Jump to content
Forum²

[DISCOURSE] - Bringing popular features to Discourse: Header search, welcome banner, and category icons / emoji


Recommended Posts

  • Forum² Admin
Posted

We have added several new features to Discourse based on popular theme components to make it easier to customize the design of your community. In this topic, we’ll share more about these new core features, how to use them, and provide information about they compare to the theme components that inspired them.

Header search

The header search feature moves search from the magnifying glass in the top right corner to a more prominent input field in the site header.

When more header space is needed (such as when scrolling a topic), the search will revert to the magnifying glass to save room.

To turn on header search…

  1. In the admin area, go to your site settings.
  2. Find the Search experience setting.
  3. Update this setting to “Search field in site header”.
  4. Click the green check to save.

Header search feature vs. Advanced Header Search component

Header search was inspired by the Header Search theme component, which we’ve renamed to Advanced Header Search to distinguish it from the core feature.

You should use the Advanced Header Search component when you need to support external searches (i.e. searches outside of your Discourse community). Otherwise, you can use the header search feature that’s now part of Discourse core.

Welcome banner

The welcome banner greets members and visitors and adds a prominent search bar to your topic lists.


The welcome banner and header search features are compatible with each other so that header search will be hidden while the welcome banner is visible.

To turn on welcome banner…

  1. In the admin area, go to your site settings.
  2. Find the Enable welcome banner setting.
  3. Enable this setting.
  4. Click the green check to save.

To customize the message displayed on the banner, go to the Site Texts area, and search for “welcome_banner”. You can modify text strings for registered member greeting, anonymous user greeting, and search field.

Welcome banner vs. Advanced Search Banner component

Welcome banner was inspired by the Search Banner component, which we’ve renamed to Advanced Search Banner to distinguish it from the core feature.

You should use the Advanced Search Banner component when you want to use custom background images for the banner, enter multiple lines of text in the banner, or change who can see the banner (i.e. logged in members, logged out users, or both). Otherwise, you can use the welcome banner feature that’s now part of Discourse core.

Category icons and emoji

You can now use icons and emoji to distinguish categories, instead of the colored square.


To use category icons / emoji…

  1. When creating or editing a category, change the Style setting to Icon or Emoji.
  2. Choose the icon or emoji you want to use. The color will determine the icon color (if using) and impact other areas where a color is associated with the category, such as on the /categories page.
  3. Click Save Category.

Category icons and emoji vs. Category Icons component

Category icons and emoji were inspired by the Category Icons component, which we will soon be deprecating in favor of this core feature because it supports more customization (i.e. emojis) and offers a much simpler setup experience.

For those currently using Category Icons, we recommend moving your icon customizations from Category Icons to the core category settings for longterm support and ongoing feature improvements. In our testing, the component settings override the core feature settings, but these were not designed to be used together.

1 post - 1 participant

Read full topic

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...