Request for New Text Channel Type: Documentation
So many of the servers I'm in have some sort of "documentation" channel (or list of channels) for various reasons. Some are technical user guides, some are bot command references, and the list goes on. I've created a few walk-through channels in some of my servers and have recently been asked to write up a sort of "mini user guide" for another of the servers I'm in. As I was writing, I realized that this type of content could really use its own structure and format to make it easier to navigate and helpful to users. Specifically, simply adding a Table of Contents would make things a LOT easier.
Currently, I build a "pseudo-TOC" by pinning each of the main messages that start a section of information from my documentation. Then I make a comment at the beginning of the channel to the effect of "Check the pinned messages to navigate the documentation". This works okay, but I think it would be much more effective if there were a dedicated documentation channel structure where the TOC could be built and structured for easy navigation.
One of the problems with the pinned messages method, though, is that, when looking at the pins, long messages will take up a large section in the list. By having a dedicated TOC, you can just list "section headers" that link to the first post of that section, thereby eliminating some "clutter" and making it easier for the user to find what they're looking for.
I've created a simple, rough mock-up of what I envision a documentation channel looking like:
I realize that implementing such a thing might require some additional programming elements, such as specifying a way to identify the section headers to display in the TOC. Since Markdown usually uses the hashtag/pound/number (#) symbol to identify heading levels but that character is already used in Discord to identify channels, using another character would be necessary. Perhaps a caret (^), an equal sign (=), or something similar would be the way to go there. Something like this for the above mock-up:
^Introduction
^^Requirements
^^Getting Started
^Server Admin Instruction
^^Channel Permissions
^^Role Permissions
^Basic Usage
^Advanced Usage
I've looked at a few similar posts:
- Additional Channel-Type only for Articles
- New Channel Types
- new channel type: Home channel
- and even Threads Have More Potential
These all have good ideas, but they still don't quite hit what I'm trying to achieve. Please feel free to provide any feedback or questions about this idea as I believe it would be a fantastic addition to Discord. I hope to see Documentation channels added to the stage soon (tm).
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