The discussion revolves around decoupling the default home page and the /categories page. Tara_Walton suggests that the default home page and categories page should be separate, allowing the admin to set the default home page as “Categories with Top/Latest Topics” while still providing a “Categories only” option.
Tara_Walton clarifies her idea, proposing a “Default Home Page” setting that includes options like “Default” (with customizable settings, such as category with feature/latest/top topics) and “Category Page Style” settings (with options for just category views). This would allow the categories page to only show categories, without the noise of topics listed.
In contrast, sam suggests expanding the existing dropdown options to include “Categories+Latest” and “Categories (only)”, but notes that this could become complicated and wonders how many variants should be allowed for end users to pick.
When I see the option to look at categories, I expect to just see categories (and however that site has those set - box, list, etc), but that doesn’t mean that a majority of users or the admin doesn’t want the default landing page to be Categories with Top/Latest Topics.
The options across the top of the homepage (Latest, Top, Unread, Categories, etc) would then act like filters and sorts showing just the information suggested by the title (making categories into categories only) while the homepage could be the combo as defined or set by the admin.
If the homepage is one of the non-combo options, then it would show as the selected option.
This would pair well for individual users who have overridden the Default Home Page setting in their preferences.
Sorry for not explaining well.
In my mind, I see the setting of Default Home Page being set on an setting available for the site.
It would include something like the list you see as a user, but also whatever the admin has set.. let’s call it “Default”.