Hide the Topic template placeholder text

Hey folks,

I have several topics on my fourm and I’m using the Template section on the Edit Category feature to provide more context and helpful pointers etc.

Much the same as you have here for this one.

What I’m finding, far too often, are users posting new topics with the whole template text included, instead of removing it before adding their content. I can add another line to say “Delete this block before posting” but I honestly think that they would post that too :grimacing:

Is there a method, process, plugin that can provide me with the same section to add a Template but then disappears, as the user starts to type? To prevent seeing my own template all the time :joy:


This was the closest topic that I found which related to my issue but I wasn’t sure what/where the solved response was referring too.

You can use the custom wizard plugin made by Pabilion

Without digging deeping into that plugin, would that offer that same “disappearing template placeholder” feature?

Have you used this before?

Maybe having the template text as a html comment works for you.

Something like this

Invisible:

In code tags:
<!-- Text of topic template -->

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Hello and welcome @Danny_Dainton :slight_smile:

We add the ‘Before asking…’ snippet to our blocked Watched Words to encourage people to remove it before posting, which can work if it’s something small. We also use the <!-- Comment --> style ones Moin suggests in our plugin topics too, which has worked pretty well.

We also have a new ‘Topic Templates V2’ coming out soon, which may be able to help with this as well. It allows ‘form templates’ to be created, that also validate data before allowing a topic to be created. This may cut down the need on providing ‘text as structure’ from the outset.

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Thank you so much for the welcome and the information!! :heart:

I’ll give @Moin’s suggestion a go, it sounds like the kind of thing I was looking for but I’m very interested in the V2 feature - sounds awesome! :trophy:

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