23

Stack Exchange 2.0 sites can customize their FAQ pages to fit their needs, including adding new sections. For example, Unix and Linux has a cross-posting section. The title shows up correctly in the main page, and it has a dedicated entry in the navigation bar on the right, but other code just considers it part of the previous section, What kind of questions can I ask here?. Clicking the Cross-posting link highlights both sections:

Screenshot

Opening it in a new tab does nothing (no excerpt above the other entries like e.g. this one), while opening the other entry highlights both at the top. It'd be nice if linking to custom sections worked correctly, since it's probably used a lot (mods add stuff to the FAQ when it keeps coming up on that particular site).

This hits Android, Cooking, Cryptography, English, French, Home Improvement, Physics, Programmers, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Unix & Linux, Web Applications, …

Improve this question
2
  • Sweet. This post proves that if I procrastinate long enough on doing something, eventually I won't have to do it anymore. :P (In other words, +1 and repro on Programmers.)
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Sep 6, 2011 at 1:00
  • +1 Happens on Cooking too.
    – takrl
    Commented Sep 12, 2011 at 12:46

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

This is intentional/unavoidable, the fact is: we don't support these custom sections, they're kinda supported as a side-effect of how the script on that page works. We're not (AFAIK) fighting the mods on adding them, but the way markdown renders here means you cannot create the HTML structure needed to have a proper section (like the rest) for our scripts, so it's included in the parent section for most script purposes.

Improve this answer
7
  • I don't think it would be too hard to post-process that page to add anchors to every <h1>.
    – Brad Gilbert
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 1:01
  • I didn't even realize that area accepted markdown at all...
    – badp
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 1:04
  • I'm pretty sure these anchors were working until that fancy-shmancy default hiding of content was introduced. So 1. this is avoidable and 2. this is a regression.
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 1:08
  • @Gilles No, anchors never worked. How can they without specifying an id attribute?
    – badp
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 9:50
  • @Gilles - There were no anchors before, especially not on mod-generated sections, so no...it's not a regression and still not avoidable. It's not possible without changing which attributes are allowed in the core markdown engine...and we're really not going to do that.
    – Nick Craver
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 10:40
  • @Brad - We do post process to add an anchor (it has one doesn't it?), it's adding an entire section wrap around what the mods generate (could be any number of sections or content) that we don't support. Look at the markup to see how other sections are wrapped, there's no easy/intelligent way to do that reliably with all the combinations of content mods could add there (keep in mind we don't support this), so we don't try to do that, it'd just break, and continue to break as mods keep editing/introducing new layouts.
    – Nick Craver
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 10:43
  • @badp There is an id attribute (don't ask me how it gets there, but there is and always has been). But since the auto-hiding of FAQ sections was introduced, links using that attribute no longer work.
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Jan 15, 2012 at 17:57

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .