# The topic list doesn't need a category column
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352
**Category:** UX
**Created:** [November 5, 2018, 9:31pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352 "2018-11-05T21:31:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@awesomerobot](https://meta.discourse.org/u/awesomerobot)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2018, 9:31pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352/1 "2018-11-05T21:31:50Z")
The category column is kind of odd… it’s sortable, but why? Are you going to browse all topics in alphabetical category order? What is comparing categories in a separate column doing for anyone?
Why not move them under the topic title?
This is also where we show category names once we’re in a topic:
and it’s where we show them on mobile:
One potential downside for larger screens is that all topics now occupy two lines, instead of sometimes only occupying one (note that tags and assignments already create an additional line anyway)… but we’re also gaining some horizontal space, so it’s also less likely that long titles will have to break to two lines.
Unless there are unforeseen problems with this change, it should be simple enough to include as part of our ongoing [2.2 release](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-version-2-2/95438)
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2018, 9:46pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352/2 "2018-11-05T21:46:55Z")
Having thought about it a _lot_, I am hugely in favor of this change.
Another reason is that if you are doing anything at all with tags, or assignment.. you’re gonna have 2 line topics anyway, even on desktop.
We should fully embrace that 2-line topics direction, and simplify our default layout by removing the mostly redundant dedicated column for category in the process.
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### Author:  [@jomaxro](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jomaxro)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2018, 10:29pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352/3 "2018-11-05T22:29:14Z")
> [@awesomerobot](#):
>
> The category column is kind of odd… it’s sortable, but why? Are you going to browse all topics in alphabetical category order?
I’ve sorted categories at times when doing cleanup, or when looking at a specific tag. For example, here on Meta I’ll sort the #pr-welcome list by category. I’m not against moving the category under the topic title and removing the dedicated column, so long as I can continue to add `?order=category` to a URL and have it sort.
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2018, 2:47am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352/4 "2018-11-06T02:47:41Z")
This was one of the first changes I made with [my theme](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sams-personal-minimal-topic-list-design/23552).
Completely agree with shifting it below topic, it reduces clutter and “sort by category” really makes very little sense even though Josh sometimes uses it 🙂 … I am definitely not against ninja `?order=tag` and `?order=assigned` and `?order=category` but it is totally in the ninja department.
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### Author:  [@charleswalter](https://meta.discourse.org/u/charleswalter)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2018, 3:54am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352/5 "2018-11-06T03:54:51Z")
Certainly helps consolidate things. We made the change early on as well. Makes sense to provide a consistent experience between mobile and desktop. We have many more users on mobile devices these days anyhow.
I think the category under the topic also helps provide context when quickly scanning topics.
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### Author:  [@awesomerobot](https://meta.discourse.org/u/awesomerobot)
#### Post date: [November 8, 2018, 2:12am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352/6 "2018-11-08T02:12:07Z")
Something else to think about: Should we show both the parent and subcategory name now that we’re not confined to a narrow column? At that point we’d be even more consistent with the titles on the topic page…
It’s a bit of a trade-off, this creates more noise on the topic list… but it does make the category/subcategory relationship more apparent.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [November 8, 2018, 2:14am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352/7 "2018-11-08T02:14:52Z")
Possibly, I would phase in the change first before further tweaking.
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### Author:  [@Stephen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Stephen)
#### Post date: [November 8, 2018, 2:18am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352/8 "2018-11-08T02:18:43Z")
> [@awesomerobot](#):
>
> Should we show both the parent and subcategory name now that we’re not confined to a narrow column?
If you can visually indicate their relationship then absolutely. If there’s no inference of parent/child there’s a risk that it will look like it’s in multiple, or that categories are actually tags.
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### Author:  [@jack2](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jack2)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2018, 8:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352/9 "2018-11-17T20:11:14Z")
Removing the category column would have the additional benefit of getting rid of the `colspan=2` of pinned topics. See here:
> [@Disabling categories](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350/6):
>
> I can’t get @lubos’s solution to work with the current Discourse version. The reason is that pinned topics has: no category column, a first column with colspan=2. So when hiding td.category, the resulting table has pinned topic’s rows larger than other rows. I’ve tried to hide the second column with td:nth-child(2), but it has the drawback of hiding pinned topic’s authors (plus maybe it’ll break on mobile). Since 2014, has another solution to disable categories on small forums been implemen…
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2018, 11:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352/10 "2018-11-25T23:00:07Z")
Are we clear to phase this change in later this week? @pmusaraj will we be clear of Font Awesome 5 changes?
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### Author:  [@pmusaraj](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pmusaraj)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2018, 11:21pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352/11 "2018-11-25T23:21:42Z")
Yes, we should be clear of FontAwesome changes sometime this week.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2018, 1:00am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352/12 "2018-12-06T01:00:20Z")
As we are 99% clear on the FA5 change, this change is now live on Meta and in master:
My first reaction is that it feels much “airier” and less like the complaint we sometimes get about being an Excel spreadsheet 😉
[https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-is-intimidating-to-begin-using/14967/4](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-is-intimidating-to-begin-using/14967/4)
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### Author:  [@awesomerobot](https://meta.discourse.org/u/awesomerobot)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2018, 2:00am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352/13 "2018-12-06T02:00:31Z")
I very much like this change 🕶
- Where we are now
- should category names no longer be bold?
- should we fade out categories of visited topics?
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### Author:  [@jerdog](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jerdog)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2018, 2:06am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352/14 "2018-12-06T02:06:00Z")
This would certainly be in line with the action on the topic…
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### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2018, 2:26am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352/15 "2018-12-06T02:26:11Z")
Have we experimented with the various displays of categories yet with this new design, does the box style still fit nicely and not impede the topic title?
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### Author:  [@awesomerobot](https://meta.discourse.org/u/awesomerobot)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2018, 2:33am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352/16 "2018-12-06T02:33:00Z")
It still fits, but the existing box style is definitely more distracting with this layout
It might be worth removing the vertical padding
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### Author:  [@awesomerobot](https://meta.discourse.org/u/awesomerobot)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2018, 2:53am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352/17 "2018-12-06T02:53:27Z")
Also, what if instead of this:
we did this, for maximum 🌈
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2018, 2:56am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352/18 "2018-12-06T02:56:18Z")
I think we should pause on anything other than minor tweaks to let this change get absorbed and tested for a few days:
- don’t change line category style
- slightly dampen box style in topic list (very minor tweak)
- keep categories bold for now
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### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2018, 3:49am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352/19 "2018-12-06T03:49:50Z")
Keep in mind that makes categories look very similar to tags, and I think the distinction between the two is still necessary, but that might be my own bias.
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### Author:  [@zogstrip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/zogstrip)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2018, 10:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352/20 "2018-12-06T10:01:05Z")
I think the fading out will be even more import for dark mode
[Next page](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-topic-list-doesnt-need-a-category-column/101352.md?page=2)