Welcome to the Oakston Forums! Our forums run on a platform called Discourse, which provides a clean and modern user experience — but there are many features hidden beneath the surface that users might not be aware of.
This thread is your go-to guide for formatting posts, using mentions, posting code, and more. We’ll update this as needed, so feel free to bookmark!
Basic Text Formatting
Discourse supports a combination of Markdown and basic HTML elements. Below are some handy formatting tools:
<strike>text</strike> → text
<s>text</s> → text
<small>text</small> → text
<ins>text</ins> → text
<del>text</del> → text
<u>text</u> → text
<sub>text</sub> → text
<sup>text</sup> → text
<big>text</big> → text
<br> →
Single line break
→ non-breaking space
Headers / Text Size
Adjust text size using hashtags:
# Header 1
## Header 2
### Header 3
#### Header 4
##### Header 5
###### Header 6
Example:
Largest Header
Smallest Header
Code Blocks
Use triple backticks (```) to format code blocks:
```js
console.log("Hello Oakston!");
```
You can specify the language for syntax highlighting. Full list of supported languages:
Discourse Supported Code Languages
Extra Posting Options
Discourse provides several post-enhancing tools you can use right from the toolbar. Two particularly useful features:
Hide Details
[details="Click to Expand"]
This content is hidden inside a dropdown!
[/details]
Example:
Click to Expand
This content is hidden inside a dropdown!
Blur Spoilers
[spoiler]This will be blurred[/spoiler]
Example:
This will be blurred
Mentions
Want someone to see your post? Use @username to tag them!
Example:
@1111tim → @1111tim
Discourse will autocomplete usernames as you type.
Tips & Tricks
- Use emojis by typing
:(colon) followed by the emoji name. Example::smile:→
- Quote someone’s post by selecting the text and clicking “Quote.”
- Use search (magnifying glass icon
) to find posts, users, or threads. - Use the Bookmark icon to save threads you want to follow or revisit later.
Happy foruming,
— The Oakston Founder