# Redesigning the default category page
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783
**Category:** UX
**Created:** [4 Luglio 2016, 1:11am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783 "2016-07-04T01:11:06Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [31 Agosto 2016, 8:19pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783/85 "2016-08-31T20:19:05Z")
That is s regression, we will get it fixed
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### Author:  [@sjmscott](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sjmscott)
#### Post date: [31 Agosto 2016, 11:37pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783/86 "2016-08-31T23:37:45Z")
I love the new 50/50 view. I think it is a huge improvement. Thank you!
It seems as if the latest column shows the person who started the thread. Is it possible to display the top 5 users like the latest view?
Here is a visualization:
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [31 Agosto 2016, 11:39pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783/87 "2016-08-31T23:39:48Z")
Not planned; we re-used the mobile layout there.
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### Author:  [@sjmscott](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sjmscott)
#### Post date: [31 Agosto 2016, 11:44pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783/88 "2016-08-31T23:44:44Z")
Thanks for the quick reply. I like the current look-- I’m just thinking that it could be helpful to display more than just the first first person who posted. I understand these “minor” changes take a huge amount of time so I’ll just leave it at that and say thanks for the big update!
EDIT: Is there a setting that I’m not seeing? On my site the latest user isn’t displayed. . . just the first poster. I’d be good with that.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [1 Settembre 2016, 12:12am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783/89 "2016-09-01T00:12:51Z")
You will need to update via `/admin/upgrade` to see the latest 1.7 beta changes.
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### Author:  [@scombs](https://meta.discourse.org/u/scombs)
#### Post date: [1 Settembre 2016, 1:04am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783/90 "2016-09-01T01:04:15Z")
I defintely would prefer this option
> [@tobiaseigen](#):
>
> Is there a way to display the traditional latest view as homepage on mobile, and the new categories/latest view on desktop?
I really like the new **categories/latest view** but not willing to give up the traditional **latest view** as the default because of the impact to mobile users.
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [1 Settembre 2016, 1:11am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783/91 "2016-09-01T01:11:48Z")
The more time passes the more it becomes apparent this view is very much a user preference.
When I go to a Discourse site, any Discourse site, all I want to see is the `latest` page, if I really need to orientate myself I will either use the hamburger or dip into the categories page for a moment. But as a landing page “categories” just does not work for me.
If we can wrangle a way to have some user control here I would be more open to opening the door for more obscure site defaults like (latest on mobile and categories on desktop), but would prefer to wait on that till we have some way of allowing user control.
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### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [1 Settembre 2016, 1:36am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783/92 "2016-09-01T01:36:53Z")
For me, when I go to a new forum I like to go to Categories to see “what do they have” but after that I’m more interested in Latest to see “what is being discussed”
I like how the “been away for a while, redirect to Top” works.
Might it be possible to have a “new, redirect to Categories” type of thing if that might work?
I usually simply add Latest to my browser bookmarks and open from there, but apparently not all members use their browsers bookmarks.
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### Author:  [@tobiaseigen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tobiaseigen)
#### Post date: [1 Settembre 2016, 3:21am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783/93 "2016-09-01T03:21:45Z")
> [@sam](#):
>
> That is s regression, we will get it fixed
Can you clarify what you’re replying to here?
> [@sam](#):
>
> If we can wrangle a way to have some user control here I would be more open to opening the door for more obscure site defaults like (latest on mobile and categories on desktop), but would prefer to wait on that till we have some way of allowing user control.
I’d love this! 😻 On all the discourse sites I use it would be a big help to me personally, and it would help out the people in my community (small in number but influential!) who really prefer a category frontpage.
But really my main concern now is that with the new categories/latest landing page the mobile frontpage is boring bordering on useless. If I had to choose between categories and latest, I’d always choose latest - and on mobile there isn’t enough space to display both side by side.
Currently the mobile view seems broken - I would have thought it would show categories first and then latest. Right now it just shows a very spartan view of categories and no topics.
> [@Steven](#):
>
> You can cancel the display none for the description on mobile
This helps - thanks! Now at least the categories displayed are no longer hanging out there without any explanation.
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [1 Settembre 2016, 6:00am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783/94 "2016-09-01T06:00:49Z")
> [@tobiaseigen](#):
>
> Can you clarify what you’re replying to here?
To this 😉
[https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/1d7df97c30739385a7a481e6ffe871c5fe529a8f](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/1d7df97c30739385a7a481e6ffe871c5fe529a8f)
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### Author:  [@sjmscott](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sjmscott)
#### Post date: [1 Settembre 2016, 5:13pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783/95 "2016-09-01T17:13:51Z")
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> You will need to update via /admin/upgrade to see the latest 1.7 beta changes.
I am on 1.7 beta. My category page only shows the person who started the thread. It doesn’t show the latest user. Is that a setting or should I re-build?
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### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [1 Settembre 2016, 5:42pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783/96 "2016-09-01T17:42:06Z")
If you visit /admin/upgrade you will likely see you can pull in the changes that correct that behavior.
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### Author:  [@sjmscott](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sjmscott)
#### Post date: [1 Settembre 2016, 5:55pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783/97 "2016-09-01T17:55:09Z")
From what I can tell, I’m up to date. The category page only shows the original poster, not the latest.
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### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [1 Settembre 2016, 5:56pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783/98 "2016-09-01T17:56:00Z")
Visit /admin/upgrade, there are commits in master that you do not have, that fix the issue.
Or click that blue link to see the commits that have been made since you last upgraded.
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### Author:  [@sjmscott](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sjmscott)
#### Post date: [1 Settembre 2016, 5:57pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783/99 "2016-09-01T17:57:55Z")
Oh thanks, I’ve never done that before. I’m guessing that if I wait those changes will appear in a future release–i.e. when Discourse asks me to update. Thanks.
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### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [1 Settembre 2016, 5:58pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783/100 "2016-09-01T17:58:31Z")
> [@sjmscott](#):
>
> Oh thanks, I’ve never done that before. I’m guessing that if I wait those changes will appear in a future release–i.e. when Discourse asks me to update. Thanks.
Yes, they will. Probably when they release a new beta version. But if there are updates you want prior to that, you can always manually visit /admin/upgrade
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### Author:  [@Blitz](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Blitz)
#### Post date: [2 Settembre 2016, 6:13pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783/101 "2016-09-02T18:13:29Z")
The default category view of NodeBB seems pretty decent. Is there a way to adopt it here?
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### Author:  [@sujato](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sujato)
#### Post date: [3 Settembre 2016, 2:08am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783/102 "2016-09-03T02:08:04Z")
I’d like to adopt this view for my forum, but I think the design issues are not yet sorted out sufficiently. As some previous posters have mentioned, the page as-is doesn’t clearly distinguish between the two columns. There’s no clear hierarchy, no visual style to help the eye to organize the different information. I would suggest that the two columns need to be more distinguished. (This is, incidentally, the case in the original example of Battlenet posted by @sam, but I think it has been lost along the way.)
But this shouldn’t happen arbitrarily, it should stem from the different nature of the columns. Which, i’d say, is this: the categories are (relatively) permanent, while the latest topics are (relatively) transient. But how do we represent this visually? The basic idea would be to make the categories less “data-ish”, less “of the moment”, and more like a stable architecture. The latest topics, by contrast, should be more like something that just happens to be there for the time being.
Obviously there are many ways of achieving this, but here is one approach.
So what I’ve done is this;
1. Get rid of horizontal lines in the left column, use white space instead.
2. Get rid of post number data, etc., from the left column: it should represent what’s stable about the site.
3. Reduce font size of “latest” column to match the secondary text in the left column (less confusing hierarchy)
4. Reduce avatar size to match.
5. ~~Add box shadow to latest topics, so that they sit “on” the page, in contrast with the categories column, which sits “in” the page. (yes, this is basically just a material design approach.)~~ I decided I didn’t like this detail, as it doesn’t really work with the overall Discourse design. I think it’s unnecessary, the design still works without it. But anyway, someone might like it, so i just comment it out below.
Here’s the CSS:
```
img.avatar {
width: 30px;
height: 30px;
}
.topic-list .main-link a.title {
font-size: 14px;
}
th.topics {
display: none
}
th.category {
visibility: hidden;
}
.category-list .topics {
visibility: hidden;
}
.category-list tbody tr {
border-bottom: 30px solid #fff;
}
.category-list tbody tr:first-of-type {
border-top: 3px solid #fff;
}
/* .categories-and-latest .topic-list-latest {
border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05);
box-shadow: 0 1px 6px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.12), 0 1px 8px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.24);
}*/
```
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### Author:  [@alehandrof](https://meta.discourse.org/u/alehandrof)
#### Post date: [10 Settembre 2016, 1:30pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783/103 "2016-09-10T13:30:27Z")
I like the new hybrid categories/latest design and switched to it for our homepage. One of my mods pointed out that it does not automatically update, as does the plain Latest page, when new topics/posts are created.
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### Author:  [@sjmscott](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sjmscott)
#### Post date: [10 Settembre 2016, 1:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783/104 "2016-09-10T13:53:46Z")
It sounds like It function as expected in the next release.
> [@Redesigning the default category page](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redesigning-the-default-category-page/46783/100):
>
> Yes, they will. Probably when they release a new beta version. But if there are updates you want prior to that, you can always manually visit /admin/upgrade
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