The context for this request:
Indeed every customization I did for Discourse involved a custom homepage layout. The route choices for such a homepage are rather limited:
- the categories page
- the global latest list
- the global top list
The most common option in my experience was choosing the categories route and including the category overview on the homepage. With the sidebar as the new navigation menu, this choice became less attractive: It makes the “All categories” link direct to a homepage and operate differently than for example the “All tags” link right below. It could also require renaming that link or hiding it from it’s default location, as well adding inconsistency to the menu.
Additionally, communities now often prefer a very custom landing page. More of a community intro or a community hub experience. Choosing one of the list pages is not a good fit to build such a page.
I think it’s not that complicated adding a custom blank route as a plugin. But that could only be used on CDCK’s enterprise plan. Wouldn’t it be a helpful approach for customization to offer an optional blank route on the top menu?
So that route can be customized just using theme components and the homepage placeholder route.