This is something we have talked about for a while, and @eviltrout will implement very soon. We have an enterprise customer that needs it.
Basically, a default first post template that can apply at the category level. Every time you create a new topic in that category, the first post will be pre-filled with the topic template text that you specified via Edit Category, as part of the category properties.
cc: @Jody
The first shot at this is now deployed. You can edit a Topic Template in the Edit Category modal. What you provide there will be present when a user tries to create a new topic in that category.
I added a template to the movies category on try if people want to see how the feature works:
It will fill in a review template when you create a topic there.
Here is what that looks like:
One thing that surprised me, selecting Movies from the category drop down did not trigger this, only creating the topic from within the Movies category (and thus defaulting to that category) worked.
Other tricky case is selection of category after the fact, but for blank body it should be trivial to improve
I like this a lot, but I miss not being able to pre-populate the title like I can with @techAPJ’s custom URL parameters. It would help bring the two into parity.
Not sure I support a title template here. Can you describe why this would be useful?
Because we already have links to our Q&A category that have pre-populated title template using the URI query params. That link is used in various places that instruct people to ask a question. So having the + New Topic button on the category page, that fills the same information, would provide a more consistent experience for everyone asking questions.
Thanx on doing great job.
If we can get more strongly types of templates, so it can looks like forms.
Example, make template with date, and push useres to enter date only, also make template whit some kind drop n down list, also required fields.
And all that coocked nice in htm so others api calls can easly extract data whituot bunc if regex and logic.
That sounds more like a form than a template.
Seems to me if a member sees something like
~enter date here~
they should be able to figure it out without having script check on it.
Not that a form is a bad idea. It would be good for ensuring the post absolutely meets the format. But don’t you think it might be overkill?
No – that is wildly out of scope for what we are trying to do with basic templates.
My idea is to have only one app for interacting with users.
We can setup BUG tracking app in less then hour but that take years for users to push them to use.
Same for Calendar, meeting aps and so many,
Users simply do dot want to swich apps,
When we push them to use forum beside calling on phone ot sending mails, we are so happy.
We are using discourse in enterprise envroment where is changing habits and workflows extremly hard.
My idea is to have one robust super sistem for almost everthing when it is word about users interacting with each oters.
For calculationts there is Erp but for communication there is discourse
I’ve fixed this case. If the post is blank and you choose a category with a template, it will replace your blank content. If you’ve typed something that remains:
https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/724781f42694a3ae31f4f50e5721a11af788061a
You should also check if the current content is identical to the previous categoryId value.
