Focus topic input first when opening compose box

[gnprice]

In a channel feed, if you tap the compose box and the topic input is empty (i.e. you haven't already entered something there), we'd like to put focus in the topic input instead of in the content input.

Chat thread here: #mobile > reply goes to "no topic" @ 💬

Background / motivation

This bit of user feedback started that same thread:

Hello, a new user / first time poster with some hopefully useful feedback : we moved a small organisation to Zulip recently and the thing we keep banging our heads on is accidentally posting to [no topic] when we meant to reply to a comment in some topic.

In the legacy app we effectively have the behavior this issue is calling for: when the compose box is closed, the topic input doesn't even appear, but once you touch it so it opens, your focus goes to the topic input.

References

• #mobile > reply goes to "no topic" @ 💬
• An issue that may make this change less effective, until it's resolved:
  autocomplete: Options list can persistently lag behind query #226

[kelseafunwi]

Wanted to contribute to this issue but the above solution I think should solve the problem well.

[gnprice]

@shkshreyas It looks like you asked ChatGPT or another LLM how to solve this issue, and then just pasted its response into the comment box. That isn't useful.

@kelseafunwi Sure, welcome. Take a look at our guide to contributing to Zulip:
https://zulip.readthedocs.io/en/latest/contributing/contributing.html
and in particular the steps here:
https://zulip.readthedocs.io/en/latest/contributing/contributing.html#picking-an-issue-to-work-on

[kelseafunwi]

I see why you were saying the code he gave was generated by AI 😂, I've been going through the codebase for about 5 hours now and haven't really seen how to get to that point. Still to continue working on it by evening.

Hopefully, i'll get an understanding of that part of the code soon.

[gnprice]

Yep, finding one's way for the first time around any given codebase takes some effort 🙂. We have a little bit of advice on how to do that effectively in the section you're already reading:
https://zulip.readthedocs.io/en/latest/contributing/contributing.html#picking-an-issue-to-work-on
and more detailed advice in this other section:
https://zulip.readthedocs.io/en/latest/contributing/contributing.html#flutter-based-mobile-app

[Gaurav-Kushwaha-1225]

Hi everyone,
I have understood the problem, but I'm doubting the solution you have suggested.

Like, instead of requesting focus on the topic field when the compose box is tapped, shouldn't we make it a necessity for the user to enter something in the topic field before they can send the message, and disable the send message button until then?
Or maybe fill the topic field by default with a specific topic whenever it becomes empty (for eg. in the beginning when compose box is tapped) as this also happens Zulip web app where it changes to the general topic by default.