Template talk:Dotted TOC page listing

Severely broken in some Internet Explorer

This template does not work in some versions of Internet Explorer, definitely quirky in IE6. Where text is wrapped in this template it then renders the text at the top left of the page, rather than in situ. Billinghurst (talk) 01:01, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

The problem, granted only at a glance, seemed to be an incompatibility with the part that converts links in the page namespace to article links in the main namespace upon transclusion -- not so much the z-index solution to the dotted line rows thing. I think that auto-link conversion thingy was behind another problem or two but I can't seem to find it right now. I recall it is coded to something along the lines of a span style of "align:right" (invalid) rather than "float" or "text-align right" and that (for some reason) botches the transclusion via unintended inheriting of paramaters or styles (or something just as obscure). — George Orwell III (talk) 01:32, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

http://netrenderer.com seems to show no problems when I load a TOC page that uses this template. Perhaps the problem is now fixed? --Eliyak T·C 20:04, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Layout 1 is somewhat different now but the entire table is still off by one from left compared to the page column on the right. Layout 2 still looks like a mess (Layout 3 is a mess by nature so don't look to that). Netrenderer isn't (typically) the same as a logged in account -- usually folks have at least some specialization or tweaks in their preferences in other words. I find if you get something, such as this template, "right" without being logged in, it's no guarantee the same will hold true when you are logged in. -- George Orwell III (talk) 21:58, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Help needed: Dotted Page Listing / Bottom dotend text problem

Hello! On this page: Page:The Development of Navies During the Last Half-Century.djvu/17 I added dotend text without a problem to all chapters but not the one that was Bottom (on top of page). The dotend text looks identical to me in all cases. Please help/ Tar-ba-gan (talk) 12:18, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for mending it AuFCL! Tar-ba-gan (talk) 12:27, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Why is the background forced to white?

The forcing of this to white makes it use more broadly problematic, for example with Template:auxiliary Table of Contents which would be expected to be a common usage. It would by my preference to remove the forced white colour, though unsure of the broader consequences. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:07, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

I tried using currentcolor and transparent but it seems like the former isn't yet supported and the latter works but now displays dots behind the text that were evidently obscured before... —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:23, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

I also sometimes use the template in combination with auxilliary TOC and have to force the background colour. An older discussion about this topic can be found in the Scriptorium archive. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 09:44, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

This template inherently depends on having an opaque background: it spits out a gajillion dots to make sure there are enough for the screen width, and then hides the excess ones by layering them behind (z-index) other content with a non-transparent background. Because templates in MediaWiki cannot know their calling context, there is no way for it to know about and adjust for a non-white background unless you explicitly tell it on every invocation.

Or as I've suggested elsewhere: this template simply should not be used. It is both broken and inefficient, and its value questionable. At some point CSS and browsers will support proper dot leaders that we can make use of, but until then it's actually better to take the small hit on visual fidelity than to use this template. --Xover (talk) 13:16, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

 Comment I don't use or like the template, though I try to temper and separate my dislike for rampant facsimile reproduction as it is not all about my wishes. All that said, I think that it is time to deprecate further use of this template. Whether there is a suitable immediate and easy replacement is the interesting thing of whether we live with what currently exists or we replace it. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:39, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

 Comment(meta?)@Billinghurst: Whilst I somewhat understand and even sympathise with your view above we as a community have been hanging out for browsers to finally support the proposed CSS3 leader() clause/function/attribute for… (Shock! damn near ten years now; and still nothing substantial.) Until that unlikely day this template, ugly as it unquestionably is, is the best way of supporting a frankly ludicrous situation. Either bite the bullet and accept it; bite the bullet and retract or at least further soften the style guide directives to attempt facsimile reproduction (Text formatting sub-point regarding "reasonable limits" nobody has ever been able to agree upon)of pages (and delete and burn the template after resolving all the pages this action will break… or stop whinging about the best approach available to date being… umm… the best approach the minds available to wikisource have been able to come up with since 2008. And learn to be grateful somebody cares?

In any case can somebody please address the complication of copies of this thing appearing like {{dotted table}}? In exactly none of my alternatives outlines above can I see a justification for this. 114.78.66.82 02:33, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

We don't need dotted table, so I have moved it out of template namespace. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:11, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

@MODCHK The line about text formatting relates to the text, and when we wrote it up it was not about dot leaders or replicative page formatting, and to me it still isn't.

I will continue to point to people the complexities that are created with templates like this. When people focus on an inconsequential visual representation with the consequence that it impacts upon the rest of the work, in terms of ugly presentation, page size, template bloat, etc. when they leave it to others to fix.

So maybe it is time to not hang onto this problem in the wistful expectation that this usage in CSS3 is not the solution. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:14, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

@A.B.: Erm. You do realise we are earnestly arguing the same side of the argument, don't you? The whole point is that different people read the Style Guide guidelines in different ways. Some take pride in, as it states verbatim: "Text formatting should mimic the original document to show the work as presented," without reading on and comprehending the bit about "within reasonable limits."

It is all about the philosophy of wikisource being to produce the meaning and intent of the publication being replicated; whilst not introducing changes which will lead to copyright violation. I understand the intent but argue that is not the message that new editors are taking home. The template is a perfect encapsulation of the extremes to which this failure to clearly convey that message can lead.

Personally I am neatly torn between a desire to retain the undoubted cleverness of this solution as a mark of respect to the many contributors who have struggled to perfect the animal; and a desire to adhere to the simpler "bones of the text" attitude which ought to be the core of the wikisource mission. This is a statement of my dilemma: not an invitation to prolong a fight which I truly believe is both misguided and unnecessary. 114.78.66.82 04:42, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Using CSS calc() or maxwidth: for main column

Currently entry-width defaults to 80%, which looks like an assumption that it will be about right even if chapter-width and col3-width are changed a bit. In practice, it leads to most TOC entries being word wrapped a fair way before the page number, which looks odd, especially as it's a seemingly arbitrary amount. I think it would be better to change it either to default to something like maxwidth:100% (or something like that), so that it will take up as much space as allowed, or calc(100% -chapter-width -col3-width), which would do the same thing. If no-one objects, I'll have a go creating something in the sandbox version of this template. --Yodin^T 20:50, 5 March 2022 (UTC)