How to ask so you get an answer

This category has solution marking enabled: when a reply answers your question, mark it, and the next person with the same problem finds it in one step instead of five.

A question that gets answered quickly usually contains:

  1. What you did — the exact command or the exact sequence of clicks.
  2. What happened — the actual output or error, pasted, not summarised.
  3. What you expected instead.
  4. Which build — version and, if you have it, the commit. The About screen shows both.

What slows an answer down: “it does not work”, screenshots of text, and conclusions offered in place of observations. If you already know the cause, say so — but say what you saw as well.

Before asking, Known Limitations is worth a minute. A fair share of questions turn out to be things we already know are unfinished, and that page says so plainly.