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 not…

[image] alehandrof: you can sign up to be notified of future events and discussions on this topic: LINK I’d find this useful too. The email notifications have links to an action page (for want of a better word) - unsubscribe from the topic etc. Something like that but for category watching wo…

[image] alehandrof: you can sign up to be notified of future events and discussions on this topic: LINK The problem I see with that is that it would probably turn into a CSRF attack vector (someone could post a link somewhere that executes some action in discourse, and anyone who clicked woul…

[image] lucasbasquerotto: anyone who clicked would have that action applied to their account I can see the potential problem here. Would a “splash screen” (again I don’t know the right word) help? Like when you click on the email notification link it doesn’t automatically do anything - it get…

That’s a possible solution, like what happens for unsubscribing from emails.

[image] alehandrof: 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. That could be good. I bet lots of people never even look at a category page (looking only at categories/latest, and ind…

I’d be perfectly happy with a link that takes users to the forum where a dialog asks something like this : Do you want to watch the first post for CATEGORY? You will be notified of new topics in this category but not replies to the topics. Yes / No [buttons] Edit: and it looks like the API alr…

[image] alehandrof: 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. Looking at this again… “Preferences - categories” has this overview, but lets you add categories to the five possible n…

It’s two years later and I’m still interested in everything I mentioned in my OP. I haven’t seen any movement on any of those features. Have I missed anything – perhaps a plugin or theme component?

A few weeks after you started this topic the Categories Tracking Toggle theme-component was published. But you participated there, so it is nothing new.

Make watching a category more prominent for users

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pacharanero (Marcus Baw) January 30, 2026, 1:36pm 11

I have recently created a TC which allows Staff to create a “Watch This Category” button, in any post. I’m using this in my Discourses to make Watching more discoverable for the less-techy users.

Topic		Replies	Views
Notification setting button with context UX	5	994	January 30, 2026
Discourse Watch Category Button Theme component	0	96	January 29, 2026
Change notification level with a link Feature notifications	11	2506	January 29, 2026
API for Category based notification level update Development	9	2382	October 30, 2017
Make members of a group watch a category by default Feature completed	88	25449	April 21, 2022

Make watching a category more prominent for users

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