# Clarify the purpose of this category

**URL:** <https://discourse.nodered.org/t/clarify-the-purpose-of-this-category/24>\
**Category:** Meta\
**Created:** [8 May 2018 21:45 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/clarify-the-purpose-of-this-category/24 "2018-05-08T21:45:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 19\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ukmoose](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/ukmoose/32/13_2.png) [@ukmoose](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/ukmoose)\
**Post date:** [8 May 2018 21:45 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/clarify-the-purpose-of-this-category/24/1 "2018-05-08T21:45:37Z")

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Not sure if this is the discourse site or [nodered.org](http://nodered.org)

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**Author:** ![knolleary](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/knolleary/32/3_2.png) [@knolleary](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/knolleary)\
**Post date:** [8 May 2018 22:43 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/clarify-the-purpose-of-this-category/24/2 "2018-05-08T22:43:30Z")

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Good point @ukmoose - have renamed the category to just ‘feedback’ and updated the description. It’s intended to be feedback on the discourse forum and how we’ve got them setup etc.

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**Author:** ![drmibell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/drmibell/32/8424_2.png) [@drmibell](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/drmibell)\
**Post date:** [10 May 2018 15:43 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/clarify-the-purpose-of-this-category/24/3 "2018-05-10T15:43:00Z")

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Links (except “help”) at the top of the forum page go to [nodered.org](http://nodered.org), but there is no link from [nodered.org](http://nodered.org) back to discourse.

BTW, I tried to enter the actual link instead of “discourse” and got an error message, “Sorry, new users can only put 2 links in a post.” What’s with that?

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**Author:** ![dceejay](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/dceejay/32/38_2.png) [@dceejay](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/dceejay)\
**Post date:** [10 May 2018 16:03 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/clarify-the-purpose-of-this-category/24/4 "2018-05-10T16:03:00Z")

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Yes, we’re in the process of opening it up slowly… as we do the link will be put on the home page to link back here. I think it will just be a help link on the top bar

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**Author:** ![knolleary](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/knolleary/32/3_2.png) [@knolleary](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/knolleary)\
**Post date:** [10 May 2018 16:06 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/clarify-the-purpose-of-this-category/24/5 "2018-05-10T16:06:23Z")

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> “Sorry, new users can only put 2 links in a post.” What's with that?

It's a default setting of discourse to discourage automated bot sign-ups that start spamming links. One of the _many_ config options discourse provides that we'll tune over time based on feedback.

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**Author:** ![TotallyInformation](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/totallyinformation/32/31_2.png) [@TotallyInformation](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/TotallyInformation)\
**Post date:** [10 May 2018 16:11 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/clarify-the-purpose-of-this-category/24/6 "2018-05-10T16:11:32Z")

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All looks fairly good so far. There are certainly things about discourse I don’t like - I’ve only just started using it myself having joined the Hugo discourse to get some help converting my blog from self-hosted WordPress to Hugo/Netlify. I takes a little getting used to but it is pretty decent over all.

One minor point, the top bar is a little large, especially on a high-res laptop screen. And particularly when the Node-RED top bar is also showing. Could that be reduced in size slightly?

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**Author:** ![TotallyInformation](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/totallyinformation/32/31_2.png) [@TotallyInformation](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/TotallyInformation)\
**Post date:** [10 May 2018 16:19 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/clarify-the-purpose-of-this-category/24/7 "2018-05-10T16:19:45Z")

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> [@TotallyInformation](#):
>
> One minor point, the top bar is a little large, especially on a high-res laptop screen. And particularly when the Node-RED top bar is also showing. Could that be reduced in size slightly?

Actually, maybe ignore me since I was actually zoomed in slightly. So perhaps not quite the issue I thought it was.

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**Author:** ![rgerrans](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@rgerrans](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/rgerrans)\
**Post date:** [11 May 2018 14:33 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/clarify-the-purpose-of-this-category/24/8 "2018-05-11T14:33:43Z")

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It would be nice to have topic specific Categories around different types of uses for the system. i.e. a Home Automation forum so we can post specific use cases and 3rd party integrations around home automation.

Also, would be helpful if you’d turn on the tagging functionality in Discourse to make it easier to group topics for later searching. Here’s a Discourse based forum I used to participate in that I thought did a good job of using a combination of categories and tags - [https://community.openhab.org/latest](https://community.openhab.org/latest)

Thanks for getting this started. Much better than Google Groups.

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**Author:** ![TotallyInformation](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/totallyinformation/32/31_2.png) [@TotallyInformation](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/TotallyInformation)\
**Post date:** [11 May 2018 16:17 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/clarify-the-purpose-of-this-category/24/9 "2018-05-11T16:17:50Z")

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Tagging is nice.

Could I also suggest having something like a “Hints & Tips” category? This works well - for example in the [Hugo Discourse](https://discourse.gohugo.io/) - encouraging people to contribute their favourite hints not just asking questions.

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**Author:** ![dceejay](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/dceejay/32/38_2.png) [@dceejay](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/dceejay)\
**Post date:** [11 May 2018 19:26 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/clarify-the-purpose-of-this-category/24/10 "2018-05-11T19:26:13Z")

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Keep the ideas coming. What we have now is not set in stone. But likewise we aren’t going to lob in everything on day 1 (or 2). Certainly tags will probably be added, as will more categories.

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**Author:** ![shrickus](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/shrickus/32/517_2.png) [@shrickus](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/shrickus)\
**Post date:** [16 May 2018 17:54 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/clarify-the-purpose-of-this-category/24/11 "2018-05-16T17:54:16Z")

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I do agree with Julian that a good bit of space is lost a the top of the page for headers – but that’s minor.

The one behavior I’m missing (different from the google groups site) is the navigation element at the top of the list of latest posts. Usually I would start with the oldest of the say 25 “new” posts, and click backward through them in time order, until I get to #1 using the line at the top:

`25 of 99+`◀ ▶

Having something similar to this in the header would be ideal, i think.

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**Author:** ![dceejay](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/dceejay/32/38_2.png) [@dceejay](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/dceejay)\
**Post date:** [17 May 2018 12:15 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/clarify-the-purpose-of-this-category/24/12 "2018-05-17T12:15:26Z")

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If I go to the "latest" view I get a red line like  
 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/nodered/original/1X/e524a0b9e751225920fcc59b377366be7a9d8ed0.png)  
which is fairly easy to work up from ?  
And then at the bottom of an individual thread I get links to both x new posts or latest, so yes it's different but sort of there.

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**Author:** ![cinhcet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/cinhcet/32/438_2.png) [@cinhcet](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/cinhcet)\
**Post date:** [17 May 2018 13:27 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/clarify-the-purpose-of-this-category/24/13 "2018-05-17T13:27:28Z")

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Hi,

very nice!

some thoughts:

1. Categories: Although I think that too many categories are not good either, I think a few more could make sense. The one I am missing is
  - Node development. This category would be both for questions regarding the development of new nodes and also to share/discuss best practices. Or is this included in the “development” category (I remember in Slack that the dev channel should be for node-red core development only)

2. Header: As Julian said, those two headers are a bit weird. Especially on mobile, the experience maybe could be improved. Specifically, if I press the “back” button, then both headers will appear, instead of only the red one from discourse. This makes navigating a bit hectic. An other issue, if I scroll down on mobile, then often both headers completely disappear, after one or two seconds, the discourse header appears again. Is it possible to always “retract” the header when scrolling?

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**Author:** ![dceejay](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/dceejay/32/38_2.png) [@dceejay](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/dceejay)\
**Post date:** [17 May 2018 15:10 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/clarify-the-purpose-of-this-category/24/14 "2018-05-17T15:10:51Z")

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I’m fairly comfortable with using General for nodes, and flows and general application usage type development. (Otherwise what goes in general ?). I do think we may want an Installing/Upgrading category for more the running side of operations.

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**Author:** ![tilleul](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/tilleul/32/78_2.png) [@tilleul](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/tilleul)\
**Post date:** [17 May 2018 17:13 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/clarify-the-purpose-of-this-category/24/15 "2018-05-17T17:13:23Z")

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My view on categories: I think there should be a category for people seeking help with NodeJS or JS coding. It seems to me that there are a lot of posts about JS-programming. These questions arrive here because people are using node-red in the first place. Although those questions should probably be more suited for places like stackoverflow or any JS-learning website, they have nonetheless their place here but maybe in a category of their own. (BTW, I must thank everybody on this community for being so nice & patient, answering sometimes very basic JS questions, totally unrelated to NR).

🤟

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**Author:** ![knolleary](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/knolleary/32/3_2.png) [@knolleary](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/knolleary)\
**Post date:** [17 May 2018 17:34 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/clarify-the-purpose-of-this-category/24/16 "2018-05-17T17:34:04Z")

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> [@cinhcet](#):
>
> Node development.

I think there is a place for 'creating nodes' as a distinct category - it is a bit more specialised and not in the general 'how do I use Node-RED to do X' type topic.

> [@cinhcet](#):
>
> Header

We are a bit limited here. We want the NR header to keep it consistent with other parts of the site (there are 5 distinct web apps all under [nodered.org](http://nodered.org) and its subdomains).

Some of the hiding/showing behaviour is just how Discourse does it. I quite like the fact the headers hide themselves when you start scrolling to give you more space - I understand it won't be to everyone's taste.

Whether we can shrink the black NR header a bit just for this site when viewed on mobile... I'll have a play.

> [@tilleul](#):
>
> I think there should be a category for people seeking help with NodeJS or JS coding

Hmm, not so sure. We simply don't have the resources to become a general JS/Node support forum. Having a category invites those questions rather than allowing us to point at more focussed resources on those topics (such as StackOverflow, MDN etc).

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**Author:** ![tilleul](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/tilleul/32/78_2.png) [@tilleul](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/tilleul)\
**Post date:** [17 May 2018 18:16 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/clarify-the-purpose-of-this-category/24/17 "2018-05-17T18:16:46Z")

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Well, I see what you mean/fear Nick, but it’s already a reality, IMHO, I see many posts more related to JS than to NR and the community seems ready enough to answer these questions. Maybe a more general “how do I do this ?/how-to” category ? It could encompass JS-coding but also JSON, JSONata and other side “technologies” not directly related to NR ? This is all to avoid the “General” category to be an “unclassified” category or worse an all-purpose/catch-all category when some topics could be more categorized …

------ Message d’origine ------

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**Author:** ![knolleary](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/knolleary/32/3_2.png) [@knolleary](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/knolleary)\
**Post date:** [17 May 2018 19:20 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/clarify-the-purpose-of-this-category/24/18 "2018-05-17T19:20:38Z")

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I think there do need to be some more categories, I’m just not sure what they are yet.

Right - this topic started with @ukmoose asking us to clarify the purpose of this Category. It wasn’t intended to become an endless thread of suggestions which then get lost. As we’ve thoroughly dealt with Mark’s original question I’m going to:

- retitle this topic so its less inviting to more suggestions
- close the topic as it doesn’t need any more replies to Mark
- start a new topic for ‘category suggestions’

Thanks for all the feedback so far.

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**Author:** ![knolleary](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/knolleary/32/3_2.png) [@knolleary](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/knolleary)\
**Post date:** [17 May 2018 19:23 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/clarify-the-purpose-of-this-category/24/19 "2018-05-17T19:23:23Z")

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