Add a toc to each std lib generated pages #28056
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C-enhancement
Category: An issue proposing an enhancement or a PR with one.
T-dev-tools
Relevant to the dev-tools subteam, which will review and decide on the PR/issue.
T-rustdoc
Relevant to the rustdoc team, which will review and decide on the PR/issue.
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sfackler
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the
T-rustdoc
steveklabnik
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C-enhancement
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Triage: no change. |
steveklabnik
added
T-dev-tools
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Triage: no changes. @rust-lang/rustdoc is this a feature we're interested in pursuing? |
|
This would be very nice to have but I currently don't know how we could do it... The problem is that our pages are already very loaded and that'd add even more content to be able to go through content. Also, not sure the information would be more accessible like this. It'd force to have a very clean documentation through meaningful titles. |
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Duplicate of #14475 |
tgross35
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Sep 5, 2024
rustdoc: add header map to the table of contents ## Summary Add header sections to the sidebar TOC. ### Preview  * http://notriddle.com/rustdoc-html-demo-9/toc/rust/std/index.html * http://notriddle.com/rustdoc-html-demo-9/toc/rust-derive-builder/derive_builder/index.html ## Motivation Some pages are very wordy, like these. | crate | word count | |--|--| | [std::option](https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/std/option/index.html) | 2,138 | [derive_builder](https://docs.rs/derive_builder/0.13.0/derive_builder/index.html) | 2,403 | [tracing](https://docs.rs/tracing/0.1.40/tracing/index.html) | 3,912 | [regex](https://docs.rs/regex/1.10.3/regex/index.html) | 8,412 This kind of very long document is more navigable with a table of contents, like Wikipedia's or the one [GitHub recently added](https://github.blog/changelog/2021-04-13-table-of-contents-support-in-markdown-files/) for READMEs. In fact, the use case is so compelling, that it's been requested multiple times and implemented in an extension: * rust-lang#80858 * rust-lang#28056 * rust-lang#14475 * https://rust.extension.sh/#show-table-of-content (Some of these issues ask for more than this, so don’t close them.) It's also been implemented by hand in some crates, because the author really thought it was needed. Protip: for a more exhaustive list, run [`site:docs.rs table of contents`](https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=site%3Adocs.rs+table+of+contents&ia=web), though some of them are false positives. * https://docs.rs/figment/0.10.14/figment/index.html#table-of-contents * https://docs.rs/csv/1.3.0/csv/tutorial/index.html#table-of-contents * https://docs.rs/axum/0.7.4/axum/response/index.html#table-of-contents * https://docs.rs/regex-automata/0.4.5/regex_automata/index.html#table-of-contents Unfortunately for these hand-built ToCs, because they're just part of the docs, there's no consistent way to turn them off if the reader doesn't want them. It's also more complicated to ensure they stay in sync with the docs they're supposed to describe, and they don't stay with you when you scroll like Wikipedia's [does now](https://uxdesign.cc/design-notes-on-the-2023-wikipedia-redesign-d6573b9af28d). ## Guide-level explanation When writing docs for a top-level item, the first and second level of headers will be shown in an outline in the sidebar. In this context, "top level" means "not associated". This means, if you're writing very long guides or explanations, and you want it to have a table of contents in the sidebar for its headings, the ideal place to attach it is usually the *module* or *crate*, because this page has fewer other things on it (and is the ideal place to describe "cross-cutting concerns" for its child items). If you're reading documentation, and want to get rid of the table of contents, open the  Settings panel and checkmark "Hide table of contents." ## Reference-level explanation Top-level items have an outline generated. This works for potentially-malformed header trees by pairing a header with the nearest header with a higher level. For example: ```markdown ## A # B # C ## D ## E ``` A, B, and C are all siblings, and D and E are children of C. Rustdoc only presents two layers of tree, but it tracks up to the full depth of 6 while preparing it. That means that these two doc comment both generate the same outline: ```rust /// # First /// ## Second struct One; /// ## First /// ### Second struct Two; ``` ## Drawbacks The biggest drawback is adding more stuff to the sidebar. My crawl through docs.rs shows this to, surprisingly, be less of a problem than I thought. The manually-built tables of contents, and the pages with dozens of headers, usually seem to be modules or crates, not types (where extreme scrolling would become a problem, since they already have methods to deal with). The best example of a type with many headers is [vec::Vec](https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.75.0/std/vec/struct.Vec.html), which still only has five headers, not dozens like [axum::extract](https://docs.rs/axum/0.7.4/axum/extract/index.html). ## Rationale and alternatives ### Why in the existing sidebar? The method links and the top-doc header links have more in common with each other than either of them do with the "In [parent module]" links, and should go together. ### Why limited to two levels? The sidebar is pretty narrow, and I don't want too much space used by indentation. Making the sidebar wider, while it has some upsides, also takes up more space on middling-sized screens or tiled WMs. ### Why not line wrap? That behaves strangely when resizing. ## Prior art ### Doc generators that have TOC for headers https://hexdocs.pm/phoenix/Phoenix.Controller.html is very close, in the sense that it also has header sections directly alongside functions and types. Another example, referenced as part of the [early sidebar discussion](rust-lang#37856) that added methods, Ruby will show a table of contents in the sidebar (for example, on the [ARGF](https://docs.ruby-lang.org/en/master/ARGF.html) class). According to their changelog, [they added it in 2013](https://github.com/ruby/rdoc/blob/06137bde8ccc48cd502bc28178bcd8f2dfe37624/History.rdoc#400--2013-02-24-). Haskell seems to mix text and functions even more freely than Elixir. For example, this [Naming conventions](https://hackage.haskell.org/package/base-4.19.0.0/docs/Control-Monad.html#g:3) is plain text, and is immediately followed by functions. And the [Pandoc top level](https://hackage.haskell.org/package/pandoc-3.1.11.1/docs/Text-Pandoc.html) has items split up by function, rather than by kind. Their TOC matches exactly with the contents of the page. ### Doc generators that don't have header TOC, but still have headers Elm, interestingly enough, seems to have the same setup that Rust used to have: sibling navigation between modules, and no index within a single page. [They keep Haskell's habit of named sections with machine-generated type signatures](https://package.elm-lang.org/packages/elm/browser/latest/Browser-Dom), though. [PHP](https://www.php.net/manual/en/book.datetime.php), like elm, also has a right-hand sidebar with sibling navigation. However, PHP has a single page for a single method, unlike Rust's page for an entire "class." So even though these pages have headers, it's never more than ten at most. And when they have guides, those guides are also multi-page. ## Unresolved questions * Writing recommendations for anyone who wants to take advantage of this. * Right now, it does not line wrap. That might be a bad idea: a lot of these are getting truncated. * Split sidebars, which I [tried implementing](https://rust-lang.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/266220-t-rustdoc/topic/Table.20of.20contents), are not required. The TOC can be turned off, if it's really a problem. Implemented in rust-lang#120818, but needs more, separate, discussion. ## Future possibilities I would like to do a better job of distinguishing global navigation from local navigation. Rustdoc has a pretty reasonable information architecture, if only we did a better job of communicating it. This PR aims, mostly, to help doc authors help their users by writing docs that can be more effectively skimmed. But it doesn't do anything to make it easier to tell the TOC and the Module Nav apart.
matthiaskrgr
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Sep 5, 2024
rustdoc: add header map to the table of contents ## Summary Add header sections to the sidebar TOC. ### Preview  * http://notriddle.com/rustdoc-html-demo-9/toc/rust/std/index.html * http://notriddle.com/rustdoc-html-demo-9/toc/rust-derive-builder/derive_builder/index.html ## Motivation Some pages are very wordy, like these. | crate | word count | |--|--| | [std::option](https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/std/option/index.html) | 2,138 | [derive_builder](https://docs.rs/derive_builder/0.13.0/derive_builder/index.html) | 2,403 | [tracing](https://docs.rs/tracing/0.1.40/tracing/index.html) | 3,912 | [regex](https://docs.rs/regex/1.10.3/regex/index.html) | 8,412 This kind of very long document is more navigable with a table of contents, like Wikipedia's or the one [GitHub recently added](https://github.blog/changelog/2021-04-13-table-of-contents-support-in-markdown-files/) for READMEs. In fact, the use case is so compelling, that it's been requested multiple times and implemented in an extension: * rust-lang#80858 * rust-lang#28056 * rust-lang#14475 * https://rust.extension.sh/#show-table-of-content (Some of these issues ask for more than this, so don’t close them.) It's also been implemented by hand in some crates, because the author really thought it was needed. Protip: for a more exhaustive list, run [`site:docs.rs table of contents`](https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=site%3Adocs.rs+table+of+contents&ia=web), though some of them are false positives. * https://docs.rs/figment/0.10.14/figment/index.html#table-of-contents * https://docs.rs/csv/1.3.0/csv/tutorial/index.html#table-of-contents * https://docs.rs/axum/0.7.4/axum/response/index.html#table-of-contents * https://docs.rs/regex-automata/0.4.5/regex_automata/index.html#table-of-contents Unfortunately for these hand-built ToCs, because they're just part of the docs, there's no consistent way to turn them off if the reader doesn't want them. It's also more complicated to ensure they stay in sync with the docs they're supposed to describe, and they don't stay with you when you scroll like Wikipedia's [does now](https://uxdesign.cc/design-notes-on-the-2023-wikipedia-redesign-d6573b9af28d). ## Guide-level explanation When writing docs for a top-level item, the first and second level of headers will be shown in an outline in the sidebar. In this context, "top level" means "not associated". This means, if you're writing very long guides or explanations, and you want it to have a table of contents in the sidebar for its headings, the ideal place to attach it is usually the *module* or *crate*, because this page has fewer other things on it (and is the ideal place to describe "cross-cutting concerns" for its child items). If you're reading documentation, and want to get rid of the table of contents, open the  Settings panel and checkmark "Hide table of contents." ## Reference-level explanation Top-level items have an outline generated. This works for potentially-malformed header trees by pairing a header with the nearest header with a higher level. For example: ```markdown ## A # B # C ## D ## E ``` A, B, and C are all siblings, and D and E are children of C. Rustdoc only presents two layers of tree, but it tracks up to the full depth of 6 while preparing it. That means that these two doc comment both generate the same outline: ```rust /// # First /// ## Second struct One; /// ## First /// ### Second struct Two; ``` ## Drawbacks The biggest drawback is adding more stuff to the sidebar. My crawl through docs.rs shows this to, surprisingly, be less of a problem than I thought. The manually-built tables of contents, and the pages with dozens of headers, usually seem to be modules or crates, not types (where extreme scrolling would become a problem, since they already have methods to deal with). The best example of a type with many headers is [vec::Vec](https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.75.0/std/vec/struct.Vec.html), which still only has five headers, not dozens like [axum::extract](https://docs.rs/axum/0.7.4/axum/extract/index.html). ## Rationale and alternatives ### Why in the existing sidebar? The method links and the top-doc header links have more in common with each other than either of them do with the "In [parent module]" links, and should go together. ### Why limited to two levels? The sidebar is pretty narrow, and I don't want too much space used by indentation. Making the sidebar wider, while it has some upsides, also takes up more space on middling-sized screens or tiled WMs. ### Why not line wrap? That behaves strangely when resizing. ## Prior art ### Doc generators that have TOC for headers https://hexdocs.pm/phoenix/Phoenix.Controller.html is very close, in the sense that it also has header sections directly alongside functions and types. Another example, referenced as part of the [early sidebar discussion](rust-lang#37856) that added methods, Ruby will show a table of contents in the sidebar (for example, on the [ARGF](https://docs.ruby-lang.org/en/master/ARGF.html) class). According to their changelog, [they added it in 2013](https://github.com/ruby/rdoc/blob/06137bde8ccc48cd502bc28178bcd8f2dfe37624/History.rdoc#400--2013-02-24-). Haskell seems to mix text and functions even more freely than Elixir. For example, this [Naming conventions](https://hackage.haskell.org/package/base-4.19.0.0/docs/Control-Monad.html#g:3) is plain text, and is immediately followed by functions. And the [Pandoc top level](https://hackage.haskell.org/package/pandoc-3.1.11.1/docs/Text-Pandoc.html) has items split up by function, rather than by kind. Their TOC matches exactly with the contents of the page. ### Doc generators that don't have header TOC, but still have headers Elm, interestingly enough, seems to have the same setup that Rust used to have: sibling navigation between modules, and no index within a single page. [They keep Haskell's habit of named sections with machine-generated type signatures](https://package.elm-lang.org/packages/elm/browser/latest/Browser-Dom), though. [PHP](https://www.php.net/manual/en/book.datetime.php), like elm, also has a right-hand sidebar with sibling navigation. However, PHP has a single page for a single method, unlike Rust's page for an entire "class." So even though these pages have headers, it's never more than ten at most. And when they have guides, those guides are also multi-page. ## Unresolved questions * Writing recommendations for anyone who wants to take advantage of this. * Right now, it does not line wrap. That might be a bad idea: a lot of these are getting truncated. * Split sidebars, which I [tried implementing](https://rust-lang.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/266220-t-rustdoc/topic/Table.20of.20contents), are not required. The TOC can be turned off, if it's really a problem. Implemented in rust-lang#120818, but needs more, separate, discussion. ## Future possibilities I would like to do a better job of distinguishing global navigation from local navigation. Rustdoc has a pretty reasonable information architecture, if only we did a better job of communicating it. This PR aims, mostly, to help doc authors help their users by writing docs that can be more effectively skimmed. But it doesn't do anything to make it easier to tell the TOC and the Module Nav apart.
rust-timer
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Rollup merge of rust-lang#120736 - notriddle:notriddle/toc, r=t-rustdoc rustdoc: add header map to the table of contents ## Summary Add header sections to the sidebar TOC. ### Preview  * http://notriddle.com/rustdoc-html-demo-9/toc/rust/std/index.html * http://notriddle.com/rustdoc-html-demo-9/toc/rust-derive-builder/derive_builder/index.html ## Motivation Some pages are very wordy, like these. | crate | word count | |--|--| | [std::option](https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/std/option/index.html) | 2,138 | [derive_builder](https://docs.rs/derive_builder/0.13.0/derive_builder/index.html) | 2,403 | [tracing](https://docs.rs/tracing/0.1.40/tracing/index.html) | 3,912 | [regex](https://docs.rs/regex/1.10.3/regex/index.html) | 8,412 This kind of very long document is more navigable with a table of contents, like Wikipedia's or the one [GitHub recently added](https://github.blog/changelog/2021-04-13-table-of-contents-support-in-markdown-files/) for READMEs. In fact, the use case is so compelling, that it's been requested multiple times and implemented in an extension: * rust-lang#80858 * rust-lang#28056 * rust-lang#14475 * https://rust.extension.sh/#show-table-of-content (Some of these issues ask for more than this, so don’t close them.) It's also been implemented by hand in some crates, because the author really thought it was needed. Protip: for a more exhaustive list, run [`site:docs.rs table of contents`](https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=site%3Adocs.rs+table+of+contents&ia=web), though some of them are false positives. * https://docs.rs/figment/0.10.14/figment/index.html#table-of-contents * https://docs.rs/csv/1.3.0/csv/tutorial/index.html#table-of-contents * https://docs.rs/axum/0.7.4/axum/response/index.html#table-of-contents * https://docs.rs/regex-automata/0.4.5/regex_automata/index.html#table-of-contents Unfortunately for these hand-built ToCs, because they're just part of the docs, there's no consistent way to turn them off if the reader doesn't want them. It's also more complicated to ensure they stay in sync with the docs they're supposed to describe, and they don't stay with you when you scroll like Wikipedia's [does now](https://uxdesign.cc/design-notes-on-the-2023-wikipedia-redesign-d6573b9af28d). ## Guide-level explanation When writing docs for a top-level item, the first and second level of headers will be shown in an outline in the sidebar. In this context, "top level" means "not associated". This means, if you're writing very long guides or explanations, and you want it to have a table of contents in the sidebar for its headings, the ideal place to attach it is usually the *module* or *crate*, because this page has fewer other things on it (and is the ideal place to describe "cross-cutting concerns" for its child items). If you're reading documentation, and want to get rid of the table of contents, open the  Settings panel and checkmark "Hide table of contents." ## Reference-level explanation Top-level items have an outline generated. This works for potentially-malformed header trees by pairing a header with the nearest header with a higher level. For example: ```markdown ## A # B # C ## D ## E ``` A, B, and C are all siblings, and D and E are children of C. Rustdoc only presents two layers of tree, but it tracks up to the full depth of 6 while preparing it. That means that these two doc comment both generate the same outline: ```rust /// # First /// ## Second struct One; /// ## First /// ### Second struct Two; ``` ## Drawbacks The biggest drawback is adding more stuff to the sidebar. My crawl through docs.rs shows this to, surprisingly, be less of a problem than I thought. The manually-built tables of contents, and the pages with dozens of headers, usually seem to be modules or crates, not types (where extreme scrolling would become a problem, since they already have methods to deal with). The best example of a type with many headers is [vec::Vec](https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.75.0/std/vec/struct.Vec.html), which still only has five headers, not dozens like [axum::extract](https://docs.rs/axum/0.7.4/axum/extract/index.html). ## Rationale and alternatives ### Why in the existing sidebar? The method links and the top-doc header links have more in common with each other than either of them do with the "In [parent module]" links, and should go together. ### Why limited to two levels? The sidebar is pretty narrow, and I don't want too much space used by indentation. Making the sidebar wider, while it has some upsides, also takes up more space on middling-sized screens or tiled WMs. ### Why not line wrap? That behaves strangely when resizing. ## Prior art ### Doc generators that have TOC for headers https://hexdocs.pm/phoenix/Phoenix.Controller.html is very close, in the sense that it also has header sections directly alongside functions and types. Another example, referenced as part of the [early sidebar discussion](rust-lang#37856) that added methods, Ruby will show a table of contents in the sidebar (for example, on the [ARGF](https://docs.ruby-lang.org/en/master/ARGF.html) class). According to their changelog, [they added it in 2013](https://github.com/ruby/rdoc/blob/06137bde8ccc48cd502bc28178bcd8f2dfe37624/History.rdoc#400--2013-02-24-). Haskell seems to mix text and functions even more freely than Elixir. For example, this [Naming conventions](https://hackage.haskell.org/package/base-4.19.0.0/docs/Control-Monad.html#g:3) is plain text, and is immediately followed by functions. And the [Pandoc top level](https://hackage.haskell.org/package/pandoc-3.1.11.1/docs/Text-Pandoc.html) has items split up by function, rather than by kind. Their TOC matches exactly with the contents of the page. ### Doc generators that don't have header TOC, but still have headers Elm, interestingly enough, seems to have the same setup that Rust used to have: sibling navigation between modules, and no index within a single page. [They keep Haskell's habit of named sections with machine-generated type signatures](https://package.elm-lang.org/packages/elm/browser/latest/Browser-Dom), though. [PHP](https://www.php.net/manual/en/book.datetime.php), like elm, also has a right-hand sidebar with sibling navigation. However, PHP has a single page for a single method, unlike Rust's page for an entire "class." So even though these pages have headers, it's never more than ten at most. And when they have guides, those guides are also multi-page. ## Unresolved questions * Writing recommendations for anyone who wants to take advantage of this. * Right now, it does not line wrap. That might be a bad idea: a lot of these are getting truncated. * Split sidebars, which I [tried implementing](https://rust-lang.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/266220-t-rustdoc/topic/Table.20of.20contents), are not required. The TOC can be turned off, if it's really a problem. Implemented in rust-lang#120818, but needs more, separate, discussion. ## Future possibilities I would like to do a better job of distinguishing global navigation from local navigation. Rustdoc has a pretty reasonable information architecture, if only we did a better job of communicating it. This PR aims, mostly, to help doc authors help their users by writing docs that can be more effectively skimmed. But it doesn't do anything to make it easier to tell the TOC and the Module Nav apart.
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rustdoc: add header map to the table of contents ## Summary Add header sections to the sidebar TOC. ### Preview  * http://notriddle.com/rustdoc-html-demo-9/toc/rust/std/index.html * http://notriddle.com/rustdoc-html-demo-9/toc/rust-derive-builder/derive_builder/index.html ## Motivation Some pages are very wordy, like these. | crate | word count | |--|--| | [std::option](https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/std/option/index.html) | 2,138 | [derive_builder](https://docs.rs/derive_builder/0.13.0/derive_builder/index.html) | 2,403 | [tracing](https://docs.rs/tracing/0.1.40/tracing/index.html) | 3,912 | [regex](https://docs.rs/regex/1.10.3/regex/index.html) | 8,412 This kind of very long document is more navigable with a table of contents, like Wikipedia's or the one [GitHub recently added](https://github.blog/changelog/2021-04-13-table-of-contents-support-in-markdown-files/) for READMEs. In fact, the use case is so compelling, that it's been requested multiple times and implemented in an extension: * rust-lang/rust#80858 * rust-lang/rust#28056 * rust-lang/rust#14475 * https://rust.extension.sh/#show-table-of-content (Some of these issues ask for more than this, so don’t close them.) It's also been implemented by hand in some crates, because the author really thought it was needed. Protip: for a more exhaustive list, run [`site:docs.rs table of contents`](https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=site%3Adocs.rs+table+of+contents&ia=web), though some of them are false positives. * https://docs.rs/figment/0.10.14/figment/index.html#table-of-contents * https://docs.rs/csv/1.3.0/csv/tutorial/index.html#table-of-contents * https://docs.rs/axum/0.7.4/axum/response/index.html#table-of-contents * https://docs.rs/regex-automata/0.4.5/regex_automata/index.html#table-of-contents Unfortunately for these hand-built ToCs, because they're just part of the docs, there's no consistent way to turn them off if the reader doesn't want them. It's also more complicated to ensure they stay in sync with the docs they're supposed to describe, and they don't stay with you when you scroll like Wikipedia's [does now](https://uxdesign.cc/design-notes-on-the-2023-wikipedia-redesign-d6573b9af28d). ## Guide-level explanation When writing docs for a top-level item, the first and second level of headers will be shown in an outline in the sidebar. In this context, "top level" means "not associated". This means, if you're writing very long guides or explanations, and you want it to have a table of contents in the sidebar for its headings, the ideal place to attach it is usually the *module* or *crate*, because this page has fewer other things on it (and is the ideal place to describe "cross-cutting concerns" for its child items). If you're reading documentation, and want to get rid of the table of contents, open the  Settings panel and checkmark "Hide table of contents." ## Reference-level explanation Top-level items have an outline generated. This works for potentially-malformed header trees by pairing a header with the nearest header with a higher level. For example: ```markdown ## A # B # C ## D ## E ``` A, B, and C are all siblings, and D and E are children of C. Rustdoc only presents two layers of tree, but it tracks up to the full depth of 6 while preparing it. That means that these two doc comment both generate the same outline: ```rust /// # First /// ## Second struct One; /// ## First /// ### Second struct Two; ``` ## Drawbacks The biggest drawback is adding more stuff to the sidebar. My crawl through docs.rs shows this to, surprisingly, be less of a problem than I thought. The manually-built tables of contents, and the pages with dozens of headers, usually seem to be modules or crates, not types (where extreme scrolling would become a problem, since they already have methods to deal with). The best example of a type with many headers is [vec::Vec](https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.75.0/std/vec/struct.Vec.html), which still only has five headers, not dozens like [axum::extract](https://docs.rs/axum/0.7.4/axum/extract/index.html). ## Rationale and alternatives ### Why in the existing sidebar? The method links and the top-doc header links have more in common with each other than either of them do with the "In [parent module]" links, and should go together. ### Why limited to two levels? The sidebar is pretty narrow, and I don't want too much space used by indentation. Making the sidebar wider, while it has some upsides, also takes up more space on middling-sized screens or tiled WMs. ### Why not line wrap? That behaves strangely when resizing. ## Prior art ### Doc generators that have TOC for headers https://hexdocs.pm/phoenix/Phoenix.Controller.html is very close, in the sense that it also has header sections directly alongside functions and types. Another example, referenced as part of the [early sidebar discussion](rust-lang/rust#37856) that added methods, Ruby will show a table of contents in the sidebar (for example, on the [ARGF](https://docs.ruby-lang.org/en/master/ARGF.html) class). According to their changelog, [they added it in 2013](https://github.com/ruby/rdoc/blob/06137bde8ccc48cd502bc28178bcd8f2dfe37624/History.rdoc#400--2013-02-24-). Haskell seems to mix text and functions even more freely than Elixir. For example, this [Naming conventions](https://hackage.haskell.org/package/base-4.19.0.0/docs/Control-Monad.html#g:3) is plain text, and is immediately followed by functions. And the [Pandoc top level](https://hackage.haskell.org/package/pandoc-3.1.11.1/docs/Text-Pandoc.html) has items split up by function, rather than by kind. Their TOC matches exactly with the contents of the page. ### Doc generators that don't have header TOC, but still have headers Elm, interestingly enough, seems to have the same setup that Rust used to have: sibling navigation between modules, and no index within a single page. [They keep Haskell's habit of named sections with machine-generated type signatures](https://package.elm-lang.org/packages/elm/browser/latest/Browser-Dom), though. [PHP](https://www.php.net/manual/en/book.datetime.php), like elm, also has a right-hand sidebar with sibling navigation. However, PHP has a single page for a single method, unlike Rust's page for an entire "class." So even though these pages have headers, it's never more than ten at most. And when they have guides, those guides are also multi-page. ## Unresolved questions * Writing recommendations for anyone who wants to take advantage of this. * Right now, it does not line wrap. That might be a bad idea: a lot of these are getting truncated. * Split sidebars, which I [tried implementing](https://rust-lang.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/266220-t-rustdoc/topic/Table.20of.20contents), are not required. The TOC can be turned off, if it's really a problem. Implemented in rust-lang/rust#120818, but needs more, separate, discussion. ## Future possibilities I would like to do a better job of distinguishing global navigation from local navigation. Rustdoc has a pretty reasonable information architecture, if only we did a better job of communicating it. This PR aims, mostly, to help doc authors help their users by writing docs that can be more effectively skimmed. But it doesn't do anything to make it easier to tell the TOC and the Module Nav apart.
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Long pages such as in regex have many examples but it's difficult to know at a glance what the documentation contains without scanning the entire document. Having a table of contents would help a lot with this.
Here is a list of links to different TOC styles from various places for ways it could be done:
I looked for some more but didn't find other good examples.
Of these, I like the mozilla, python 2, and gitbook TOCs best with the mozilla probably the best among them (probably because it's small and clean). However, I think the gitbook style is probably the most appropriate fit to the std libs style.
I've also provided a mockups of what a TOC could look like in that style which is similar to a different thread. Clearly, something would need to be done with the current sidebar to use this format.
Mockup:
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