Should the category-selector stick to its current category selection when you move between “Latest” “New”, “Unread” and “Top”? I maintain that this would make for a more consistent browsing experience.
How it currently works is:
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If I’m on https://meta.discourse.org/ (i.e. Discourse Meta - The Official Support Forum for Discourse) and select the Howto category from the dropdown, I’m sent to howto - Discourse Meta (i.e. howto - Discourse Meta)
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If I’m on feature - Discourse Meta and select the Howto category from the dropdown, I’m sent to howto - Discourse Meta (i.e. howto - Discourse Meta)
One might say this makes sense when “Latest” is the default view, so the Category selector is essentially a “Jump to…” selector, not a filter for whichever view you’re on. But this behaviour is unique to Latest. Even if your landing page is set to Top, switching categories will bring you back to the Latest of whichever category you switch to, instead of switching you to the designated landing page of that category.
The example above looks as follows with Top as the default landing page:
- If I’m on https://meta.discourse.org/ (i.e. Discourse Meta) and select the Howto category from the dropdown, I’m sent to howto - Discourse Meta (i.e. howto - Discourse Meta)
This seems to be hardcoded:
https://meta.discourse.org/c/{category}/ == https://meta.discourse.org/c/{category}/l/latest
I’m suggesting Latest/New/Unread/Top should act as filters
More permanence in the top menu selection would ensure more consistent behaviour across different site settings. If I’m browsing a Top list, be it for the entire site or a specific category, let me continue to browse Top content until I explicitly select a different view, i.e. Latest, New or Unread.
In other words:
- Switching view modes (Latest, Top, Unread, New) should not affect current category selection.
- Switching categories (feature, dev, meta etc.) should not affect current view mode.
Related: