Is there a way of customizing the Slack transcript template to remove the formatting as quote?

Anna_Geller · March 28, 2022, 11:15am

When creating a transcript from Slack to Discourse using the (amazing!) plugin, by default the conversation gets created as a “quote”:

I like the look & feel of the transcript much more when it’s without the quote:

So I keep removing the quote manually and wonder, is there a way of changing this default transcript template to remove those?

[quote]
...
[/quote]

Thanks in advance!

simon · March 29, 2022, 9:56pm

I was hoping that a customizable text template was used for creating the transcript. If the transcript was created that way, it might be possible to customize the template from the Admin / Customize / Text page. Unfortunately, the use of the quote is hard coded into the plugin here:

github.com

discourse/discourse-chat-integration/blob/main/lib/discourse_chat_integration/provider/slack/slack_transcript.rb#L84

      
        
            end
            
            
# These two methods convert potentially negative array indices into positive ones
            def first_message_number
              @first_message_index < 0 ? @messages.length + @first_message_index : @first_message_index
            end
            def last_message_number
              @last_message_index < 0 ? @messages.length + @last_message_index : @last_message_index
            end
            
            
def build_transcript
              post_content = +"[quote]\n"
              post_content << "[**#{I18n.t('chat_integration.provider.slack.transcript.view_on_slack', name: @channel_name)}**](#{first_message.url})\n"
            
            
  all_avatars = {}
            
            
  last_username = ''
            
            
  transcript_messages = @messages[@first_message_index..@last_message_index]
            
            
  transcript_messages.each do |m|

Looking at the code, it seems that it could be difficult to use a customizable template for this. I think for now you will have to manually edit the transcripts to remove the quote.

I agree that the example you have posted with the removed quote looks better. I’ll ping @david here to see if he has any ideas about this.

david · March 29, 2022, 10:06pm

Yeah agreed, I don’t think a translatable template would work too well. But we could add a site setting for quotes/no-quotes.

Personally I prefer the separation that quotes provide. It keeps the “fast lane” and “slow lane” separated, and is also a closer match to the quoting behaviour we have for Discourse Chat.

Anna_Geller · March 29, 2022, 10:28pm

this would be fantastic.

I totally respect that, but there are many features that really seem to work better without quotes. Let me try to persuade you @david. For example, embedding Github gists or other Discourse topics don’t work in quotes, but if you remove the quote blocks, they get added nicely. Here is proof:

Embedding other Discourse topics for reference doesn’t work well in quotes

Same without quotes:

Code blocks are less visible because everything is greyed out with no contrast:

Here the same without quotes (added image that I manually copy-pasted from Slack):

Embedding code blocks from Github gives much better preview without quotes

With quotes:

Without quote block:

github.com

PrefectHQ/ui/blob/master/src/graphql/Calendar/calendar-flow-groups.gql

query flowGroups {
    flow_group {
        id
        name
        flows (where: {archived: {_eq: false}}) {
            name
            id
            version
        }
    }
}

david · April 4, 2022, 1:11pm

I’ve added a new site setting which can toggle this behaviour: FEATURE: Allow `[quote]` to be disabled for slack transcripts (#120) · discourse/discourse-chat-integration@cd6e4a8 · GitHub

That should be available on your site now @Anna_Geller. Let us know if there are any issues!

Anna_Geller · April 4, 2022, 2:03pm

Works like a charm! Thank you so much for implementing this so quickly, this will save us so much time!

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Is there a way of customizing the Slack transcript template to remove the formatting as quote?

Embedding other Discourse topics for reference doesn’t work well in quotes

Code blocks are less visible because everything is greyed out with no contrast:

Embedding code blocks from Github gives much better preview without quotes

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