How to create a custom button?

[AntiMetaman]

Hi,

I’m new to Discourse. I’ve installed it already and am playing around with it. There is one feature I’d really like and maybe this is already possible which is why I’d like to ask.

I want to create a category in my forum which is similar to an image gallery. If the user makes a post in this category, it would appear like a grid with an image thumbnail, and a caption with things like user views, ratings (thumbs up) and date posted.

Note that only this specific category should be shown as grid layout, not other categories.

Furthermore, I want to create my own button that allows a user to upload a specific file. Upon uploading the file, a custom code would convert that file into an image. It’s similar to bbcode. Where is the documentation to create custom buttons with a code?

I’m referring to those buttons btw.

[osioke (Osioke Itseuwa)]

@AntiMetaman

I want to create a category in my forum which is similar to an image gallery. If the user makes a post in this category, it would appear like a grid with an image thumbnail, and a caption with things like user views, ratings (thumbs up) and date posted.

Note that only this specific category should be shown as grid layout, not other categories.

Check out these theme-components:

User Portfolio Theme Component

https://github.com/discourse/discourse-user-portfolio This theme component adds a new “Portfolio” tab to the user profile. It can be configured to show the user’s topics from a specific category and/or tag. It also works great alongside the Topic List Thumbnails Theme Component [localhost_3000_u_david_activity_portfolio (2)] A portfolio button can optionally be added to user cards: [Screenshot 2020-07-03 at 10.02.07]

Featured Tiles Theme Component

A theme component which adds a row of featured tiles above topic lists: [Screenshot 2020-07-03 at 09.44.37] On hover, the topic title and author will be shown: [Screenshot 2020-07-03 at 09.43.52] There are lots of options available for selecting the topic source. Images can be fetched by tag, by category or by using a ‘top topics’ time period. Images can be scoped to the currently viewed category, or come from the entire site. A setting is added to the user interface preferences which all…

Topic List Thumbnails Theme Component

This theme component allows you to show topic thumbnails in topic list views. Optimized images are generated for the lists, and different resolutions are made available for high-dpi displays. Images are lazy-loaded as you scroll (where native browser support is available). By default Discourse will use the first image in the OP of the topic. If you would like to select a different image from the OP, add |thumbnail to the markdown. For example  ![alttext|100x100…

@AntiMetaman

I’m referring to those buttons btw.

If you want to add a button there, you can reverse engineering other plugins that have successfully done that, like say the Formatting toolbar plugin.

Not sure of the use case of your feature, but that’s why Discourse is free and open, so you can customize it the way you want!

[AntiMetaman]

Thanks for the reply! I see that the formatting toolbar conflicts with the official bbcode plugin. I’ll have to uninstall the bbcode then to use this one. I’m still looking for some documentation on how to create plugins that allow one to modify the toolbar or to create custom buttons.

Also, yes, the Topic List Thumbnails Component does exactly what I was looking for. I had installed that earlier but it didn’t work for me since I was on stable.

[Steven]

You can keep the official bbcode plugin and use this theme component, it’s more or less the same

MD Composer extras

This theme component adds few formatting options in the composer : underline, align center, align right, justify and strikethrough. You can customize the text of each button in the settings, making it compatible with every languages. Exist in rtl version (change align right to align left).

[AntiMetaman]

Thanks, I’ll look at that code to see if I can make my own custom button.

[AntiMetaman]

Just an update on this, it seems that the easiest way to create one’s own custom bbcode is to reverse engineer this plugin: Awesome BBCodes Plugin: multi-paragraph, nestable, with auto-complete rather than the official bbcode plugin according to this thread: Best Course of Action on Supporting Custom BBCode?

If there’s a newer or easier way now to create custom bbcode, please let me know. Thanks.