Misplaced Pages:Section - Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Patrick (talk | contribs) at 13:42, 30 July 2003 (Unlike one may assume, an edit conflict may still occur if two users edit different sections at the same time.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 13:42, 30 July 2003 by Patrick (talk | contribs) (Unlike one may assume, an edit conflict may still occur if two users edit different sections at the same time.)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

Sections

Preferably, articles are divided into sections, using the section header syntax; this is often better than just using bolded text for headers, see below.

Creation of sections

Sections are created by creating their headers as follows (see also Misplaced Pages:How to edit a page):

Table of contents (TOC)

For each article with more than three headings, a table of contents (TOC) is automatically generated from the section headings, unless:

(for a user) preferences are set to turn it off
(for an article) in the edit box the code __NOTOC__ is added

The TOC is put before the first section header. Thus there may be some introductory text before it. Text before the first header, if any, should therefore be short, otherwise the TOC comes too low.

Preferences can be set to number the sections automatically.

Editing of individual sections

Also, sections can be separately edited ("section editing feature") by right clicking on the section header (in the case of text before the first section header: on the article header), or on special edit links, depending on the preferences set. This is convenient if the edit is not related to the content in other sections. Inserting a section can be done by editing either the section before or after it, merging with the previous section by deleting the header. Unlike one may assume, an edit conflict may still occur if two users edit different sections at the same time.

The section editing feature in most cases does not work when the page is displayed with a table of differences between two versions (changes, cur, dif and last). First press Current revision.

More specifically, in something like

http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Misplaced Pages:Village_pump&diff=0&oldid=1215566

(changes from a specified version) it does not work, but in

http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Misplaced Pages:Village_pump&diff=0&oldid=0

(last change) it does.

Opening a link in a header in a new window

When right click editing is enabled, you cannot right click a link in a header to open it in a new window, etc. However most browsers have an alternative way of doing that (Mozilla: middle click, ctrl+left click, type ahead find, TAB navigation; IE: shift+left click).

Horizontal dividing line

Note that a horizontal dividing line, traditionally used as a division in sections which are logically main sections, such as two meanings of the term, is not taken into account in the section numbering and TOC. As a result the explanation of the second meaning of the word is treated as part of the last section of the text for the first meaning. To avoid this, do not just use the horizontal dividing line, but use appropriate headers.