Per-topic hints in Message Composer

Some topics may have rules or some other generic topic-related information, which people would like to reference and re-read time to time.

The proposition is to allow per-topic hints - a short text, preferably expandable to a popup with longer text, where admins/mods/topic owners would put e.g. explanatory things about the topic, rules, expected behavior, information formation recommendation etc.

Example mockup:

An relevant menu item can be added to e.g. a topic wrench. Once clicked, a dialog is shown with 3 fields:

  • Short message (with a {{more}} macro which will get replaced by a link to open a dialog with the long version of the text)
  • Long message
  • On/Off switcher (to be able to switch it off without deleting the texts)

This is plugin territory. And I think it’s already doable with existing hooks.

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This is already possible with new topic template text. The template text should explain what is required for each new topic and offer hints.

Topic template text is for topic authors and will only show when creating a topic - each new one in a given category.

The proposed feature is an entirely defferent thing:

  • works per topic
  • makes it possible to see the hint text while composing each new message or editing an existing one; as a result…
  • works for all topic participants
  • does not affect other topics in the same category
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I agree with this - we need post templates in topics. We need to structure replies to the main topic. At this point, templates are accessible only for first posts in topics.

How is it possible to do per every post in the topic?

It would be great if there were field in the category settings allowing to add a template for all replies in all topics within this category.

This doesn’t enforce template usage, but makes a template from the original post available for replies.

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that’s great! strange to me how I missed it …