How do you modify what your website displays to users?

[LordRelish]

This is somewhat of a generic question about nodebb architecture since I seem to not understand how this software works at all. I am ancient web developer by today's standards and historically I've used forum software like phpbb where you just edit a file and the change is reflected on the site right away. But here all site content must be stored in a database or something?

For example, when you are posting a new topic there is in small writing "COMPOSE" with a question mark next to it. Clicking that question mark lets you know the forum is powered by markdown (in my case) and a link to the documentation. I want to update that section a bit to show a few examples of the syntax to get people started. How do I do that?
I ran a grep for the specific statement and found it to be in /node_modules/nodebb-plugin-markdown/index.js. Editing that, deactivating and reactivating the plugin, and reloading the board had no effect on the text displayed (even after clearing all browser content and forcing a reload). I also tried to update the footer in a similar manner, to no avail.

Where do I have to edit things so they are reflected on the site?

[reid]

In your NodeBB directory, there should be a node_modules folder. Inside there, you'll want to find the folder of the theme you're using. So, for example, if you're using lavender, you'll want to search for nodebb-theme-lavender (it'll be nodebb-theme-themename). Inside there is a templates directory, which should allow you to edit some parts of the theme.

To edit the composer, go to your NodeBB root, and then public/templates. Copy the composer.tpl file into your nodebb-theme-lavender directory, edit it, and then reload your forum. That should do the trick.

[julian]

@LordRelish said:

I ran a grep for the specific statement and found it to be in /node_modules/nodebb-plugin-markdown/index.js. Editing that, deactivating and reactivating the plugin, and reloading the board had no effect on the text displayed

Hm.. this should work, actually.

[psychobunny]

Wait, we already allow you to modify that help text in the ACP itself no need to change code!

[LordRelish]

@psychobunny The problem is that with the ACP Post-section feature, you can only add more text, but you can't modify existing text.