The discussion revolves around a Discourse plugin that allows users to select favorite categories and view topics from them in a dedicated “Favorites” category. The plugin, developed by nbianca, was initially well-received but is now marked as broken due to a critical issue causing rebuild failures. Users have expressed interest in having this feature integrated into core Discourse, citing its utility for managing large communities with numerous categories. Some users prefer the “favorite” concept over muting, as it provides a more intuitive way to curate content without hiding it entirely. The conversation also touches on potential improvements, such as integrating favorites with notification levels or enhancing the UI with icons. Sam, a moderator, mentions that the long-term solution may involve a “Focused Sidebar” feature, which allows users to track categories and view related topics. While the plugin is currently broken, there is significant community support for its inclusion in core, with some users offering to fund its revival. nbianca introduced the plugin, RCheesley reported the rebuild issue, sam confirmed the plugin’s broken status, and merfield offered to help fix it.
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.
Due to a limitation of Discourse plugins system, the changes are saved immediately and the “Save Changes” button will actually do nothing to the favorite categories list. In other words, if you change the list and do not press “Save changes”, the changes will still be saved.
Now the category Favorites contains all topics from all favorite categories. This category can be accessed like any other category (i.e. from the drop down on the home page).
Looks as though there is a fairly critical issue - when I enable and rebuild it crashes the rebuild process - as soon as I comment out this plugin it builds without issue.
FAILED
--------------------
Pups::ExecError: cd /var/www/discourse/plugins && git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse-canned-replies failed with return #<Process::Status: pid 346 exit 128>
Location of failure: /pups/lib/pups/exec_command.rb:112:in `spawn'
exec failed with the params {"cd"=>"$home/plugins", "cmd"=>["git clone https://github.com/discourse/docker_manager.git", "git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse-a
kismet.git", "git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse-data-explorer.git", "git clone https://www.github.com/gdpelican/retort", "git clone https://github.com/angusm
cleod/discourse-events", "git clone https://www.github.com/gdpelican/babble", "git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse-canned-replies", "git clone https://github.c
om/team-melbourne-rgsoc2015/discourse-adplugin", "git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse-solved", "git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse-assign", "git
clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse-staff-notes", "git clone https://github.com/davidtaylorhq/discourse-whos-online", "git clone https://github.com/discourse/disco
urse-spoiler-alert", "git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse-saved-searches", "git clone https://github.com/communiteq/discourse-sitemap", "git clone https:
//github.com/discourse/discourse-cakeday", "git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse-oauth2-basic", "git clone https://github.com/angusmcleod/discourse-question-ans
wer", "git clone https://github.com/angusmcleod/discourse-locations", "git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse-voting", "git clone https://github.com/nbianca/disco
urse-favorites"]}
3fba033b9027ed6955339e39aa83594c187de75004d5fa6836d443058c645a61
** FAILED TO BOOTSTRAP ** please scroll up and look for earlier error messages, there may be more than one
Yeah, but mute seems more like to things you don’t like/hate.
Example:
I really like to know/see topics about plugins, feature and themes here, its my main choice when I log in. But If a mute the others 15 categories I wouldn’t have a idea about the whole community.
Using muting is really not intuitive for some use case:
A lot of categories are available but only a are few relevant for most people. With new categories popping periodically.
Wanting a new category to be created as muted for everyone but the few relevant users.
Wanting to check the muted status for all categories available / all subcategories of that specific category on the same page I can read their description (on the category page).
The star makes everything clearer and more intuitive.
Actually, without having to implement new rules and logic for a ‘favorite’ status, if the star was just a toggle for the muted status of the category, it would be already very handy. Or on the same UX maybe have 3 settings: muted (BG-secondary color star), displayed/normal (primary color star), or favorite (smiling shiny rainbow star).
It would also be very nice if admins could chose if both 1) the stars would be displayed, and 2) the favorite status is possible :
for all categories, through a global setting
for that category on the category setting page
for all subcategories on the parent category setting page
(Oh, and to continue the wishlist, if the star could be a parameter allowing to chose any FA icon instead, that would also be fun).
@sam has this idea been discussed any further? Is it in the works as a core feature of Discourse, or is it worth someone spending the time to fix this plugin?
Due to a limitation of Discourse plugins system, the changes are saved immediately and the “Save Changes” button will actually do nothing to the favorite categories list. In other words, if you change the list and do not press “Save changes”, the changes will still be saved.
Favorites contains all topics from all favorite categories. This category can be accessed like any other category (i.e. from the drop down on the home page).
Discourse 2.0+ is required.
