Anmol BaranwalAs a developer, I'm always on the hunt for the extra little details. Those details are exactly what makes it great!
I am also a big fan of the DEV community and have spent a lot of time here.
Today, I'm excited to share some unexpected features and tricks that you might not be aware of about this platform.
This is part 2 of the series, so you can check the first part where I have covered more of the important points. Find it here!
This will most probably wrap up the series.
Please comment and let me know which point surprised you the most.
Let's do it!
1. Sloan and DEV series.
There are multiple series on DEV that you might not even know. Some are very good and you can look into it.
There are two of those series.
🎯 Sloan Series.
Sloan is a dev Moderator who posts regularly. You can follow awesome Sloan on dev.to/sloan. Sloan is also active on Twitter and GitHub in case you're wondering :)
Sloan made some cool series, but there's one I really like the most.
Read Best Practices for Writing on DEV Series' Articles which has a lot of awesome tips such as how to create a series, formatting, and even the tone of voice.
You can find all the series created by Sloan on dev.to/sloan/series.
🎯 Dev.to staff's Series.
This collection of series is created by Dev.to staff (which is the DEV team), and they've posted over 1,000 articles in it. You can follow it directly at dev.to/thepracticaldev.
The one that I find the best is 12 Days of DEV 2023 Series' Articles.
It showcases the community's favorites, as determined by a mix of comments, reactions, and page views (with just a very subtle touch of editorial curation).
And while these articles shine as the most popular, it's worth noting that they vary from the DEV team's chosen Weekly Top 7 (though there might be some shared gems).
The first part of the series is.
You can find all the series created by Dev.to staff on dev.to/thepracticaldev/series.
Both series are very good, and we can expect more to be added in the future for sure!
2. DEV Challenges.
You must have seen recent challenges with the tag #frontendchallenge.
DEV Challenges are like mini Hackathons, offering a fun chance for you to gain experience with new tools publicly or to showcase your skills to the community, potential employers, and more.
The best part is that there are rewards which can be a good factor in getting things done appropriately.
You can read about the Official Challenges and Hackathon Rules.
You can find the live challenge, the previous challenges, and everything related at dev.to/challenges.
3. The history of Badges.
We all know about awesome badges that we get on DEV.
You can find the complete list of badges at dev.to/badges. It is updated as soon as something changes, as you can see the most recent ones below.
It is cool to view all the badges but it is cooler to see the history of how those badges evolved.
There is a series by the team DEV Badges Series' Articles.
For instance, they updated the Year Club badges on Sept 14, 2023.
I really need these cool badges :)
4. Different HTML Tags.
I was wondering about the lack of highlighting text on DEV, and I found some awesome stuff.
We have to use HTML tags for different purposes.
Let's take examples along with the syntax.
✅ Mark Styling (default)
You can highlight your text using the mark tag as shown:
Welcome to DEV!
The syntax:
<mark> Welcome to DEV! </mark>
✅ Quote tag
You can use the q tag to Quote anything.
Welcome to DEV!
The syntax:
<q> Welcome to DEV! </q>
✅ Addition/Difference of a line - not related to the tag.
We all use code samples but it is tough to say which lines are added further in the tutorial. This is a good solution to do that.
+ Added this line
- Removed this line
The syntax:
Tyler (@terabytetiger) told me about this in a comment section, so a huge kudos to him!
There might be more HTML tags other than the usual ones that we aren't aware of, please comment if you know any of them, and I'll add it here, giving credit to you.
5. Scheduling the publication.
Did you know that you can automatically schedule the posts so that it is published automatically? I've never used it, but this is a neat option for sure.
You can click on the settings icon beside other options on the lower side.
You can directly schedule the date, and the publish button will change to Schedule.
There are other options like putting a canonical_url, and reverting the recent changes to the last save, and you can even generate a series using that.
6. DEV Showcase.
DEV Showcase is a new directory of great companies, products, and projects that support DEV.
As you know, DEV is built on Forem and the platform needs funds to continue the services.
That is why the DEV team is working with new and existing partners to add more to the Showcase, so check them back soon to see more great tools.
In each of those, you can read more about them, and find their social links, features, tutorials, reviews, and of course latest articles.
You can find all the showcased organizations at dev.to/showcase. Show your support and bring more organizations to sponsor DEV!
7. Developer Guides.
We all know the importance of guides as they provide a roadmap effectively.
But did you know that the DEV team has provided a list of popular guides here?
This is a list of high-quality guides on specific topics gathered for your learning. This list of community tutorials is an experimental directory starting with only CSS, Git, JavaScript, and React.
It will be expanded to cover more overall topics.
They've clearly stated that for a post to be featured here, it must be of high quality and include all relevant keywords in the title and the first paragraph. They aim to maximize readability, even when skimming.
You can see all the guides at dev.to/guides.
For instance, in React State Guides which is part of React Guides there will be a collection of top and trending guides written by the community on subjects related to React State concepts.
Which would be more than 30 awesome articles, so around 500+ top posts in complete guides. What more do you need :)
The best part is that you cannot hack it because it's hand picked by the DEV team so it's top rated and each is worth checking out!
8. You can become a DEV Mod.
DEV is a very large community and open source. So, you can volunteer to be a DEV Moderator.
Who are DEV Mods?
DEV moderators are DEV community members who have either volunteered or been recruited to do things like:
✅ Help organize content so that it’s easy to find.
✅ Facilitate conflict to keep conversations kind & productive.
✅ Lessens the visibility of low-quality posts while also boosting high-quality articles.
There are two main community moderator roles: Trusted Member and Tag Moderator.
The primary thing to note about these roles is that all Tag Moderators are Trusted Members, but not all Trusted Members are Tag Moderators. If you want to know more about these roles, you can read DEV Trusted Member Guide and DEV Tag Moderation Guide.
The process is simple and is authorized by the team. There are no time commitments but these are for people who are active on DEV and would love to be part of the DEV Moderator community.
You can give feedback about the DEV platform (being in the feedback cycle of new features), get comment templates, report spam content, and a lot more as a DEV Mod. I'm also a trusted user, and I don't want to reveal any sensitive information.
You can also read more on how to become a DEV Mod and collaborate with fellow community members.
9. Managing Content.
There are many useful options after you have published your post. Let's see them one by one.
It will be visible on the right side.
✅ Edit is for editing the post and will be visible when the most recent changes are made as shown below.
✅ Stats is for seeing the various kinds of stats.
You will get a Traffic Source Summary where you can know the source of your readers along with Reactions History and more.
You can also access the analytics for your account in the dashboard.
✅ Manage is a surprising one that many of us might not know.
You get a lot of options such as Edit, Delete (never tried), Stats, Lock Discussion, and Pin.
You can set the experience level of the post which I always did as per what I believed. You can try to set the level of the audience, although I'm not sure how it impacts!
Just to let you know, you can only pin 5 posts at a time which will be shown when someone visits your profile.
Any more than that will give an error, and you should pin the posts that you think provide the maximum value. Use it wisely!
I hope you will try and let me know your experience with these in the comments.
10. Reading list.
You can also bookmark any posts on DEV which is a fundamental need where we can find and read those later.
Sometimes, I get overwhelmed due to the saved posts and may not even read them later.
You can find the Reading list after clicking your profile icon on the top right of your DEV profile (make sure you're signed in).
I have a lot of reading posts there 😆. I better start reading them.
You can search, archive posts, and filter them using tags. Use this general syntax if you remember tags to filter:
https://dev.to/readinglist?selectedTag=<yourtag>
I believe they have fetched the option of tags based on the posts on the reading list, so we wouldn't notice any tags with no posts in the reading list. Let me know in the comments if I'm wrong.
11. Meme Monday.
This is a weekly initiative by Ben Halpern (DEV team). Every week, we all share funny yet interesting memes and the most voted one gets on the banner image for the next week's post.
I participate often if I see my dashboard on Monday. The memes are funny, and most are related to code since most of those are developers.
It can also lead to awesome perspectives. You can see the latest Meme Monday post!
This is what I shared in one of the recent ones!
It's a humor with an inclusive space. Definitely participate in the next week, haha!
There are two more that happen every week that is Caption This and Music Monday if you're interested.
12. DEV Help.
This might be the most helpful one out of the above.
They have shared the latest help documentation, tips, and tricks from the DEV Community.
A lot of sections are there, and most of the things are covered.
Each of the sections has resources, links, detailed guidelines, and more to introduce you to structured and digestible content.
You can find it at dev.to/help.
You can read the guide on how to get started on DEV.
You should also check recommended reads from the community which is very helpful to get tips on writing a good post here.
One of the posts that I recommend is from Jean apart from the ones present there on community resources. Must read this!
You can follow the DEV team here! They have published 2200+ posts 🤯
I know I promised 12 but I have a bad habit of adding more.
13. Some Awful Tags on DEV (I disagree)
Have you ever thought How can I make the Internet more ugly and harder to use but you didn't know where to start?
Look no further, the team introduced some new DEV tags to help you accomplish this.
Go here!
If you have prefers-reduced-motion turned on, you may not get to participate in the fun. That is exactly what I needed, haha!
If you wish to save your DEV articles or reading list on GitHub, then I created a solution a while back. You can read Save your articles and reading list from DEV to GitHub - DevtoGitHub or check the GitHub Repo of DevtoGitHub. You need to do it once (5 min process) and it will work daily.
It's absolutely free, and I save my articles using the same solution. It is already completed with v1.1.1 release.
It's simple and efficient. No login or dashboard signup.
I created this post in honor of the DEV community because I have received a lot of advice, friends, and recognition. I even got to meet some amazing people.
You might not know how tough is it to handle such a large community, so a huge thanks to the DEV team!
I never intended to make part 2 which is why I tried to cover most of the important stuff in the first one.
For now, this is the last part but who knows if the DEV team hides more stuff here. I would make part 3 to reveal those!
By the way, I create tech content to help others grow on Twitter and LinkedIn so you can follow me to get daily insights.
See you there!
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