Clicking Activity button while creating a topic: you'll think it was broken

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In a UX discussion titled ‘Clicking Activity button while creating a topic: you’ll think it was broken,’ jidanni reports that on desktop, when users create a new topic and click ‘Activity’ (or ‘Summary’), nothing visibly happens — the composer obscures the content, and users must manually pull down a hidden bar to see updates, which is unintuitive. The menu also vanishes after clicking, forcing users to reopen it to retry. Additionally, once pulled down, the bar stays down, affecting future navigation. jidanni humorously suggests a ‘genie’ to guide users. JammyDodger questions the issue, noting that if users manually expand the composer to full screen, it’s logical it would hide underlying content — suggesting alternatives like limiting resize height, but acknowledging this may hinder more users. darkpixlz proposes mimicking mobile behavior: a full-screen toggle that hides the top bar and other UI elements, reverting to normal size when exited or disabled — offering a cleaner, more predictable experience. The core problem is discoverability and feedback: users don’t realize content is hidden or how to reveal it, leading to confusion and perceived broken functionality. No definitive solution is agreed upon, but the need for clearer visual cues or a more intuitive toggle mechanism is evident.

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Today on Desktop,
user has started Creating a new Topic.
But then he wants to check that thing he did just the other day.
He clicks Activity.
Nothing happens.
Actually he has to keep his eyes on the thin white area above the blue line,
and notice that maybe some cut off words in it have changed.
And then he needs to pull down the blue bar using the white handle in the middle.
But usually he doesn’t notice anything has happened, no matter how many times he click the Activity button.

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And in fact same problem with Summary, etc.
Even worse, after you click them the menu vanishes, so to try again you need to open the menu all over again.

And when you pull down the bar it stays pulled down influencing future site behavior until you pull it back up.

But I actually don’t know how to make a better design.

Perhaps have a little genie that pops up and says “Hey grandpa, look under here!”

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I’m not sure about this one. :thinking: If someone has manually resized their composer to fill the screen it seems logical that it would then obscure the screen, and need reducing or collapsing to see the content underneath.

What would the alternatives be? Perhaps a limit on how tall you can resize (though that seems like it will limit more people than it will help). I’m not sure what else.

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Maybe something like mobile view? There’s a full screen button, when you click the button it’ll hide the topbar and everything, posting, clicking off, or disabling it will shrink it to normal size.

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