User talk:Soumyasch/TOC Talk

To use: Edit the code

TOC
The TOC, I feel, is a major problem in terms of usability. Sure it does give an overview of the articles' contents, but its implementation is a major cause of many problems.
 * Firstly, it eats into the article's space. It creates a gap between the lead of the article and the rest of the article.
 * The floating TOCs are also not good enough a solution - they squeeze the text horizontally.
 * The TOCs usability as a shortcut to the sections get pretty limited. In a long article, the TOC should serve as a shortcut to sections so that we do not spend time searching for it. But once we a quite far way from the TOC, it is not visible. So we must find the relevant section manually or scroll up to the TOC.

The soultion would be to move the TOC to the left pane (where toolbox, searchbox and navbox currently exist) and doing it in an iFrame, so that it doesn't scroll if the article is scrolled (like MSDN documentations). In that way, the toc would be accessible irrespective of the location in the article. Another thing may be done is to allow reodering of sections by drag-and-drop on the toc. Also in edit view, the toc can be used to navigate to sections.

But this gives rise to the problem with placement of toolbox and navbar. (The search box may be moved to the top above the tabs). Do you have any idea how this can be achieved? -- so U  m  y  a  S  ch  11:17, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Response

 * See this to get an idea of how to place stuff by specifying absolute co-ordinates even outside the article space. You should also know about the macros, , __TOCRight__ etc., -- Sundar \talk \contribs 11:55, 4 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi, you seem that you have misunderstood my problem. I am not talking of moving the toc around the article. What I want is to make the toc Replace the left-hand side toolbox, searchbox, and navbox, and render it such that it fixed and do not scroll out of the screen if the article is scrolled. My intention is to find a layout which keeps the toc onscreen always regarless of which position in the article one is in - be at the start, the middle, or the end, without affecting the layout of the articles. The macros do not give this effect, nor are they scalable with long tocs, and higher resolutions. Please chip in if you have any suggestion regarding how to achieve what I want. -- so U  m  y  a  S  ch  12:15, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Again Response

 * Did you see this link given by me? Does it not place something outside the article space? That template places an image above the article space. In our case, we need to place the content referred by outside the article. I know it's not straight-forward. But, I thought it's something you could look at. Surely, the macros were not designed to solve your problem. Good luck. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 12:25, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Bad Suggestion

 * Not just placing the toc outside, it must be placed in a different iFrame, not just a div. And if I do so, the left-mounted boxes will get hidden, so they have to be moved to somewhere else - I can't see any space to move them to. It was this suggestion I was asking for - where can I move these toolbox, searchbox and navbox. Anywayz, thanks for your help. -- so U  m  y  a  S  ch  12:31, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
 * AFIK, we don't use iFrames in Mediawiki. The left frame is implemented as a list inside a div element. I don't have any suggestions if your problem is that of space. Best to ask in the Village Pump. You could also discuss this at MediaWiki talk:Common.css. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 12:48, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
 * It needs to be found out how to get an equivalent functionality of iframes using div - may be absolute position divs. But the toc inside that has to be independently scrollable. The simplest way to do this would be an iFrame, though. -- so U  m  y  a  S  ch  13:15, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

TOC
I had exactly the same idea. This is the furthest I got before giving up. Doesn't even work in IE, though. Vildricianus 21:17, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Wow, the toc is quite an improvement. Can I take up your work and start trying from there? --w:User Talk:Soumyasch
 * Please do; I've given up. Vildricianus 07:40, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Success so far
The toc is working fine. Now just have to get the text to reflow out of the way. -- so U  m  y  a  S  ch  14:55, 2 June 2006 (UTC)