Can I hide a category from the Latest page?

[codinghorror]

We really need to move this to a boolean flag on the category edit preferences, this undiscoverable string magic is not a good long term solution.

[Steve_Barnes]

Hi @sam,

Is there a solution for this yet? I really want to hide a category + the sub-categories. I’ve tried different formats, but nothing seems to work.

This works fine for the parent category:
latest,-marketplace

Ideally, Id like to have it hide sub-categories or at least for this to work:
latest,-marketplace,-Rares Wanted,-Rares For Sale

Is there anyway to have all 3 hidden from the homepage/latest.

(I’m aware of muting but I don’t want all users to have to go in and mute the categories as this makes them less visible elsewhere too.)

Thanks,
Steve

[sam]

There is no way really to do this, I plan to clean up this area in the next few months.

[Steve_Barnes]

Thanks for the reply Sam. It’s a great product you’ve got

[brson]

I also want this feature for Rust’s instance because I want to have both user discussion and developer discussion, while hiding the developer discussion from the main listing.

[codinghorror]

Can you open a meta topic on the Rust discussion describing the difference between these two audiences? They seem radically different to me…

[kmoe]

I’m keen to get this feature implemented too. We’re having problems with one unimportant subcategory dominating the Latest page. I’ve used the latest,-[category] method for now.

[Steve_Barnes]

Any progress on this @sam we have some unhappy users as the latest page is full of irrelevant posts for them. Basically need the parent category to also hide sub-categories when using “-” or be able to do multiple “-” to exclude extra categories from Latest.

Thanks,
Steve

[suanfazu]

See how to hide multi categories here

How to hide topics of multi categories and their all sub-categories from latest page

I read the code and found the it does not support this. So I just wrote some code for this. Demo: suanfazu.com Usage: latest,-category1:category2:subcategory1:subcategory2 Code below (i’m totally new to Ruby, this is my first ruby code): root@suanfazu:/var/www/discourse# git diff diff --git a/app/models/top_menu_item.rb b/app/models/top_menu_item.rb index 302a264…8e8d079 100644 — a/app/models/top_menu_item.rb +++ b/app/models/top_menu_item.rb @@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ class TopMenuItem def in…

[riking]

be able to do multiple “-” to exclude extra categories from Latest.

Yeah, it was pretty surprising to me to see that you can’t do multiple categories with the -, but I was not willing to change any of the Topic Query stuff.

[codinghorror]

we have some unhappy users as the latest page is full of irrelevant posts for them

Should they be on the latest page? Why not default them to the categories page? Or maybe they can just enter on the category page they prefer?

My point is, if someone buys the newspaper for sports, but complains they don’t like the front page… maybe they should be getting Sports Illustrated or Sports Weekly instead of the New York Times?

[Steve_Barnes]

I see what you’re saying, but if you look at my forum - http://forum.tycoonmarket.com/ where would I send them to? …the lounge, news or support. I’d have to specifically choose for them. Then they may miss a post in another important category.

I’d probably send them to the lounge for general chit chat, but wouldn’t want them to miss a news or support update.

Thanks,
Steve

[geek]

I think it is reasonable to want to hide more than one category from the Latest page.

I would like to be able to add an Off Topic category but I wouldn’t want that on the latest page. And since I am already hiding PC Help stuff from the Latest page, I can’t make the other category.

I can think of many scenarios where you wouldn’t want topics from a particular forum category showing up on the latest page.

It’s really about flexibility that is lacking.

[sam]

I am fine to add this, probably for next release.

[danwad]

Is there any way for this to be done per user?

My rough thoughts on this:

• A page like the latest page (or the latest page itself?) which shows all topics ordered by activity in categories that I follow (track?).
• The default followed categories could be set the way they are set for latest now.
• I see that in categories there are options to watch, track and mute but I’m not sure these do what I want?

I haven’t actually used any of the category tracking options before as I can’t picture any immediate benefit from doing it. It’s not that there isn’t a benefit, just as a user I don’t have the desire or creativity to click through to that because any potential usability benefits are not obvious.

[codinghorror]

No, muting has never worked that way. It just suppresses all indicators and notifications on (new) topics in the category as a starting point.

[jaming]

Well, intentional or not @riking is correct. Muted categories do not show up in the latest list. I actually like this behavior, but it isn’t very discoverable since it changes the definition of muting from topics.

[codinghorror]

Yeah that is a good point, an individually muted topic will show, but a category won’t. That is kind of odd.

[limeblast]

If I could weight in with another idea/suggestion.

On my forum I’m using one of the categories as the location of comments for my blog (using @eviltrout’s method). We don’t want the posts for this category to be shown on the latest page, unless they have at least one reply.

If someone goes to the blog, and chooses to post a comment, it’s at that point that the topic becomes relevant to the community as a whole, and so it’s at that point it should be displayed in the latest list, otherwise, it should be hidden.

If something like this could be implemented, that would be awesome.

[internetman]

Does the -Category method still work? Now there are small buttons there and afaik it doesnt react to the dash in there