# Sticky category selection

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/sticky-category-selection/39933
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [February 21, 2016, 6:02pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sticky-category-selection/39933 "2016-02-21T18:02:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![erlend\_sh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/erlend_sh/32/119475_2.png) [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2016, 6:02pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sticky-category-selection/39933/1 "2016-02-21T18:02:19Z")

</div>

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:

- If I’m on [https://meta.discourse.org/](https://meta.discourse.org/) (i.e. [Discourse Meta](https://meta.discourse.org/latest)) and select the Howto category from the dropdown, I’m sent to [https://meta.discourse.org/c/howto/](https://meta.discourse.org/c/howto/) (i.e. [https://meta.discourse.org/c/howto/l/latest](https://meta.discourse.org/c/howto/l/latest))

- If I’m on [https://meta.discourse.org/c/feature/l/top](https://meta.discourse.org/c/feature/l/top) and select the Howto category from the dropdown, I’m sent to [https://meta.discourse.org/c/howto/](https://meta.discourse.org/c/howto/) (i.e. [https://meta.discourse.org/c/howto/l/latest](https://meta.discourse.org/c/howto/l/latest))

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/](https://meta.discourse.org/) (i.e. [Discourse Meta](https://meta.discourse.org/top)) and select the Howto category from the dropdown, **I’m sent to [https://meta.discourse.org/c/howto/](https://meta.discourse.org/c/howto/) (i.e. [https://meta.discourse.org/c/howto/l/latest](https://meta.discourse.org/c/howto/l/latest))**

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:

> [@Filter topic with specific tag inside single category](https://meta.discourse.org/t/filter-topic-with-specific-tag-inside-single-category/21916):
>
> Running with the ideas discussed in [Category Conundrums Two Deep](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-conundrums-two-deep/21905), I’d like to take another stab at [filters](https://meta.discourse.org/t/adding-a-filter-button-to-index-page/8483), but mainly to do with the Tagger plugin this time. In short, I want users to have the ability to use Tags for topic-sorting in combination with Categories, not as an alternative to it. How it currently works: Here I am already in the CSS category, browsing available tags. But what happens when I try to drill further down by clicking the “css3” tag? The Category tab is reset to …