New-topic links with category selected navigate to that category page

simonk · August 7, 2026, 2:36pm

Continuing the discussion from Creating a link to start a new topic with pre-filled information:

I’m not sure if this is a bug or a feature, but if the new-topic link includes a category or category_id parameter, clicking the link takes you to that category before opening the composer. For example, clicking this link takes you to the Support category before opening the composer:

https://meta.discourse.org/new-topic?title=topic%20title&category=Support

I would prefer that Discourse did not navigate away from the current page. Is there any way to achieve that?

simonk · August 7, 2026, 2:49pm

This change aborts the navigation if the user was already on Discourse:

github.com/discourse/discourse

FIX: Abort transition when `transition.from` present on new-topic route (#22253)

committed 12:03AM - 27 Jun 23 UTC

tgxworld

+49 -25

Why is this change required? The `/new-topic` route is a special route which …we use to open the composer by loading a URL. By default, the `new-topic` route is replaced with the `discovery.latest` route. On a fresh page load, this makes sense since there is no template for the `new-topic` route to render. However, this behavior does not make sense if we're transition from another route. There is no need to replace the current route with the `discovery.latest` when all we want is to open the composer. What does this commit do? This commit fixes the undesirable behaviour described above by aborting the existing transition to the `new-topic` route if `transition.from` is present. This indicates that we're navigating from an existing route and we can just open the composer.

The code has changed since then and now looks like this:

github.com/discourse/discourse

frontend/discourse/app/routes/new-topic.js

main


      
          
          async beforeModel(transition) {
            if (!this.currentUser) {
              transition.send("showLogin");
              return;
            }
          
            const { queryParams: params } = transition.to;
            const category = await this.#loadCategoryFromTransition(params);
          
            if (category) {
              // Using URL-based transition to avoid bug with dynamic segments and refreshModel query params
              // https://github.com/emberjs/ember.js/issues/16992
              this.router
                .replaceWith(`/c/${category.id}`)
                .followRedirects()
                .then(() => {
                  if (this.currentUser.can_create_topic) {
                    this.#openComposer(params, category);
                  }
                });

The if (category) { block runs before the block that checks whether the user was already on discourse, so the navigation proceeds. This feels like the wrong order to me.

Topic		Replies	Views
Link that pre-populates the composer? Feature	2	2042	May 14, 2015
Link to New Topic? Support	1	1466	January 24, 2018
Create a link that will open the editor with a specific category and a specific tag Support	1	634	April 2, 2023
URL to filter by category and create a new topic Feature	6	1254	July 20, 2018
Is there any link to open composer (for hyperlink)? Support	4	1279	June 18, 2019

New-topic links with category selected navigate to that category page

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