Erik wrote:
Daniel -
It would be /real/ nice to be able to disable the TOC on a page by page basis.
Please give other examples than the Main Page.
Eh? The en.wiki Main Page and Main Page's of each of the other languages are the most visited and visible pages. If their formatting is broken by the automatic TOC then that is a big problem - no need to state other examples but I'm sure there will be.
All I am asking for is an off switch that can be used on a case-by-case basis. And shouldn't the burden of proof be on the person wanting to make the change? Shouldn't they be the one proving that the major change they are trying to push through will do no harm and in fact be an enhancement?
Anyway, the TOC is not displayed on the Main Page.
Is that from a lack of having more than three headings or a special setting? If it is a special setting then at least my major issue with the TOC has been taken care of already. But if the reason why there is no TOC on the test wiki is simply from a lack of headings then we are going to have problems with the real wikis which /do/ have many headings.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Daniel Mayer wrote:
Erik wrote:
Daniel -
It would be /real/ nice to be able to disable the TOC on a page by page basis.
Please give other examples than the Main Page.
Eh? The en.wiki Main Page and Main Page's of each of the other languages are the most visited and visible pages. If their formatting is broken by the automatic TOC then that is a big problem - no need to state other examples but I'm sure there will be.
Mav, if you'd _read_ Erik's message you'd have noted he said that the TOC is *not* displayed when showing the main page, which is why you need to give other examples.
(But it only knows it's the main page if it's on the regular main page's title; a copy of the main page under a different title will not trigger the detection.)
Me, I'm all in favor of being able to manually suppress automatic functions that aren't always appropriate for particular tasks.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Mav, if you'd _read_ Erik's message you'd have noted he said that the TOC is *not* displayed when showing the main page, which is why you need to give other examples.
It is not really a good argument to just say "This is a special case, show me other examples". How many other good examples will be dismissed as special cases? How many good examples does it take to no longer be a bunch of special cases?
Me, I'm all in favor of being able to manually suppress automatic functions that aren't always appropriate for particular tasks.
Maybe the preferences should allow users to set the threshold of how many sections an article must have to get a TOC.
Greetings, Timwi
Timwi wrote:
Maybe the preferences should allow users to set the threshold of how many sections an article must have to get a TOC.
This isn't a bad idea at all!
Reading through some of the recent posts about this has made me realise that I might well like to have TOCs on /all/ pages -- say if there are == External links == below. Rather than arguing about how the TOCs must work, we could simply argue about what the default should be -- and Erik's setting of 3 headers seems fair enough to me -- then let users decide what we like for ourselves. Include an option for always (0 headers required) and never (infinitely many headers required).
-- Toby
Timwi wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
Include an option for always (0 headers required)
I wanna see what a TOC for an article without any headings would look like! ;-)
Like this:
+-----------------+ |Table of contents| +-----------------+
<table border="0" bgcolor="#8888aa" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1"> <tr><td><table border="0" bgcolor="#f3f3ff" CELLPADDING=5> <tr><td><b>Table of contents</b> </td></tr> <tr id='tocinside'><td></td></tr> </table></td></tr> </table>
OK, that's a silly option. ^_^
-- Toby
Daniel-
Eh? The en.wiki Main Page and Main Page's of each of the other languages are the most visited and visible pages. If their formatting is broken by the automatic TOC then that is a big problem - no need to state other examples but I'm sure there will be.
I'm not sure. The Main Page is really an exception because all kinds of strange formatting is allowed there to make it look good, and because it's an entry page. That's why I have disabled the TOC generation for the Main Page (which is defined in Language.php for each language). So no, it's not because of the number of headings, but if you move it to a non-Main Page name, it will get the TOC again.
And shouldn't the burden of proof be on the person wanting to make the change?
You can't prove a negative. If you think the TOC can be harmful in some instances, please provide evidence.
Regards,
Erik
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