Rename "(no topic)" to "general chat"

[alya]

At present, messages sent without a topic are displayed as going to "(no topic)". As discussed on CZO, we should make sending messages without a topic feel more normal/expected by renaming "(no topic)" to "general chat".

We want to have the server start allowing channel messages to have an empty topic at the API level, replacing the old "(no topic)" behavior. This should be displayed as something like "general chat" — with italics — in the UI.

The exact phrase to use for "general chat" is specified by the server in the API. For compatibility with old clients, the feature is gated by a flag the client sends. For details, see references below.

References

• #api design
• Initial server PR: Add support for empty topic names. #32330
• #design, for user/product motivation and UX choices
• prior #design thread
• Handle no-topic topic ("general chat") zulip-flutter#1250

Notes

Help center

/help/configure-who-can-edit-topics.md and /help/require-topics.md will need to be updated accordingly.

[zulipbot]

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

[sofbe]

@zulipbot claim