I noticed that on this site sometimes if I view a topic and then click the browser's (chrome) back button to go back to the category page, the list of topics doesn't show up on that category page. I still see all the stuff surround ingit like the New Topic button but the list of topics itself is not there anymore.

Ok, thanks @julian. Makes sense! And I should be able to use the category slug for a CSS class if I want to style the categories.

I was just worried about the templates breaking if I upgrade the nodebb version, but I guess it won't touch the theme. And I would just have to copy over any new features into my own template files.

On this page for example:

https://community.nodebb.org/recent

The categories show an icon in front of them. These are in the html apparently. Can this be put into the CSS via pseudo-elements to make theming easier? A lot of people may not want to use those icons or may not want icons at all.

Ditto for the phrase "posted in" which personally I find redundant and don't really want to see many times on a page. I think that should be optional for people and is more of a display thing and can be inserted via pseudo element for whoever wants it. Same goes for "replied" and so on. These phrases are repetitive and may not be necessary for many themes.

Again this will just make theming a lot easier if stuff like this is in the CSS.

A class on the category could also make it possible to do color-coding and so on...

Yep that could be a problem if you have a lot of categories.

I think that the way that Discourse handles it with a dropdown is okay.

But if you wanted to go with the esotalk way with all the categories in the breadcrumb div, I think you could just have a control (like an arrow or even the word 'more') that would indicate there are more categories in the list. And clicking that would cause them to slide out or drop down.

But the bottom line is it would be nice to be able to quickly change/discover categories without having to go back to the Home page.

Actually I mean if you go to this page for example

https://community.nodebb.org/tags/bug

What you see in the title element is

<title>NodeBB</title>

Whereas on all the other pages, the title element fits the content.

It should probably be something like:

<title>Bug Topics - SiteName</title>

If nodebb can assemble the pages server-side so adsense will work, it would be a big advantage over Discourse.

Ask HN: Google AdSense Still Bans Ajax. What are the Alternatives? | Hacker News

Not being able to use adsense is a dealkiller for a lot of people.

hmm.. has anybody successfully run a site with Adsense?

I know Adsense doesn't really work with Discourse because of Ajax (the 3 ad rule gets triggered--search the Discourse forum). I guess it doesn't work with Nodebb either?

That would be a real bummer.

Discourse has suggested topics at the bottom of the page. That's a great way to keep users on the site as it allows them to discover new topics. It also serves as an attractive 'footer.' Would be great to get this in nodebb either as a plugin or core feature. May need a good algo to determine what to suggest...

I think esotalk has a really nice way of showing the other available categories. Here's an example:

esoTalk Support Forum

It doesn't waste the breadcrumb div. You can clearly see where you are and are also able to quickly explore and navigate to other categories.

Actually discourse has a very good implementation of threaded comments. Best of both worlds approach that satisfies everybody.