Minimal UI: remove news & communities

[hlbmtc]

Hide "In The News" and "Communities" for minimal UI mode

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Features
  • Navigation communities link visibility now respects minimal UI mode setting
  • News sorting option in feed filters now respects minimal UI mode setting, providing a streamlined interface when enabled

[coderabbitai]

📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

This PR conditionally hides UI elements based on the PUBLIC_MINIMAL_UI flag. The communities navigation link and news hotness sort option are disabled when minimal UI mode is active, across both desktop and mobile navigation paths.

Changes

Cohort / File(s)	Summary
Navigation Links front_end/src/app/(main)/components/headers/hooks/useNavbarLinks.tsx	Conditionally includes communities link in both desktop menu and mobile menu only when PUBLIC_MINIMAL_UI is false.
Feed Filters front_end/src/app/(main)/questions/components/feed_filters/main.tsx	Imports usePublicSettings and gates mainSortNewsVisible and NewsHotness sort option on PUBLIC_MINIMAL_UI being disabled; updates memo dependencies accordingly.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 2 (Simple) | ⏱️ ~10 minutes

Possibly related PRs

• Hide the More navbar menu on small screens #4103: Modifies the same useNavbarLinks.tsx file with restructuring of mainLinks and accountLinks.

Suggested reviewers

• aseckin
• ncarazon

Poem

🐰 A flick of the switch, communities go,
News hotness fades like morning's first glow,
Minimal mode whispers, "hide what's not key,"
The UI dances, lean as can be! ✨

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 2

✅ Passed checks (2 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title 'Minimal UI: remove news & communities' directly summarizes the main changes: conditionally hiding the communities link and the 'In The News' sort option based on the PUBLIC_MINIMAL_UI flag.

_{✏️ Tip: You can configure your own custom pre-merge checks in the settings.}

✨ Finishing touches

• 📝 Generate docstrings

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Post copyable unit tests in a comment
• Commit unit tests in branch feat/minimal-ui-remove-comms-news

---

🧹 Recent nitpick comments

front_end/src/app/(main)/questions/components/feed_filters/main.tsx (1)

124-126: Consider adding mainSortNewsVisible to the dependency array.

The mainSortOptions memo uses mainSortNewsVisible (which now depends on PUBLIC_MINIMAL_UI), but the dependency array only includes [t, isLargeScreen]. While PUBLIC_MINIMAL_UI is likely a static configuration that won't change at runtime, the dependency array is technically incomplete.

The existing eslint-disable suggests this was intentional—if PUBLIC_MINIMAL_UI is guaranteed to be constant per deployment, this is acceptable. Otherwise, consider updating the deps.

♻️ Optional fix to include all dependencies

     ],
-    // eslint-disable-next-line react-hooks/exhaustive-deps
-    [t, isLargeScreen]
+    [t, isLargeScreen, mainSortNewsVisible, mainSortNewVisible]
   );

front_end/src/app/(main)/components/headers/hooks/useNavbarLinks.tsx (2)

176-176: Missing LINKS.communities in dependency array.

The menuLinks memo now uses LINKS.communities but it's not included in the dependency array (lines 199-214). While this is unlikely to cause issues since LINKS is memoized on t and the pattern of listing individual LINKS.* properties is established, the dependency is technically incomplete.

♻️ Optional fix to add missing dependency

   }, [
     LINKS.about,
     LINKS.aggregationExplorer,
     LINKS.aiBenchmark,
+    LINKS.communities,
     LINKS.createQuestion,
     LINKS.faq,

---

233-233: Missing LINKS.communities in dependency array.

Same issue as menuLinks—the mobileMenuLinks memo uses LINKS.communities but it's not in the dependency array (lines 299-320).

♻️ Optional fix to add missing dependency

   }, [
     LINKS.about,
     LINKS.services,
     LINKS.aggregationExplorer,
     LINKS.aiBenchmark,
+    LINKS.communities,
     LINKS.createQuestion,
     LINKS.faq,

📜 Recent review details

Configuration used: Organization UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between e636332 and 36bae19.

📒 Files selected for processing (2)

• front_end/src/app/(main)/components/headers/hooks/useNavbarLinks.tsx
• front_end/src/app/(main)/questions/components/feed_filters/main.tsx

⏰ Context from checks skipped due to timeout of 90000ms. You can increase the timeout in your CodeRabbit configuration to a maximum of 15 minutes (900000ms). (4)

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• GitHub Check: Frontend Checks

🔇 Additional comments (3)

front_end/src/app/(main)/questions/components/feed_filters/main.tsx (3)

20-20: LGTM!

The usePublicSettings import and PUBLIC_MINIMAL_UI destructuring are correctly implemented.

Also applies to: 42-42

---

93-94: LGTM!

The logic correctly hides the news sort option when minimal UI mode is active while preserving the existing screen size and user state conditions.

---

149-154: LGTM!

The condition !mainSortNewsVisible && !PUBLIC_MINIMAL_UI correctly ensures NewsHotness appears in the dropdown only when:

1. It's not already shown in main sort options, AND
2. Minimal UI mode is not active

The dependency array properly includes all reactive values.

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[github-actions]

🧹 Preview Environment Cleaned Up

The preview environment for this PR has been destroyed.

Resource	Status
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🗄️ PostgreSQL Branch	✅ Deleted
⚡ Redis Database	✅ Deleted
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📦 Docker Image	⚠️ Retained (auto-cleanup via GHCR policies)

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Cleanup triggered by PR close at 2026-02-03T14:29:04Z