Turning Off the Preview Function

Support
1

Hi Folks,

I never use the Preview function, and it bothers the hell out of me when on mobile. Is there a way to turn it off?

Lee

2

What do you mean by “preview function”? Can you clarify?

4

Use CSS to hide the post preview button. You can do almost anything with CSS.

Also, how does it bother you on mobile? It doesn’t even show up until you press the button…:thinking:

Screenshot_20200323-232133_Chrome
Screenshot_20200323-232133_Chrome1439×2824 431 KB

1 Like
5

Hi, @codinghorror and @nexo,

Apologies for the lateness of my reply.

Here is an example of the ‘Preview’ pop-up. I never use it, and always have to manually close it down, and I wondered if I could get rid of it permanently? It also pops up on my mobile device and makes it incredibly awkward to post anything. I have asked across my group if anyone else has issues with mobile, and nobody does, so maybe it’s my phone (Huawei)?

Screenshot 2020-04-09 at 12.14.18
Screenshot 2020-04-09 at 12.14.181440×900 348 KB

6

Are you talking about the blue suggested topics popup or the actual preview side that displays what you’re typing?

7

It would be useful to know how to switch both off, and give that option to the user (if possible).

8

Not 100% sure, but it shouldn’t. Are you displaying the site as the desktop version on your mobile? Can you provide a screenshot?

You can remove the preview panel client-side on desktop using a browser extension that allows adding custom CSS like Live Editor.

The CSS rule would be:

.d-editor-preview-wrapper {
    display: none;
}

I’ll look like this:

image
image2498×1320 177 KB

2 Likes
9

Hi @Canapin

When it comes to things like CSS, I am more ‘Pong’ than ‘World of Warcraft,’ I really don’t have a clue. Can I pay people to do things like this?

On the second note, about the mobile interface.

Here are some images

On this one, I can’t scroll to the title.

Screenshot_20200409_123430_com.android.chrome
Screenshot_20200409_123430_com.android.chrome1080×1920 255 KB

On this one, I can’t abandon my post.

Screenshot_20200409_123504_com.android.chrome
Screenshot_20200409_123504_com.android.chrome1080×1920 138 KB

10

Looks like you are on the desktop version of Discourse on your phone. This may happen if you set Chrome to request desktop for all sites.

Reach for the Hamburguer Menu and select “Mobile version” on the botton.

11

What is the ‘hamburger menu?’

12

It’s at the top upper right 🡕 of your browser tab and looks like this ☰

You really really don’t want to be on desktop mode on your mobile device. That’s a recipe for much suffering.

1 Like
13

It’s been killing me!

14

Holy crap, that was so easy, thanks so much!

1 Like
15

Hiding the preview panel in your desktop browser is super-easy. It won’t work on mobile unless you use a browser that supports such an extension.
Here are the steps on Chrome:

  1. Install Live Editor extension on your browser
  2. Go to the Discourse forum URL you want to hide the preview panel (I’ll use meta.discourse.org as an example)
  3. Click the extension icon:
    image
  4. In the “css” tab of the extension window, write the CSS code I’ve written in my previous post:
    image
  5. Click the pin icon:
    image
  6. Click “Allow” on the warning popup:
    image

Then this CSS rule will be applied automatically each time you visit meta.discourse.org.

If you need paid assistance, you can send me a direct message though.

1 Like
16

Just don’t use it then.

17

Thanks.

I’ve asked the community for feedback. I don’t want to remove something of value to them. If they give me the thumbs up, I will try this or ping you.

1 Like
18

Sure. Note that my solution works only on client-side, so only for the user that follow these steps and nobody else.