Long FAQ

[Alpha]

In case anyone was wondering, I added a question to the FAQ, and was greeted by the following warning:

Warning: This page is 30 kilobytes long; some browsers may have problems editing pages approaching or longer than 32kb. Please consider breaking the page into smaller sections.

Should I (or anyone for that matter) break up the page?

[MortenMacFly]

Yes, please do. I could imagine one entry page that links to sub-pages which are separated by different topics (like general, compiling...). Another options would be one entry page with all questions linking to 1..n sub-pages with the answers, but these should also be grouped by the topics. The latter is a greater effort.

[Alpha]

Take a look at how I split the FAQ; it is sort of halfway between your two suggestions, MortenMacFly.  The page works this way, however I am guessing someone might have a suggestion to better format it.

[MortenMacFly]

however I am guessing someone might have a suggestion to better format it.

One thing I noticed is that from the sub-pages you don't get back to the main FAQ page... or am I missing something?

[Alpha]

Definitely missing something... right under the table of contents,

Return to FAQ.

I am sure you are not the only person who would miss it; how would you suggest making it more visible?  (All the ways I came up with to make the link more visible are too obtrusive.)

[MortenMacFly]

Indeed... I missed that link. :oops:

I am sure you are not the only person who would miss it; how would you suggest making it more visible?  (All the ways I came up with to make the link more visible are too obtrusive.)

I could imagine a structure like this for the main page (as you've done it mostly):

[FAQ_MAIN]
Section 1 -> links to sub-page 1
  FAQ1  -> links to FAQ1 on sub-page 1
  FAQ2  -> links to FAQ2 on sub-page 1
  (...)
Section 2
  FAQ(n)  -> links to FAQ(n) on sub-page 2
  FAQ(n+1)  -> links to FAQ(n+1) on sub-page 2
(...)


...and then the sub-pages:


[FAQ_SECTION1]
Return to FAQ -> link to [FAQ_MAIN]
Section 1
  FAQ1  -> links to FAQ1 on this sub-page 1 (below)
  FAQ2  -> links to FAQ2 on this sub-page 1 (below)
(...)

 FAQ1: What is...?!
 Answer: 42.

...and so on. This way you'd have a main page where you can read all section, questions, then jump to a sub-page either directly to the answer to your FAQ or the index of the sub-page.

Just my 2 cents... ;-)

[oBFusCATed]

OFF: What will happen with the old links? Would they still work?

[Alpha]

I could imagine a structure like this for the main page (as you've done it mostly) ...

So what you are suggesting is that I move the few remaining questions I left on the Main FAQ to their own subpage as well?

...and then the sub-pages ...

Is the only change here moving "Return to FAQ." above the table of contents?
I could additionally increase its size to make the text more visible.  (Or would that just look strange?)

OFF: What will happen with the old links? Would they still work?

I (am fairly certain that I) have already and fixed all the links on other wiki-pages to point correctly.  External links that point directly to a question will be redirected to the top of the main FAQ page.

[oBFusCATed]

Can we have some kind of redirects?

[Alpha]

Can we have some kind of redirects?

From what I can tell, the only type of redirect I could set up would be if it was a completely different page the external link was referencing.  In this situation, an HTML anchor causes the browser to jump to the correct line; because the anchor does not exist (anymore), the browser defaults to the top of the page (without requesting anything further from the wiki server).
However, I could change the index on the main page so that each question is an anchor -> external links will jump to the question in the index of the main page; the viewer would then click on the link to see the actual question.

...and then the sub-pages ...

I am curious, would the sub-pages look better if they did not use a primary heading (which essentially duplicates the title of the page) before the questions?

[Alpha]

HTML anchors added; small changes in formatting of sub-pages.