Just venting, really. If there don’t already happen to be switches to change these things that the admin would be willing to toggle, I don’t expect raising a GitHub issue on the forum software’s repo would gain any traction, either. Maybe I just don’t get the purpose of this place and platform?
Shouldn’t clicking the logo take the user to /categories?
A major benefit of the “forum” mode of communication is that conversations are organized first thematically, and only then chronologically. Starting from “hot” or “latest” kind of defeats the point.
And it’s not like “hot”, “latest” and “categories” are in the header when the sidebar is collapsed. So I can’t go to what I see as the “real” (up front, hones, recommender-less) homepage (i.e. not timeline) with 1 click from a thread that I’m viewing.
EDIT: Since the site also limits how much am I permitted to speak:
Logged in users can set their default home page under Preferences > Interface. Some people prefer “Latest” by default, some people prefer “Categories” by default… Just select your preferred one.
This is what I was looking for. Setting this to “Categories” makes the site much easier to navigate, and I encourage everyone to try it for a day.
The default home page for everyone is set to “Hot”. This mode allows newcomers to always find an interesting blend of recent, active, and relevant topics.
Logged in users can set their default home page under Preferences > Interface. Some people prefer “Latest” by default, some people prefer “Categories” by default… Just select your preferred one.
When the sidebar is collapsed, you can… expand the sidebar or click the logo and select another view in the homepage.
So, the software determines what topics people might want to see, at the cost of reducing the ability of the people to control the software?
With your permission, I’ll maybe post one or two unbecoming things that I notice, even though I realize that probably won’t change anyone’s mind or preference. For example, is the chat supposed to do this thing:
Users can configure their homepage to show their preferred view, and I believe admins can configure the default view as well. [edit: I just changed this setting and the page has to be refreshed before it works ]
I guess that’s supposed to make room for the markdown preview that’s collapsed in your editor. Looks like a Discourse bug to me.
As @dried says, the chat window should be at the bottom left. However, when you write / edit a post, the bottom is taken by the editor (left) and preview (right), and this is why the chat window moved up.
@unspeaker What I don’t understand (and could not reproduce) is how you get a floating editor and no preview window next to it. Can you reproduce this?
The preview collapses with the horizontal double chevron icon at the bottom right of the editor. On mobile the icon is a desktop monitor in the same location.
Can you pin posts here? I was thinking of inviting someone new to the Fedi, but then I thought it might be overwhelming as we are all pretty familiar with various projects being brought up here.
Maybe we should pin a post for newcomers, with “getting started” resources? Maybe with links like:
@Mel I really think it is a very good idea! I was thinking of the concept of “starter pack” that seems to have gained some traction among people trying to find alternatives to Instagram etc. We would crowdsource and curate a selective starter pack with a few very good pointers to start making steps outside the corporate music bubble. Rather than a long list with everything that intimidates people or confuse them even more, so they don’t even feel like starting the starter pack.
Something like “Ok, so you want to leave or explore beyond Instagram and Spotify. What do you need?”
Then we could connect each item in the starter pack to topics, tags or subcategories under Help, and music makers landing there would see other music makers asking the questions they have, and seeing how other music makers have interesting answers.
In fact this topic / starter pack could be the main entrance to the Help category.
or click the logo and select another view in the homepage.
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