Topic list tabs for user-customizeable saved filters

[erlend_sh (Erlend Sogge Heggen)]

Has anyone explored the idea of having a persistent sidebar on the left for category navigation?

Yes, but only in mock ups:

Proposing a left-aligned slide out hamburger menu

Continuing the discussion from Full height, slide out hamburger menu: Here, I will make my argument in support of the left-aligned hamburger menu convention, combined with a reworking of Discourse’s default navigation of index pages. Upon entering meta.discourse.org, you would see this: [image] Drilling into a Category, you see this: [image] Hamburger menu has absorbed the top sub-navigation. Hamburger menu is shown by default on index pages (on Desktop, not Mobile) Fills the same need …

[erlend_sh (Erlend Sogge Heggen)]

We’re sponsoring a developer to work on this as a plugin. Approach #2 seems like the way to go for an MVP. I’ll post a final spec below based on @mcwumbly and @LeoMcA’s mockups.

Some modifications:

• The primary place of interaction should be the /categories page, where a star can be clicked to favorite a category. (mockup below).
• I don’t think it should be added to the Notifications page. Favorites will have no effect whatsoever on notifications. I’m opting for the Interface page instead.

SPEC: Favorite Categories

1. Expose a star button on the /categories page

Stars in /categories are /hidden with toggle same as we do with topics:

Categories

(Could also see how it looks with stars left-aligned on parent categories as well)

Sub-categories

2. Add a Favorites list to User Preferences : Interface page.

3. Show “Favorites” in category drop-down

If any categories are added to Favorites, a Favorites tab is visible on the topic list page.
If the list is blank, “My Favorites” won’t show.

Assuming the user is doing something like watching #feature, tracking #howto:admins and favouriting #plugin and #ux, user would see the following (shown here as “my categories”):

my/latest

my/new

my/unread

my/categories

(Clickable Stars missing in mockup. Also, this screen might not doable.)

Stretch goals:

• Favourited categories should be listed at the top of /categories and in the categories drop-down.
• User can set “My Categories” as their default index
• Admins can define a “My Categories” preset, so registered users are already set up with some default Favorites.

[mcwumbly (Dave McClure)]

So glad to hear this, @erlend_sh

I have a few thoughts, which may deserve mock ups, but I’m on my phone right now.

1. We’ve hidden the category drop-down. Would really like a way to have a simple top menu tab for the favorites topic list rather than bringing back the whole drop-down.
2. Perhaps, rather than a separate categories page for my/categories, the “starred/favorites” categories could be shown together as a separate group at the top of the existing categories page?
3. Seems like it’d make sense and be consistent to be able to star/unstar a category from the category topic list page (next to the drop-down where I can watch/mute it, etc).

[erlend_sh (Erlend Sogge Heggen)]

Would really like a way to have a simple top menu tab for the favorites topic list rather than bringing back the whole drop-down.

Maybe achievable with a theme module? I’ve seen similar tricks: Adding Unsolved button to top menu using custom HTML

If not then you should probably roll your own extension or fork of this plugin, because hiding the category drop down is highly non-standard.

Perhaps, rather than a separate categories page for my/categories, the “starred/favorites” categories could be shown together as a separate group at the top of the existing categories page?

So basically the same as the “move favorited categories to top of categories list” stretch goal right?

Seems like it’d make sense and be consistent to be able to star/unstar a category from the category topic list page (next to the drop-down where I can watch/mute it, etc).

That’s some prime real estate… I can support it as a stretch goal. I think it should be behind a setting, because this is more in your face than any of the other UI we’re adding. It adds a choice + unknown to what is currently a single option.

[mcwumbly (Dave McClure)]

The intersections for my/new and my/unread are not important to me, and I kind of doubt they are important to most. Stuff in /unread is likely of interest regardless of the category…

So, my preference would be to keep it simpler for starters and only have a tab for “my categories” that is equivalent to my/latest.

If we need to do this with further customization, that’s OK, but maybe this is an opportunity to reduce scope for this plugin.

[LeoMcA (Leo McArdle)]

I’d agree my/unread is of minimal importance, because as you say:

Stuff in /unread is likely of interest regardless of the category…

(but I included it in my mockups for consistency and completeness sake)

I wouldn’t agree that my/new was as unimportant - in fact, I think it’s the most important feature here, since nothing remotely like it exists already: “Show me stuff I haven’t seen, but you know I probably want to”.

So, my preference would be to keep it simpler for starters and only have a tab for “my categories” that is equivalent to my/latest.

This breaks the user expectation of what those tabs do (at least by default): the dropdown on the left filters what appears in the tabs on the right.

If we need to do this with further customization, that’s OK, but maybe this is an opportunity to reduce scope for this plugin.

Implementing a link to my/latest as a tab through a plugin should be trivial.

[mcwumbly (Dave McClure)]

Cool. We can revisit how to tweak things to our particular needs at a later time through a plugin or other customization.

I certainly do not want to get in the way of more important progress here.

[erlend_sh (Erlend Sogge Heggen)]

@mcwumbly and @LeoMcA this is now available for testing.

To test it, please checkout the ‘favorites’ branch of Bianca’s fork of Discourse and the discourse-favorites plugin.

[mcwumbly (Dave McClure)]

I haven’t been keeping up with a development environment recently. Is there any publicly accessible sandbox with this running? Or will this be enabled on meta at some point? (I can also reach out privately about trying this out on our hosted staging environment).

[erlend_sh (Erlend Sogge Heggen)]

Is there any publicly accessible sandbox with this running?

I’ll try make that happen, but no promises! Everyone’s schedules are a bit more irregular than usual seeing as it’s Christmas.

[mcwumbly (Dave McClure)]

No rush on my end. I could just wait to try it out here on meta if that is going to happen at some point.

[Stranik (Evgeny)]

I tried to put the plug-in on the locale, the error is the white screen.
Only by removing the plugin was it possible to look at the logs.

[nbianca (Bianca)]

Hello Evgeny,

It looks like some functions that I implemented in my fork of Discourse cannot be found. Are you certain that you are using the ‘favorite’ branch of my fork of Discourse?

I am sorry I cannot be more helpful. I am on a train right now. When I get home, I will look into it.

[Stranik (Evgeny)]

Thank you. I did not notice that there are a lot of changes in the branch itself. I think this is an ordinary plugin.

https://github.com/nbianca/discourse/commit/c156167bf4c8fbc69c27542bcba9777f3265e10d

[mcwumbly (Dave McClure)]

No rush on my end. I could just wait to try it out here on meta if that is going to happen at some point.

Hey @erlend_sh - is this likely to be deployed on meta at any point to play around with?

Also, I’m curious about this scenario, @nbianca:

• category is configured not to show up on latest
• user adds category to “favorites”

Will topics from that category show up in their favorites list in that scenario?

The reason I ask is because one use case for this is where many “niche” categories exist that we might not want to “spam” everyone with on latest, but which different folks may want to be able to “opt-in” to see some subset of them in one place.

[erlend_sh (Erlend Sogge Heggen)]

Hey @erlend_sh - is this likely to be deployed on meta at any point to play around with?

For now there is a playground instance here:

http://104.236.54.251/

I can grant you admin access if you want to create more categories to play around with.

[nbianca (Bianca)]

Will topics from that category show up in their favorites list in that scenario?

Yes they will. In the demo instance I created the “Not on homepage” category that is not on the homepage (latest), but is visible in Favourites (if selected).

[mcwumbly (Dave McClure)]

Yay! Got a chance to play around a little bit in the sandbox.

@nbianca small bug if you weren’t already aware:

1. go to http://104.236.54.251/my/preferences
2. click ‘Interface’ on the left

Expected behavior:

I can see which categories I’ve favorited

Obseverved:

No categories are listed.

Workarounds:

The favorited categories show up if you refresh the page or navigate directly to http://104.236.54.251/my/preferences/interface

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Wishlist:

1. A link to “Favorites” in the hamburger menu

2. I’d love to see a star on the page for the category topic list itself that I can toggle (eg, this page: http://104.236.54.251/c/not-on-homepage)

[erlend_sh (Erlend Sogge Heggen)]

Continued here:

Favorites - select your favorite categories

Hello everyone, This plugin lets users select their favorite categories and view only topics from their favorite categories. This plugin is the implementation of the idea mentioned here and drafted as a specification here. How to use The user decides which categories he likes the most and marks them as favorite. This can be done from the Categories view. [image] The user can also modify his favorites list from the User Preferences view. [image] Due to a limitation of Discourse …