Subscribing to topics within a stream for push notifications

[geronm]

The usage pattern that I have experienced for Zulip includes a few high-traffic streams within which everybody is chatting at once. I personally find this easier to deal with than trying to split communication into many different streams (for example, because in that case everyone would have to manually subscribe to all of those new streams in order for us to have the same level of intra-organization communication). However, one downside to this set-up in current Zulip is that there is sometimes a topic of high importance to me to which I would like to subscribe (ie. with desktop notifications and/or e-mail updates), but as it stands I can only subscribe to the entire stream.

I would propose the following feature: user control of push notifications should happen at the granularity of stream+topic, rather than just stream. For example, this could be in the form of the ability to "watch" certain topics within a stream (ie. a "watch" button next to the "mute" button that currently exists next to a topic), with stream-specific settings on what "watching" entails.

[zulipbot]

Hello @zulip/server-streams, @zulip/server-misc members, this issue was labeled with the area: stream settings, area: topics labels, so you may want to check it out!

[timabbott]

Thanks for the feedback @geronm! This is a helpful additional use case to think about in the general space of extensions to what one can do with topics.

[ghost]

Hello guys, what about this ? I am surprised that no one else ask for it. It looks like very important to be able to subscribe to specific topic and not a full stream. If you disagree could tell us why?

[NQNStudios]

I would make extensive use of this feature. Would the devs in charge of the project welcome a PR?

[timabbott]

@NQNStudios yeah, a PR would be welcome on this! But probably we need to think through backend technical design for this first; we can probably start with doing something similar to muted_topics, but it might make sense to create a new table instead.

If you'd like to get started, you can begin with the UI piece, and we can do the database model when I have a bit more time (have to run to an appointment).

[janning]

I saw the "feedback wanted" tag. Thought I would drop in and say something short. :)

Not sure if this is the same issue or a different one, but it would be great to be able to mute topics from within the app/mobile version instead of having to wait until I log into the web version. We added a new user recently and this user created a bunch of topics in a stream where I need to be able to "listen"(?) to two of the topics in the stream, but not all of the topics this user ended up creating. I don't feel the need to discourage the user, since I think what this user did was proper usage, but not being able to mute those other topics while mobile meant being inundated by push notifications while trying to be productive in other topics/streams/apps.

Much relief felt upon getting back to the web version and muting those extra topics though, so since we do have some control over the outcome, I would understand if this issue might not be a priority for quite some time. :)

[JonathanLindsey]

@janning Here's the issue you were looking for zulip/zulip-mobile#3473. There is actually a way to mute a topic from the app like cyphase said on May 10th 2019 in that issue.

By the way I am for the feature of this issue #6027.

[janning]

Thanks, @JonathanLindsey ! It was a helpful tip from the future. I empathize with the discussion in that thread: The topic mute feature on mobile is difficult to get to, unintuitive, and can't be undone (via mobile).

Currently, the long press on the master list of topics (under each stream) doesn't do anything, so that might be an option to consider attaching the mute/unmute feature to instead.

[gnprice]

I agree this feature would be useful.

Thinking about the UX of it: I think in many use cases, a key complementary feature would be that you automatically get subscribed in this way to any topic that you send a message on. For example, if in a busy org you sometimes ask a question but you aren't regularly reading other messages there during the day, you might want a notification when someone replies to your question. (This should be optional, naturally.)

In fact, for my own use I would probably want that option enabled for every Zulip org I occasionally use -- every Zulip org I use, except chat.zulip.org which I regularly look at each day.

[cmcaine]

A few of us ended up talking about this on the Julia zulip and we'd really like this feature as more people migrate over from our busier slack community. Are there any blockers on it happening or is it just a matter of somebody finding the time to write it?

Explicitly, the changes I'd like are:

1. Users can subscribe and unsubscribe to/from topics
2. Creating or replying to a topic automatically subscribes you (default, optional)
3. A view or pseudo-stream is provided that contains only your subscribed topics
4. A new keybind is provided to "go to next unread subscribed topic"
5. A new row in the notifications setting window for subscribed topics
6. The unread count can be changed from "unread in all subscribed streams" to "unread in subscribed topics"

[cmcaine]

Related: #6605

[clarammdantas]

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[zulipbot]

Hello @clarammdantas, you have been unassigned from this issue because you have not updated this issue or any referenced pull requests for over 14 days.

You can reclaim this issue or claim any other issue by commenting @zulipbot claim on that issue.

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[clarammdantas]

@zulipbot claim

[timabbott]

@clarammdantas there's already a PR for this that @ryanreh99 has been working on.

[clarammdantas]

oh, ok.
@zulipbot abandon

[pbouffard]

#14555 just leaving this here for easy x-ref

[timabbott]

Closing as implemented via the "followed topics" feature (#25673).