PSA: forum software update changes default editor mode

Hey all, just a note as it caused a bit of confusion here at JDHQ just now.

I keep the Discourse software that runs this forum up to date, so things change now and then. Mostly minor, but they just released a fairly significant update to the text editor that you type all your words in to.

By default now it’s WYSIWYG, so if you type underscores around a word, it’ll turn directly in to italics. Up at the top-left of the editor you’ll see the A selected.

z-CleanShot 2025-08-22 10-14-59@2x

This is confusing because we were just trying to add a footnote with [^footnote] and it wasn’t working. Which it doesn’t, in in this mode. You need to switch to Markdown mode, at which point the two-pane view will return.

z-CleanShot 2025-08-22 10-16-07@2x

And your selection should be remembered for next time.