# 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:** 1
**Showing post:** 81

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### Author: ![Don](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/don/32/228726_2.png) [@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")

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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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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topic-preview-modal/409712)._