I understand why the forum does this for *new* topics (as annoying as it is), but it doesn't seem right to do this for *existing* topics.
My reasoning:
- I have already created the topic, I am simply trying to edit the title
- Even if an appropriate similar topic is found, what good does that do at this point? Clicking on a similar topic will simply take me to that topic, cancelling what I was trying to do in the first place (edit the existing topic)
It's just extremely annoying as the forum UI is so slow that following sequence of events is very plausible:
- I click on the subject text field and make a quick edit to the subject
- before the "autocomplete-style" search for related topics even launches, I move the mouse to the description text box and attempt to click on it, because I also want to edit the description
- but oops, I wasn't quite fast enough, because the huge similar topics dropdown finally pops up, blocking the entire description text box, I end up clicking on a similar topic instead, which cancels what I was trying to do in the first place: edit my subject and description. This happens regardless of whether I have unsaved changes btw. Luckily the changes are cached if I press Back, but should I have to rely on that.
Also, it doesn't seem like you can click away from the Subject text box fast enough to escape from this behavior, as the description field is effectively, if not visually, blocked as long as the similar topics list is being loaded. The only way to avoid it is either do things in a different order (edit description first, then subject) or slow down the process:
- Click on subject
- make edit to subject
- click away from subject and wait for the annoying similar topics dropdown to appear (this takes 1-2 seconds)
- close the dropdown by pressing close or clicking outside of it
- finally i can edit the subject
Honestly I'm so sick of having to constantly fight the forum UI on every little thing.
TL;DR there's so many things wrong here:
- similar topics are loaded for no reason when subject is edited (even if there's an appropriate similar topic, kinda too late for that now, huh)
- the loading and display of similar topics blocks the user from editing the description
- while the similar topics list is being loaded, the description text box appears to be clickable, but it's not
- if the user accidentally clicks on a similar topic because they were trying to edit the description, they're taken to another page with no confirmation regarding unsaved changes
