The discussion revolves around the Compose Center theme component for Discourse, developed by Don. This component centralizes composing options—such as new topics, messages, drafts, and pending posts—into a single modal, replacing the default “New Topic” button. It’s designed to work with the Default theme and is particularly effective in three-column layouts. The component is hosted on GitHub and can be installed via the Discourse theme system. Users like Lilly and Monikas have tested it, with feedback on usability and customization. Don has addressed several issues, including color styling, chat dependency, and translation errors, with updates and fixes shared via pull requests. The component has been improved to support multiple drafts and ensure compatibility with recent Discourse updates. Don has also added a create-topic ID to align button styling with the theme, and the component now functions even when chat is disabled. Lilly and Jagster contributed fixes, with Lilly submitting a PR for a recent error. Monikas requested color customization, which was implemented. The component continues to evolve with user input and bug fixes.
Compose Center is a place for all type of composing options. The idea was a place where you can easily handle your composing content.
Like:
New Topic
New Message
New Chat Message
Drafts
Pending Posts
I don’t want to hack the original layout and design so this made for the Default theme. Originally it can work pretty cool with a three column theme right sidebar. So it replaces the default + New Topic button with a Compose button. The content opens in DMenu and show a banner, profile avatar, user status, new topic/open draft, message, chat buttons, drafts and pending posts.
Quick buttons and links:
on banner My Drafts button: link to drafts
on banner pencil icon (edit): link to preferences/profile
on avatar (hover) pencil icon (edit): link to preferences/account
user status: opens user status modal
new topic/open draft button: opens topic composer
message button: opens pm composer
chat buttons: opens new chat message modal
The banner background is the blurred profile avatar if the user card background hasn’t setted up.
No, sorry I mean I integrate that component functionality in the DMenu. So the New Topic button code you see in DMenu is mostly coming from the New Topic Header Button theme component.
Hah, after I posted, I was wondering if I was just misunderstanding the OP. Thank you for clarifying. (And when I think about it, I’d prefer to not have it in the header anyways.)
I really like that composer modal and would like to be able to open it from the sidebar, but one can create a custom section to do the same things.
I think this is an issue with user status in core. I have already a topic about it here: User status stops working for admins but I have to investigate it more… If you navigate to a topic or somewhere then it will appear again. So this issue is not related with this theme component.
I’ve merged an update to handle instances where chat is disabled. So now chat is not required to use this component. Because of this I’ve changed the OP and added a Theme Creator link too.
Credit: I’ve integrated the New Topic Header Button theme component in it. This is inspired by Central theme
Because of this I’ve changed the OP and added a Theme Creator link too.
I’ve merged it!