Read an article

Read an article

An article is a published post whose body is written in markdown and presented with its title, metadata—the author and publication date—tags, comments, and reader actions.

Use this page to open an article, read its content and metadata, and choose the next action.

Before you start

The article page displays a saved article when its article data is available. Your account state changes which controls appear: authenticated readers get the comment form, while unauthenticated readers get links to sign in or create an account.

Prerequisites

• Know which article to select from the article list, feed, or tag view.
• If you want to comment, select Sign in before opening the article.

Find and open the article

Use this procedure to open an existing article from an article list or a tag view.

Prerequisites

• Have an article list, feed, or tag view open.

Steps

1. Choose the view that contains the article, then select the article you want to read.

   If you are…	Select the article from…
   Reading a feed or article list	The article list or feed.
   Browsing by subject	The tag view.

The article page opens for the selected article.

Result: The selected article page is on screen.

Understand the article screen

The article screen is the reading surface for one article: the title and metadata identify the post, the markdown body contains its content, tags describe its subject, and the lower area contains comments and reader actions.

The page does not provide article-editing fields, a grid, or a configurable surface. Editing is handled in the article workspace, while this page is for reading the article and its associated activity.

Read the article and its metadata

Read the article body first, then use the metadata to identify who published it and when.

Prerequisites

• Have the article page open.

Steps

1. Read the article title at the top of the page.
2. Read the article body below the title.
3. In the article metadata, read the author's name and publication date.

The author's name is a link to that author's profile.

Result: The article content, author, and publication date are on screen.

Use the reading controls

The controls on the article page depend on whether you own the article or a comment, whether you are signed in, and whether the article is already in your favorites.

Prerequisites

• Have the article page open.

Steps

1. Choose the action that matches your situation.

   Your situation or goal	Select
   You own the article and want to edit it	Edit Article
   You own the article and want to delete it	Delete Article
   You want to follow the author	Follow
   You want to stop following the author	Unfollow
   You want to save the article as a favorite	Favorite Article
   You want to remove the article from your favorites	Unfavorite Article
   You want to add a comment	Enter text in Write a comment..., then select Post Comment.
   You need to sign in	Sign in
   You need to create an account	sign up

2. Use the handling shown for the action you selected.

   Action	Handling
   Edit Article	Article workspace
   Sign in	Sign in
   sign up	Create an account
   Delete Article	Select the control for the direct delete action.
   Follow or Unfollow	Select the control for the direct follow action.
   Favorite Article or Unfavorite Article	Select the control for the direct favorite action.
   Post Comment	Enter text in Write a comment..., then select the direct Post Comment action.

Result: Edit Article, Sign in, and sign up take you to their linked pages. The other controls start direct actions on the article page; Delete Article leads away after the delete action, while follow, favorite, and comment actions remain on this page.

Handle errors and continue

The article page displays loading and server-response errors in its error area.

Prerequisites

• Have the article page open.

Steps

1. Read the message in the error area.

   What you see	What to do
   Failed to load article	Return to the article list and open the article again.
   Returned errors show a key followed by its value.	Read the entry and use the matching next step in this table.
   Sign in and sign up instead of the comment form	Select Sign in or sign up before trying to comment.
   Edit Article and Delete Article	Use Article actions reference for author-only actions.
   Write a comment... and Post Comment	Use Comment on an article to add a comment.
   Favorite Article or Unfavorite Article	Use Favorite articles to manage favorites.

2. Select the next task from the message's matching row.

Result: You are back at the article list to retry loading, or you have continued to the procedure or page that addresses the message.