Recent topics: confusing filters

[RalfJung]

I started playing with the recently added "recent topics" feature (someone had to tell me it's rolled out as that new tiny button is not really noticeable). It's a great feature, thanks. :) However, I find the "filter" behavior rather confusing.

There are three checkboxes to restrict which topics are shown, and my expectation was that the list wlll either be the union or the intersection of what I selected. That is not the case though: the "muted" button behaves very different from the other two. Really there are two separate global modes: only show unmuted topics (confusingly called "all"), and show all topics included muted. Then to restrict that list we can select "participated" and/or "unread".

I am not a UI designer, but what I would have done is have two separate groups of widgets here: one to select "all" vs "only unmuted", and the other to restrict that list by requiring "participated" and/or "unread". There are probably better ways to do that, but the UI should make clear that the "muted" button works very differently from the other two checkboxes.

[cyphase]

34e62f0 changes "Muted" to say "Include muted".

[timabbott]

@RalfJung glad to hear you like it! It's super beta at this point, which is why it's somewhat it hard to find for now; we'd like to get more of the kinks out before encouraging a lot of use :).

This is resolved as @cyphase mentioned, but we'd love any further feedback. :)

While I have you here, do you think it'd be reasonable for it to be "Recent topics" as a normal sidebar menu item under "Starred messages"? It's behavior is a bit different from the other things there, but I think it belongs alongside them.

@amanagr FYI.

[RalfJung]

While I have you here, do you think it'd be reasonable for it to be "Recent topics" as a normal sidebar menu item under "Starred messages"? It's behavior is a bit different from the other things there, but I think it belongs alongside them.

Yes! That's where I expected it to pop up, actually. So when I didn't see it there, I figured it was not deployed yet.

[RalfJung]

changes "Muted" to say "Include muted".

That's better. :)

I still feel like this should be grouped with "all" though, and separated from the other two checkboxes, to clearly indicate that they serve a different purpose. But again, that's my gut feeling as a user with no UI development background.

[amanagr]

@RalfJung Thanks for your feedback, moving "include muted" beside "ALL" will also save a keypress to activate "participated" and "unread" filters.

[RalfJung]

The new UI is shipped now. It is indeed much better, but it is still somewhat confusing because "include muted" on the one hand and "unread"/"participated" on the other hand look entirely symmetric, but do not behave that way.