Weekly Summary

[Discourse]

This week on meta.discourse.org…

Key Stats

New posts: 655
New topics: 110

Top users (last 7 days):

• JammyDodger (54 posts, 93 likes)
• pfaffman (31 posts, 39 likes)
• sam (20 posts, 35 likes)
• tobiaseigen (28 posts, 33 likes)
• awesomerobot (11 posts, 32 likes)
• RGJ (11 posts, 31 likes)
• NateDhaliwal (36 posts, 29 likes)
• Moin (11 posts, 24 likes)
• meglio (14 posts, 22 likes)
• merefield (16 posts, 22 likes)

Interesting Topics

UX

• awesomerobot explained why the kanban-board theme’s category selector is currently awkward and outlined a migration to separate settings in Configuring the kanban theme component is awkward and error prone

• awesomerobot proposed changing the sidebar ‘More’ menu to use focus-visible so that keyboard navigation only highlights items when appropriate in DMenu for ‘More’ in sidebar selects first item, even if it is not the current page

• nolo clarified that the Latest/Top/New filters apply context-sensitively and suggested consistency improvements after Jagster noted unexpected filtering in When goes to a category /latest doesn’t show the actual latest

• joffreyjaffeux and the team discussed reverting the click-to-edit behavior on topic titles to restore text selection and copying in Now that the topic title is editable by click, I can’t simply copy it without entering the edit mode

Support

• pfaffman walked through retrieving Discourse version info from a backup via Rails console, helping Alienazk recover after a VPS attack in How can I get the current version information from my backup?

• JammyDodger guided one1 to locate the hidden “Revise Post” messages in the system user’s archive folder in Where to find the custom message sent when rejecting a post?

• JammyDodger and tobiaseigen diagnosed why PM replies initiated via “Message” from a post weren’t visible, explaining reply-by-email behavior in Personal Message Replies Not Displaying in Inbox When Initiated via Auto-Quoted Post

• awesomerobot showed that custom ToS/Privacy links appear on the About page and suggested using a custom footer or sidebar navigation for site-wide visibility in Privacy Policy not showing up

Dev

• pfaffman and Ethsim2 debated the merits of upgrading Discourse servers to Ubuntu 25.04 versus sticking to LTS releases in New Ubuntu Release 25.04

• NateDhaliwal proposed using CSS text-transform: capitalize but was advised to follow Discourse conventions for lowercase plugin names in Set plugin name to capitals?

• SubStrider traced missing custom composer fields in the Rails opts hash and resolved it by adding api.serializeToTopic(...) in Custom data from GJS composer form not in opts for :topic_created event

Plugin

• hugh confirmed restoration of the documentation sidebar search filter and kris.kotlarek back-ported the fix in Discourse Doc Categories

• nat and kris.kotlarek collaborated on reviving the filter search in the official Plugin topic and merged PR #32837 in Discourse Doc Categories

• nat, JammyDodger and pento verified the seamless UI update of the official Solved plugin and confirmed its compatibility in Discourse Solved

Feature

• sam proposed a new site setting to store persistent key-value JSON data in AI artifacts, unlocking advanced customization in A setting to allow storing persistent JSON data in artifacts

• sam pointed out that Discourse’s automation triggers already support most primitives for notifying staff when a solution is posted in Use AI to be notified of potential solutions on topics

• tobiaseigen reshaped a request to auto-reply when a solution is marked into a standalone feature topic and asked for use cases in Feature request: automation to reply to topic when a solution has been selected

• tobiaseigen moved the discussion on searching public topics and PMs simultaneously into Feature for community input in How to “search public topics and PMs simultaneously” by default?

Theme component

• nolo introduced a compact dropdown user menu replicating profile links in the header in Custom User Menu

• Lilly praised the separation of notifications from the user menu in the Custom User Menu component in Custom User Menu

• alkah3st and Moin shared JS/CSS approaches to collapsible subcategories in the sidebar in Collapsible Subcategories in Sidebar

• Olle11’s request for WhatsApp-style chat bubbles spurred discussion on mobile and desktop compatibility in Chat – whatsapp bubbles

Translations

• awesomerobot overhauled discovery route headings to make %{filter} fully translatable in Translating %{filter} in headings for discovery routes

• tvavrda reported a missing tooltip translation for the AI chat Upload button, prompting localization in AI Search Upload Button Tooltip Translation Missing

Marketplace

• Mollyvog sought UK-based Discourse developers for a large charity forum project in Seeking Discourse developers based in UK

Community

• craigconstantine formed a mastermind peer group to audit each other’s Discourse communities, encouraging collaborative reviews in Look for 3 community admins for a mastermind to audit each other’s communities

Activity by the @team Group

• sam advocated for a new AI artifacts setting to store persistent JSON, noting its potential in A setting to allow storing persistent JSON data in artifacts

• sam explained the complexity of AI-powered triage personas and the required changes in Discourse AI triage using Persona

• sam rolled out a streamed diff editor for the Proofread feature, ensuring quotes remain intact in Proofread breaks quotes

• tobiaseigen moved cross-search and unread search feature requests into Feature for structured review in How to “search public topics and PMs simultaneously” by default?

• tobiaseigen guided zhongziqi towards official installation and SMTP troubleshooting docs in About the SMTP config

• tobiaseigen demonstrated how to leverage Discourse webhooks for external notification integrations in Webhook for Notification Events that includes a total?

• awesomerobot fixed the keyboard-focus issue in the ‘More’ sidebar menu to improve UX in DMenu for ‘More’ in sidebar selects first item, even if it is not the current page

• awesomerobot patched the typo in the custom-category-boxes theme component repository in Came across a typo

• awesomerobot walked through adding custom footer navigation or theme overrides for external legal links in Privacy Policy not showing up

• david deprecated old <script type='text/discourse-plugin'> tags and shared the migration timeline in Modernizing inline script tags for templates & JS API

• david warned against exposing secret API keys in theme settings and advised moving them into plugins in Are API keys in theme components okay?

• Lilly confirmed the Custom User Menu component’s design and utility in Custom User Menu

• mcwumbly flagged the need for a core PM-reply warning and pointed to an existing theme component in Feature Request: Warning Before Replying to PMs with Mixed User/Staff Participants

• hugh validated the restoration of the documentation sidebar filter via PR #32837 in Discourse Doc Categories

• nat detailed best practices for post assignment hygiene and topic checklists in Topic assignment shown thrice

• nat demonstrated safe-mode repro and default category behavior for visitors in All categories not showing for non logged in users

• pmusaraj outlined the experimental full-page translation feature and its upcoming official launch in How to translate entire pages

• pmusaraj showed that new/unread counts appear automatically in the DiscourseHub mobile app once a site is connected in DiscourseHub App上显示新话题和未读话题数量的功能是如何启用的？

• kris.kotlarek contributed the PR that brought back the filter in the documentation sidebar in Discourse Doc Categories

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you again next week!

[Discourse]

This week on meta.discourse.org…

Key Stats

• New posts: 656
• New topics: 77
• Top users:
  • Moin (99 likes, 47 posts)
  • sam (86 likes, 35 posts)
  • JammyDodger (82 likes, 51 posts)
  • pfaffman (57 likes, 43 posts)
  • david (40 likes, 15 posts)
  • merefield (25 likes, 26 posts)
  • Lilly (24 likes, 9 posts)
  • NateDhaliwal (20 likes, 25 posts)
  • hugh (20 likes, 4 posts)
  • Heliosurge (18 likes, 24 posts)

Interesting Topics

Announcements

• Event Chat Channels Now Available Announcements
  sam introduced dedicated chat channels for calendar events—admins can enable “Chat integration” when creating events, and attendees sync automatically. read more

• 3.5.0.beta5: Improved admin search, AI forum research, easier site appearance configuration, and simpler plugin development Announcements release-notes
  hugh highlighted refinements to the full admin search and new AI Forum Researcher persona in Discourse AI, with extended plugin improvements. read more

• 3.4.4: Bug fix and UX release Announcements release-notes
  hugh announced Discourse 3.4.4, focusing on stability and minor UX tweaks for hosted and self-hosted instances. read more

Installation

• POP3 polling settings Installation email-in
  A discussion revealed the pop3_polling_enabled setting is hidden from the Email tab; admins can find it in All Site Settings or via rails console. read more

• SMTP Error! Please help Installation email
  A user encountered a generic “Sorry, an error has occurred” message when enabling email reply settings; community guidance pointed to missing auth details and log inspection. read more

Support

• Can’t delete topic without category Support
  A soft-deleted About topic caused forum loop errors; the OP deleted it directly via Rails console (DELETE FROM topics WHERE id = 3) to resolve the issue. read more

• Macrons and search results in NZ Support search
  marvi and nathank tested Te Reo Māori searches; enabling accent-ignoring and running jobs::ReindexSearch restored expected results. read more

• How to ungenerate tos/privacy topics? Support
  Customizing or removing auto-generated TOS/Privacy topics was achieved by resetting tos_topic_id and privacy_topic_id via hidden site settings. read more

• Users list has gone missing Support
  After upgrading, /admin/users/list/active disappeared due to a commit regression; updating to a later commit (9ebce86fd) restored the list. read more

Dev

• Automatically updating themes and plugins to .gjs file format Dev dev-news
  david explained the new require-strict-mode lint rule and released discourse-gjs-codemod for migrating .hbs files. read more

• Override or change AboutPageUser Dev
  aest requested a template override; david suggested outlets and merged a UX change to hide profile links for anonymous users with hide_user_profiles_from_public. read more

• Toggling Visibility within a Topic connector Dev
  merefield wanted toggleVisibility in a connector; david pointed out model.toggleStatus("visible") is available without adding a new outlet. read more

• How to hide fields (title, category, tag input) when creating a new topic with openNewTopic Dev
  A user asked about disabling composer fields; the consensus was to hide them via CSS in a theme component. read more

• Trouble with theme lint at “install JS Dependencies” step Dev
  A theme skeleton CI failure (yarn@pnpm…) was fixed by removing yarn.lock and using pnpm-lock.yaml per GitHub workflow. read more

• Doc Sub category – Back to forum loop Dev Plugin
  A fix and spec for doc-categories was merged to skip #chat and prevent full-screen chat from reopening the forum loop. read more

• Designing for Different Devices (Viewport Size, Touch/Hover, etc.) Dev #developer-guides
  The breakpoints (sm, md, lg, etc.) and SCSS mixins in lib/viewport were documented for mobile-first theming. read more

Feature

• A better way to inform admins that some setting changes require specific sysadmin tasks Feature
  nathank and tobiaseigen proposed prompting admins to run reindex or rebake when toggling settings like “Search ignore accents.” read more

• Renaming AI Persona → AI Agent Feature ai
  sam led a discussion on aligning terminology with industry trends, renaming “Persona” to “Agent” across Discourse AI. read more

Bug

• Error when performing a search on meta Bug search
  A repeating search interface due to Discoveries was fixed by disabling Discoveries and merging a patch in discourse-ai. read more

• Additional groups not visible on /about page Bug about-page
  A hidden show_additional_about_groups setting and incomplete migration prevented group display; setting it via Rails console restored functionality. read more

• in:messages filter doesn’t update reliably in header Bug search
  The “in:messages” search filter remained sticky after inbox navigation; a PR fixed the header state logic. read more

• API scope problem for “group members” call Bug
  Restricting API keys by id failed for /groups/:name/members; adjusting scope to use name resolved the 403 error. read more

UX

• Positioning header drop-down menus with fk-d-menu UX
  A theme component author asked how to adjust dropdown offsets; using @placement="bottom-end" and @offset="0" aligned panels. read more

Data & reporting

• Statistics on spam flags reported by AI triage automation #data-&-reporting sql-query spam
  pedrom shared a SQL query to calculate total, approved, and rejected spam flags by the AI triage automation, improved with NULLIF for zero counts. read more

Activity by the @team Group

• sam led the Event Chat Channels rollout and detailed chat integration features in #367885/1 and spearheaded the AI Agent rename in #368198/1.

• david published the .gjs codemod for themes/plugins in #368051/1 and guided the AboutPageUser override UX change in #367720/2.

• Lilly reproduced and triaged the meta search error in #368194/1 and helped resolve the theme lint CI failure in #368423/4.

• hugh authored the 3.5.0.beta5 announcement in #367300/1 and the 3.4.4 release post in #367301/1.

• kris.kotlarek merged the doc sub-category loop fix in #367513/13 and corrected the /about groups setting migration in #368218/2.

• tobiaseigen proposed prompting admins to run reindex tasks for settings in #368254/2 and shared badge-grant tips for Grant Custom Badge Upon Reading ToS in #368259/7.

• tgxworld fixed the in:messages filter bug in #367837/1 and contributed refinements to the admin search in #367300/3.

• Bas addressed the API scope group‐members call in #368109/1 and clarified the POP3 polling settings location in #367895/2.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you again next week!

[Discourse]

This week on meta.discourse.org…

Key Stats

• New posts: 601
• New topics: 92
• Top users this week:
  • sam — 34 posts, 80 likes
  • JammyDodger — 37 posts, 71 likes
  • Moin — 29 posts, 61 likes
  • merefield — 28 posts, 60 likes
  • joffreyjaffeux — 12 posts, 52 likes
• Top @team Group members:
  • sam — 34 posts, 80 likes
  • @jofffreyjaffeux — 12 posts, 52 likes
  • lindsey — 4 posts, 23 likes
  • tobiaseigen — 12 posts, 22 likes
  • Lilly — 5 posts, 17 likes
  • awesomerobot — 7 posts, 15 likes
  • Falco — 7 posts, 14 likes
  • supermathie — 10 posts, 13 likes
  • nat — 2 posts, 10 likes
  • david — 2 posts, 7 likes

Interesting Topics

Announcements

• joffreyjaffeux added a “Show local time” option to the Calendar plugin so events display in attendees’ timezones Show Local Time and linked to the official Calendar topic.

• joffreyjaffeux released an end-date setting for recurring events in the Calendar plugin, giving organizers precise control over when series stop End Date for Recurring Events with details in the Calendar plugin guide.

• Following internal testing, sam announced the Forum Researcher persona for Discourse AI, a new tool for executing deep research on forum content Announcing the Forum Researcher and linked to the Persona guide.

#Site Management

• A comprehensive Forum Researcher AI Persona guide was published, covering setup, filters, LLM recommendations, and debugging tips Forum Researcher AI Persona guide.

composer

• Community feedback on the new WYSIWYG composer continued: meglio and lindsey debated image resizing ratios, heading-level toolbar placement, and UI polish in Test our new composer!, with follow-ups on hotkeys and image resizing standards.

Community

• nathank and Ralf_Stockmann explored adopting Discourse as an enterprise wiki, spanning UX, DMS integrations, multi-tenant setups, and governance procedures in Using Discourse as an enterprise wiki library.

Feature

• A community-led request proposed an “after user update” automation trigger that fires on new registrations without requiring a custom field Automation trigger without custom field.

Plugin

• merefield unveiled the Tag Intersection Navigator plugin, extending the Tag Intersections interface with flexible filters and a community-section link Tag Intersection Navigator, plus install instructions at GitHub.

Theme component

• A new theme component empowers admins to control visibility and highlight styles of new-user, returning-user, and official post notices by age and type Post Notice Visibility Control.

Support

• Administrators explored running Discourse without emails, relying on SSO for sign-up and disabling all outbound mail for privacy needs Can Discourse function without emails entirely?.

• An HTML entity encoding bug in the onboarding tip popup (showing “J'ai compris !” instead of “J’ai compris !”) was fixed via a site-text override at HTML entity issue in notification pop-up and read more.

• david merged a patch resolving undefined titles in the Welcome Link Banner, fixing missing translations on hosted sites Welcome Link Banner undefined.

• A migration oversight in the Add Groups to About component left core’s hidden setting disabled; a new core PR removes the legacy flag entirely for seamless upgrades Additional about groups migration bug and read more.

Dev

• awesomerobot and merefield enhanced the Community Section Links API, enabling custom query params like models for tag intersections Custom community link params.

• A theme-component value transformer now forces the desktop navigation bar on mobile by overriding navigation-bar-dropdown-mode Desktop navbar on mobile.

• supermathie documented a Docker command to fix Postgres UID/GID mismatches when rebuilding from older containers Postgres permission errors on upgrade.

#Data & reporting

• Lilly shared a Data Explorer snippet to export RSS feed URLs as CSV or JSON with a simple SELECT url FROM discourse_rss_polling_rss_feeds query Export RSS feed URLs.

Activity by the @team Group

• sam led Calendar discussions in Show Local Time & End Date for Recurring Events, unveiled Forum Researcher in Announcements, and guided privacy setups at No-email Discourse.

• joffreyjaffeux developed core Calendar plugin features in Show Local Time & End Date for Recurring Events.

• lindsey advanced the WYSIWYG composer, responding to UI requests in Test our new composer!.

• tobiaseigen contributed to automation design in Automation trigger without custom field and bulk-action UX in Bulk “dismiss” separation.

• Lilly resolved translation issues in Welcome Link Banner undefined.

• awesomerobot refined the Community Links API in Custom community link params and fixed report breadcrumbs in Admin Reports breadcrumb fix.

• Falco advised on Forum Researcher error handling in Unexpected error in Forum Researcher and Tag Intersection flows in Tag Intersection Navigator.

• supermathie shared the Docker-based Postgres fix in Postgres permission errors on upgrade.

• nat highlighted migration caveats for theme-component ports in Additional about groups migration bug.

• david merged the core change dropping the legacy migration flag in Additional about groups migration bug.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you again next week!

[satonotdead]

@Discourse

#Site Management

@Discourse

#Data & reporting

May I know if that is the expected behavior?

[Discourse]

This week on meta.discourse.org…

Key Stats

• 703 new posts
• 110 new topics
• Top Users
  • Moin: 49 posts, 117 likes
  • jordan-vidrine: 26 posts, 67 likes
  • JammyDodger: 25 posts, 59 likes
  • merefield: 25 posts, 50 likes
  • sam: 9 posts, 49 likes
  • awesomerobot: 12 posts, 46 likes
  • Lilly: 15 posts, 41 likes
  • NateDhaliwal: 34 posts, 40 likes
  • david: 12 posts, 38 likes
  • nolo: 13 posts, 34 likes

Interesting Topics

Announcements Announcements

• Security Releases: Discourse shipped both the 3.4.5 and 3.5.0.beta6 security updates this week, addressing multiple HackerOne advisories and backporting fixes from security patches. read more read more

• AI Artifact Storage Launch: sam unveiled AI Artifact User Storage, enabling embedded surveys and games stored as Discourse artifacts—an opening move toward richer in-forum AI experiences. read more

• OpenAI Responses API Support: Initial support for the new Open AI Responses API was added to Discourse, unlocking O3-Pro integration and paving the way for more advanced LLM features. read more

• Horizon Theme Beta: Community feedback continues on the new Horizon theme, focusing on spacing, read-mode font sizes, and tag/banner integration. read more

UX UX

• Header & Notification Menu Styles: The New header dropdown / notification menu styles experiment by jordan-vidrine removed active borders, refined spacing, and rethought unread highlights. read more

• Chat Timestamp Inconsistency: A UX quirk in Discourse Chat showed 24-hour timestamps on initial messages but 12-hour on replies. The team is reviewing gutter space constraints and localization settings. read more

• Hide Logout Button via CSS: Site operators on the Business plan learned how to hide the Logout item in the user menu using a simple CSS snippet shared by awesomerobot. read more

Bug Bug

• Styling & Layout Fixes: A batch of critical bug fixes addressed missing theme CSS on published pages, long lines causing mobile sideways scrolling, placeholder text flooding iOS app views, and broken multi-word quoting on tablets. read more read more read more read more

Support Support

• Email & Automation Quirks: Users discovered that Data Explorer automations always send a PM (not an email) and that stale SMTP settings can block admin-account confirms. Detailed troubleshooting steps were shared. read more read more read more

• Pasting Images in Tables: Attempting to paste images into markdown table cells tripped on pipe characters; a workaround and tutorial update was proposed. read more

• Rename Bug in Data Explorer: A regression where custom queries could not be renamed was traced and fixed in the Discourse-Data-Explorer plugin. read more

• AI Bot Page Access: Attempts to expose the Ask-Discourse-AI page to anonymous visitors failed due to its reliance on PM permissions, confirming guests cannot leverage AI-bot features. read more

Dev Dev

• Component-Template Deprecation & Base URI: david enabled Ember’s component-template-resolving deprecation banner and clarified moving templates to co-located .gjs files; Moin showed how to use discourse/helpers/base-path to obtain the forum’s root URL. read more read more

• .gjs File Format Adoption: Discussion around migrating themes/plugins from separate js/hbs to .gjs with a codemod and clarifications on performance characteristics of Glimmer vs classic components. read more

• Social Layout Prototypes: A reminder that the “more social” Discourse layout sketches remain conceptual and no production code was merged. read more

Feature Feature

• Custom Button & Review-Queue Filters: The community requested routing the New Topic button to custom wizards and adding a “Reviewed between” date filter in the review queue; theme components and feature requests are in motion. read more read more

Marketplace Marketplace

• PAID: Chat Bug Fixes & Theme Setup: Paid listings for Discourse Chat improvements and custom theme setup services attracted interest as multiple forums needed video-thumbnail and UI polish. read more read more

Community Community

• Forum Monetization & Sustainability: Conversations about adding subscription fees via Stripe, Patreon, or BTCPay highlighted legal, UX, and community-growth considerations. read more

• Recommended Reading for CM & UX: Members shared book recommendations on community management, UI/UX fundamentals, and organizational design—including “Reinventing Organizations.” read more

Installation & Deployment Installation

• Cloudflare Outage & Rebuild Failures: A transient npm registry outage blocked ./launcher rebuild; reverting proxy settings or waiting for Cloudflare restoration resolved it. read more

• Hashicorp Nomad Support: Interest in deploying Discourse across multi-node Nomad clusters surfaced, with community members sharing registry-based workflows. read more

Theme Component Theme component

• Enable-Notifications Banner: A new theme component prompts desktop/mobile users to enable browser notifications, with day-based frequency and light/dark support. read more

Chat chat

• DM User-Limit Inconsistency: Lowering chat max direct message users to two produced confusing UI states when creating new group chats, prompting a review of limit enforcement and error messaging. read more

Plugin & Emoji Plugin

• Emoji & Icon Integration Issues: The Côte d’Ivoire flag 🇨🇮 failed to render due to diacritic mismatches in the emoji gem, while the FontAwesome Pro plugin missed certain default icons—both now under review. read more read more

Activity by the @team Group

• jordan-vidrine led the UX New header dropdown / notification menu styles experiment, collaborating with keegan, Falco, awesomerobot, and sam on spacing, iconography, and highlight refinements.

• sam announced and demoed the AI Artifact User storage, showcasing the first fully in-forum, AI-powered survey Artifact and seeding ideas for games and sophisticated polls.

• david rolled out Ember’s component-template-resolving deprecation banners and documented steps for theme/plugin authors to move templates into co-located .gjs files.

• tobiaseigen diagnosed the tag group editing bug, tracing it to bespoke limits from the max_tag_search_results setting and helping drive a targeted fix.

• awesomerobot shared CSS to hide the Logout button for Business-plan sites and argued for consistent edge-to-edge highlights in the notification menu in the UX improvements thread.

• keegan provided key design suggestions for the header dropdown, including overflow nav styling and read-state dimming in the notification menu experiment.

• joffreyjaffeux authored an Ember initializer to set full-page Chat as the default, streamlining Chat deployments for collaboration-focused forums.

• Lilly guided users on safely pasting images into markdown tables in this support topic and clarified deprecation‐migration steps for theme components facing Ember 6 changes.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you again next week!