Dismiss Admin Noise!

:information_source: Summary Automatically dismisses various user menu notifications for admins
:hammer_and_wrench: Repository https://github.com/Lillinator/dismiss-admin-noise
:question: Install Guide How to install a theme or theme component

Install this theme component

:woman_technologist:t2: Overview

A lightweight Discourse theme component that automatically dismisses (hides) specific system notifications in the user menu for admins.

This component is designed to reduce UI noise and cognitive load—especially helpful for neurodivergent admins (like me), or those who update their instances frequently and track changes via Meta (like me), or just YOLO admins who live on the edge in their development forums! (also like me) :grin:

:gear: Settings

The following notifications can be automatically dismissed in the component admin settings:

Setting Description
No new features notifications Hide notifications for new features
No invitee accepted notifications Hide notifications for invitees accepted
No membership accepted notifications Hide notifications for group membership accepted (note: does not affect consolidation of membership notifications)
No granted badge notifications Hide notifications for granted badges
No upcoming change promoted notifications Hide notifications for upcoming changes automatically promoted
Screenshot of settings

:light_bulb: Notes

  • Only admin users are affected; for example non-admins will still get notified of their granted badges or accepted invites regardless of the settings enabled in this component.

  • If all of the component’s setting are enabled, one can end up with an empty other notifications tab or all notifications tab depending on how busy their forum notifications are.

  • Admin notifications for upcoming changes can now be automatically dismissed with a setting in user preferences -> notifications.

  • I am not responsible if this component somehow makes you miss an important notification!


Check out my other Discourse stuff
8 Likes

Maybe this is it lol. Diagnosed ADHD here. I wish I took a screenshot a few mins ago but woke up to ~ 30 accepted invites and could only see the last 15 in the notification box (would prefer not to have to visit /u/hydn/notifications just because invites take up all the dropdown slots). At the very least, it’s been off-putting that there was no built-in way to manage that.

Thanks!

2 Likes

btw, if a person wants to test this component’s settings without having to do the actual actions that trigger these notifications (and you have ssh access), you can use these commands in the rails console to trigger those respective event notifications (use the triggers applicable to your component’s settings):

cd /var/discourse
.launcher enter app
rails c
# find and set your user variable
u = User.find_by_username("YOUR ADMIN USERNAME")

# trigger: new features
Notification.create!(
  user: u,
  notification_type: Notification.types[:new_features],
  read: false,
  data: {}.to_json
)

# trigger: invitee accepted
Notification.create!(
  user: u,
  notification_type: Notification.types[:invitee_accepted],
  read: false,
  data: { display_username: "awesome_new_user" }.to_json
)

# trigger: group membership accepted
Notification.create!(
  user: u,
  notification_type: Notification.types[:membership_request_accepted],
  read: false,
  data: { group_name: "Trust_Level_4" }.to_json
)

# trigger: granted badge
Notification.create!(
  user: u,
  notification_type: Notification.types[:granted_badge],
  read: false,
  data: { badge_name: "Great Topic", badge_id: 10 }.to_json
)

# trigger: upcoming change promoted
Notification.create!(
  user: u,
  notification_type: Notification.types[:upcoming_change_automatically_promoted],
  read: false,
  data: { 
    upcoming_change_humanized_name: "Experimental CSS",
    upcoming_change_name: "experimental_css"
  }.to_json
)

# broadcast (Watch your browser in another window or tab when you hit enter!)
u.publish_notifications_state

best way to test is to disable the setting in the component you want to test and run the related rails trigger command, see the notification pop up, then enable the setting and do a hard refresh to see them disappear.