Creating discussion category form with UTF-8 character does not allowed?

[Ferenc-Piller]

Discussion Type

Question

Discussion Content

Hi Community,

You can reproduce with following these steps:

• I created a new category on my native hungarian language: "Kérdések".
• Than i created a category form based on this description named kérdések.yml, but it does not work.

I tried with kerdesek.yml too, but no changes happened.

Is it possible, UTF-8 characters in form name not allowed only ASCII?
The created url looks like: /discussions/categories/kérdések.

Thanks for your help!
Ferenc

[Ahmedhazemm29]

Hi Ferenc, I reproduced this in a public test repo: https://github.com/Ahmedhazemm29/discussion-form-utf8-test

Results:

• Category Test (slug test) + test.yml: form loads.
• Category Kérdések (slug kérdések) + kérdések.yml: form does not load. I committed the file name in both Unicode forms (NFC and NFD), and neither works.
• kerdesek.yml can't match, because GitHub keeps the accents in the slug.
• Renaming the category to Kerdesek changes the slug to kerdesek, and then the form loads. Renaming it back to Kérdések changes the slug back, and the form stops loading again.

So category forms currently seem to work only with ASCII slugs.

Workaround: name the category Kerdesek (or another ASCII name), use .github/DISCUSSION_TEMPLATE/kerdesek.yml, and put the Hungarian wording in the category description and in the form itself.

Accented slug kérdések: no form

ASCII slug kerdesek: form loads

[Ferenc-Piller]

Thanks for your quick reply and the double check.
This is the official answer for me?
GitHub does not support UTF-8 characters in discussion category form name?

[Ahmedhazemm29]

Not official, I’m not from GitHub. It’s based on the tests in the linked repo. The docs don’t list which characters a slug may contain, so I’d report it to GitHub Support or in the Feedback category with the test repo as the example. Until then, the ASCII category name + kerdesek.yml workaround works. If this solved it for you, feel free to mark it as the answer.

[Ferenc-Piller]

It would be great if you report it to GitHub Support or in the Feedback category, thanks.

[nisargpatel7042lva]

Not official, no. Nobody from GitHub has confirmed it in this thread. The docs only say the form file in .github/DISCUSSION_TEMPLATE/ has to be named to match the category's slug, and they don't mention which characters are allowed. So the test above shows accented slugs don't load a form, but I can't find anything saying whether that's intended or a bug.

Practical way out is what was suggested: name the category Kerdesek, use kerdesek.yml, and put the proper Hungarian wording in the category description and inside the form's own title and labels. If you want a real answer on whether it's supposed to work, I'd report it to GitHub with that test repo as the repro, it's a very clean minimal example.

[Ferenc-Piller]

Yes, I would be happy if you forward this topic to the right place.
Additional information: if "Kérdések" catergory already exists and I want to create a new one with name "Kerdesek" the UI shows me this error message: "There was an error creating your discussion category: name has already been taken."

[nisargpatel7042lva]

I can't forward it, sorry. I'm not on the GitHub team and community members don't have a way to pass threads to staff. The way to get it in front of them is to contact GitHub Support and link the test repo above as the repro, or post it as feedback here in the community like the comment above says.

About the "name has already been taken" error: it looks like GitHub treats Kerdesek and Kérdések as the same name, so you can't add a second category next to the first. What worked in the test repo above was editing the existing category instead of creating a new one. On the Discussions tab, click the pencil icon next to Categories, edit Kérdések, change the title to Kerdesek and save. The docs say editing lets you change the title, emoji, description and format: https://docs.github.com/en/discussions/managing-discussions-for-your-community/managing-categories-for-discussions

After that the slug should become kerdesek, so kerdesek.yml should be picked up. I haven't tried this myself, it's based on the test repo above, so please check that the form loads afterwards. It's the same category, so I'd expect the existing discussions to stay in it, but check that too. Then you can put the Hungarian wording in the category description and in the form's own title and labels.