feature request: Ability to select multiple topics (without selecting *all* in the stream)

[pnkfelix]

Hi all

I recently discovered a scenario where we have a large stream with many streams, where some fork off into other topics.

I can follow the whole stream to see the discussion on the different topics interleaved, but it would be nice to have more control and be able to select all such topics of interest (and, importantly, not see the discussion on the other topics that are not of interest).

[pnkfelix]

Workaround: It has been pointed out to me that one can filter out topics via "-topic:xxx" in the top filter bar, so that provides a way to express what I want. A negative filter like that doesn't scale as nicely as a positive filter would, but at least its an option.

[zulipbot]

Hello @zulip/server-search members, this issue was labeled with the "area: search" label, so you may want to check it out!

[timabbott]

This is low priority (since other folks haven't asked for it) but there's a natural way to do it. We'd just need to be careful to avoid making things like typeahead confusing.

[YashRE42]

@timabbott I'd be interested in working on this, and would appreciate it if you could elaborate what you meant when you said that "there's a natural way to this",
which code paths would you think are relevant to doing this in a way that isn't too hacky?