this new feature. What do you like and dislike; what is working well, and what could be improved?