Drive-by coding update: Table of Contents and Templates

[cin1607]

Hey all,

Just to let you know, based on the discussion in franzeska's earlier post about TOC weirdness due to TOC coding in the templates, we've now taken that bit of coding out of all of the templates. (Let us know if we missed one somewhere.) So while Fanlore will still generate a TOC for any post with three or more subheaders, the placement will be the same as wikipedia's.

Yay? :)

Comments

[christycorr]

Cin, I just checked the default fanlore skin and it doesn't display TOCs properly now. *rolls eyes* The Monobook skin works just fine, though. I'll email Systems. Bah.

[cin1607]

Bah! Ok, keep us posted.

[christycorr]

Done and done.

(Might want to edit your post, though, replace 'style' with 'placement.' And even that won't be true until Systems gets back to me. Sorry!)

[cin1607]

Done! Placement, not style.

[dewey]

So this is still in flux/development? Because I just added a new page and the contents are squeezed in beside the text so it is really hard to read the entry: Prudence Dearly. And in another older page it has put the contents in the middle of the text where it breaks up the page: China Shop

But I guess the second example is what you were going for. I find it intrusive but *shrugs*. It is so large. Is there some way to reduce just the Contents Box size?

I personally liked it in the infoboxes but I only use the default display. I'm rather new to wikis. Is there a better way I can do the TOC so it isn't right in the middle of the text that won't screw it up for others?

If this is all going to be different in a day or so, I'll wait to do any more pages. *g*

Also - while I have your ear, I posted to the Category:People discussion but realize probably no one knew to look there. I think it would be helpful to add the link for Template:FanProfile to the Category:People page so folks don't just think that they can only use the Template:PersonProfile one.

[ratcreature]

Yes. I'm not thrilled with how most pages look now either (in the default skin, which I assume most people will use). For me the TOC is usually left of the infobox, and the text squeezed in a narrow column too.

[dewey]

Hee - love your icon.

I didn't know whether I was jumping the gun on this since it is still being worked on, (hopefully) but then again, when things are being worked on is maybe the best time to say what works and what doesn't!

It never occurred to me that people used skins for wikis. Bad enough that webpages have to be tested for all browsers...

[cin1607]

We've got a request into Systems to fix the TOC so that it floats left and we're hoping that will fix this.

[lian]

it shouldn't behave like that either way -- it's a Wordpress skin issue though, since the magic words ___FORCETOC__ and __TOC__ don't override it; I just tried that with the China Shop article.

[cin1607]

Dewey, hang on just a bit longer--we've got a request in to Systems to float the TOC left, and we hope that'll fix the problem of it breaking up pages.

Also, I've passed your comment regarding adding a link for Template:FanProfile to the Category:People page on to the rest of the committee, so we will definitely look at that. :)

[cin1607]

Ok, Dewey, I've added the Template:FanProfile link to the Category:People page. Is that what you were looking for?

[dewey]

Yes, exactly! Thanks! I think it will make things clearer and I didn't feel I should edit a Category page (if I even could) since it seems an admin sort of thing.

And I will keep fingers crossed on the TOC fix. I know how these things go, fix one thing and something else breaks *g*

[kylara]

I hope it's not too late to re-open this conversation. I'd prefer to see the TOCs back inside the templates. As it is now, articles which previously looked fine are now squeezed into a tiny column of text beside the TOC and Template which get stacked next to each other. The solution now is to edit the articles so that the TOC is below the template anyway. So how about just putting the TOC back into the templates?

I see from the comments that there's some problems with the TOC not behaving properly or some such, but even then it seems unnecessary to be like Wikipedia. I liked the TOC being in the Template before just fine.

[aethel]

THIS, unless there's a quick way to make the Contents float below the infobox instead of to the left of it.

[cin1607]

Yeah, taking them out did create weirdness. We decided to go ahead and put them back in--they should be back in by now. We're still looking at ways to improve the stylesheets so we can hopefully fix the problems that led us to try to take the TOC out of the templates in the first place.