Categories Tracking Toggle

[Discourse]

	Summary	Categories Tracking Toggle places a toggle button on each category on the categories page.
	Repository Link	https://github.com/discourse/discourse-categories-tracking-toggle
	New to Discourse Themes?	Beginner’s guide to using Discourse Themes

Install this theme component

As this is an official theme component maintained by the Discourse team, support, bug, ux, and feature requests can be made in the respective categories here on Meta, and tagged with the appropriate theme component tag. Click on a link below to get one started.

 Support  Bug  UX  Feature

Note that it does not work on the “box” style category pages, which do not yet support a section for muted categories.

Features

Categories Tracking Toggle places a toggle button on each category on the categories page, which allows users to quickly toggle between “mute” and “normal” tracking states. It is particularly useful for sites that use the mute all categories by default site setting.

Settings

The component comes with settings to change the tracking levels used, the icons, subcategory behavior, and text shown on hover.

Name	Description
tracking level	0: Muted, 1: Normal, 3: Watching first post, 4: Tracking, 5: Watching
tracking icon	FontAwesome icon name…
mute level	0: Muted, 1: Normal, 3: Watching first post, 4: Tracking, 5: Watching
mute icon
include subcategories	When disabled, only the parent category will have its tracking state changed

Theme Translation	Default
custom_toggle.toggle_tracking	Currently muted, select to track
custom_toggle.toggle_mute	Currently tracking, select to mute

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Last edited by @JammyDodger 2024-06-11T08:49:03Z

Check document

Perform check on document:

[jrgong]

Awesome!

Is it also gonna work on latest stable or on test-passed only?

We had some requests from long time members how to mute certain categories which are for example made for beginners. They weren’t aware of the bell feature.

[awesomerobot (Kris)]

@jrgong

Is it also gonna work on latest stable or on test-passed only?

I haven’t tested it on stable, but I’m not aware of anything that would prevent it from working there.

[tpetrov (Toni Petrov)]

Thanks for the component, @awesomerobot
If I select 5 under mute level and change the mute icon to a relevant one will that work to toggle between normal and watched?

[awesomerobot (Kris)]

Yes, that should work! let me know if you run into any issues.

[Jagster (Jakke Lehtonen)]

Layout is a bit off and the bell is at wrong place:

• iPad and DiscourseHub
• Air theme

[awesomerobot (Kris)]

Yes, this is somewhat expected. This component basically adds the functionality, but may need additional CSS to fit into the layout properly with other themes and components.

[Jagster (Jakke Lehtonen)]

Good to know. Basically it is not ready-to-use component.

You know better how things are under Discourse - do I have to tune up every theme or is just common adjustment enough?

[awesomerobot (Kris)]

It’s highly dependent on the theme, so I can’t really say for sure!

The component works with the default unthemed category page styles by default, so I guess themes that have changed positioning on the categories page could need some adjustment.

[Jonathan5]

This sounds good, though I can’t see it in the preview.

Are there plans to allow all five watching/tracking levels to be chosen via the categories page? That would implement the idea proposed by @alehandrof here:

Make watching a category more prominent for users

I’m interested in making watching categories a more prominent option for users. I realize I can style the notification button on a category, but it would remain just a small, somewhat obscure icon. I haven’t been able to figure out how to make a more obvious target. Is it possible to add a notification button for each category on the /categories page? That would also serve as an overview of what the user is tracking. Finally, is it possible to make a user watch the first post of a categ…

Make watching a category more prominent for users

Looking at this again… “Preferences - categories” has this overview, but lets you add categories to the five possible notification statuses. Essentially what we are thinking of would be the same thing, but the other way round, letting you add notification statuses to the list of categories. I think that might be more intuitive,

[alehandrof (Alex Armstrong)]

@Jonathan5: To see the theme in preview you have to navigate to yoursite.com/categories?preview_theme_id=xx (whatever xx is for you – I think it changes).

@awesomerobot: On my site, the bell overlaps the “unread” indicator:

Is there any chance to support other states, apart from just toggling on/off?

Also, when I press on mute right now, the category disappears with no indication of how to get it back from the same page. That doesn’t like ideal UX.

Edit #1: Regarding my last point: the categories only disappear if the user had no muted categories when the page first loaded. If the user did, there’s a “Muted categories” section at the bottom of the page, listing all muted categories. But if the user did not, that section is not available and any newly muted categories just disappear.

Edit #2: It looks like trying to switch between normal/watching (as opposed to the default mute/normal) doesn’t work. The component still mutes categories.

[hoangphuctran93 (Hoàng Phúc Trần)]

I recently used your theme along with “Modern Category + Group boxes” theme the toggle was gone. Can you check and adjust accordingly?

[awesomerobot (Kris)]

“Modern Category + Group boxes” uses a box style categories page layout, which is incompatible with this component

@awesomerobot

Note that it does not work on the “box” style category pages, which do not yet support a section for muted categories.

[Sahnvour]

Hello, this component looks really cool but it has a few issues unfortunately (3.2.0.beta4-dev).

Sometimes the icon will overlap the following category, if its height is small.
It will also render on top of the “x unread”, “y new” text notifying of new posts or subjects.

Image upload is not working so I can’t give screenshots, sorry.