# Topic Preview Modal
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/topic-preview-modal/409712
**Category:** Theme component
**Created:** [August 10, 2026, 3:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topic-preview-modal/409712 "2026-08-10T15:54:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@Don](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Don)
#### Post date: [September 15, 2026, 4:25am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topic-preview-modal/409712/81 "2026-09-15T04:25:21Z")
I’ve implemented this as an `excluded_categories` setting: [FEATURE: Add excluded categories setting - Pull Request #13 - VaperinaDEV/discourse-topic-preview-modal - GitHub](https://github.com/VaperinaDEV/discourse-topic-preview-modal/pull/13/changes)
I initially considered making the behavior depend on where the topic is being viewed, but I think checking the topic’s actual category is the more consistent approach.
This means that if a category is excluded, its topics will always open as full topics rather than in the modal, whether they appear inside that category, on `/latest`, or in another topic list.
I think this also avoids the potentially confusing situation where the same topic could open in a modal in one place but as a full topic in another.
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### Author:  [@Don](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Don)
#### Post date: [September 15, 2026, 7:25am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topic-preview-modal/409712/82 "2026-09-15T07:25:51Z")
I’ve fixed two issues: [FIX: unread dot not clearing for nested topics and never-opened topics - Pull Request #14 - VaperinaDEV/discourse-topic-preview-modal - GitHub](https://github.com/VaperinaDEV/discourse-topic-preview-modal/pull/14)
1. **Nested view:** `readPosts()` was delegated to core’s site-wide nested controller instead of the modal’s own `postRegistry`, so the per-post read-state dot was never cleared inside the modal.
2. **New topics:** only `unread_posts`, `unread`, and `new_posts` were reset, but the separate `unseen` flag that drives the new-topic dot wasn’t, so it remained visible in the topic list after the topic was read in the modal.
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