Change Topic title/heading

[Gitz]

I know that there are threads in this forum about this, but the solutions I read there don't work for me.

As an administrator, I have all the permissions (including "Edit all").

I want to change the title (heading) of a topic.

If, within the topic, I click on Options>Change title and meta tags, that doesn't work

If, from the sub-forum, I click on Options>Application>Edit name & descriptions or Change title and meta tags, that doesn't work.

If, from the sub-forum, I click on Options>Structure, that doesn't work either, I guess.

If I'm not mistaken, the same applies from the Forum: I cannot find any useful options.

Please help! Thanks

[GregChapman]

Hi Gitz

I think what you are wanting to do is change the subject line of multiple posts in a single action. There is no facility to do that.

You need to enter each post in a topic/thread and it's Subject Line individually

The "Change title and meta tags" option edits the page title that appears on the tab in your browser and the "hidden" lines used by search engines to rank a page.

The other options you quote do similar jobs affecting the metadata that you only see if you view the source code of a page

Normally, the only reason to change a post's subject line is if there has been topic drift and in that case, the best approach is to move the drifting post to a new topic before there are any replies to it and edit the new topic's subject line.

[Gitz]

Actually I'm not so much interested in the subject line of the posts as in the title of the whole thread. The reason I'd like to change it is that the user who posted the first post and opened the thread choose a title that is not informative and clear about the thread subject. Could this be done?
Thanks,
Gitz

[GregChapman]

Ah! I did not make myself clear.

There is no such concept as "Thread Title" in Nabble.

What you see on pages listing topics is the Subject Line of the first post in the thread.

Further, each post has it's own Subject Line. While, by default, any reply will just have a "Re:" prefix added to the original post subject line (unless this is a reply to a reply and the "Re:" exists already)

At any point in the thread the responder can edit that subject line to read whatever they like and replies to that will then have a "Re:" prefix added.

So if you want to change what appears to be a topic title you need to edit the Subject line of the first post - and then the subject line of all following posts to match. It's a totally manual job, as, at any point, one of those replying, will have the sense to make their subject line relevant to the content of their individual post.

[Gitz]

Your answer was incredibly helpful. I edited the first post of the thread (More>Edit post) and changed its subject; now the whole thread has the title I wanted it to have. I didn't have to change all the subjects manually, but only the subject of the first post. It worked pretty well! Thank you,
Gitz

[GregChapman]

Glad I was of help.

Changing the Subject Line of the first post in a topic certainly does mean the pages that list topics will show the edited Subject Line, which may be all you feel you need.

But, just to clarify, for others coming to this topic later, replies to that initial post will still show their original Subject Line unless you edit the replies as well.