Composer does not display category, tag and title when fullscreen and new topic

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AI-generated summary

Users report a UX issue where the Composer hides category, tag, and title fields when entering fullscreen mode for new topics or edits. tkforbes notes that this forces users to exit fullscreen to fill these fields, requiring two clicks on “Create Topic” and disrupting the natural workflow. While MDNJ confirms seeing this behavior with the composer redesign, they observe that mobile fullscreen still displays the category dropdown, unlike desktop.

awesomerobot explains that hiding these fields was intentional to create a focused writing environment, referencing previous discussions. However, they suggest reconsidering this approach during the current composer redesign. MDNJ proposes a solution involving a toggle between “Writing” and “Settings” modes on mobile to manage space, while arguing that desktop fullscreen should simply display all options to maintain consistency.

1

When composing a new topic, the composer only occupies part of the screen and all the regular boxes are displayed.

When I switch to fullscreen mode (where there is even more space to work on the composition), the category, tag and title boxes disappear.

If I enter the text of my topic body and hit “Create Topic”, the composer returns to partial screen mode where I can again enter category, tag and title. However, the behaviour is confusing if the author is trained to fill those boxes before attempting to publish their topic to the forum, and it requires that the Create Topic button be hit twice.

In Reply mode, the behaviour is fine and does not conflict with the natural flow.

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2

I have noticed the same thing.

*I’m using the composer redesign Upcoming change.

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3

If the author edits their topic post (say a few minutes after initial publication), the same thing happens in full screen mode.

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4

I believe this was intentional as an effort to make fullscreen a more focused writing mode (has come up before Fullscreen view of creating a new topic looks buggy - Is that intentional?) but maybe this is something we can reconsider with our composer redesign work, any thoughts one way or the other @chapoi?

5

That is a good point on maximizing space on mobile. But it actually shows a category dropdown on mobile, while the fullscreen view on desktop shows nothing at all.

Maybe on mobile a single toggle can switch between Writing and Settings: with an overview of all possible options including category, tags, enabling voting, whisper, visibility, timers etc. That would free up even more space, simplify, and add more features all in one go.

Fullscreen desktop mode should just show all of them options i guess.

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