Re: A minor bug in doc. Hovering over heading shows # besides it.

On Wednesday, July 17, 2024, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:

> David Rowley <dgrowleyml(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> > On Thu, 18 Jul 2024 at 16:55, Muhammad Ikram <mmikram(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> >> when we hover over Table Basics, it shows # sign postfixed. I think it
> needs to be removed
>
> > In [1], there was some talk about using another more suitable
> > character. If the purpose of the '#' isn't obvious, then maybe we
> > should use something else.
>
> Yeah. I've found this new feature useful multiple times already,
> but the '#' icon is as non-mnemonic and unobvious as could possibly
> be. OTOH, I don't know of a standard icon for this feature.

The fact that clicking this gave me a link with “#ANCHOR” appended to it
made the use of # make perfect sense, at least in hindsight.

Can we use a boat anchor symbol?

I get that my ideas do have the problem that I’m familiar with web
nomenclature and details at a lower level than most of the readers we are
trying to help with this change…

I feel the bug here, though possibly rarely to be read, is to note this
behavior on the “Conventions” page.

> A different idea is to dispense with the icon and make the section
> title itself be a link to itself.
>

If that includes styling it would solve what I’d say is the bigger issue
that where these anchors exist is not always visible. I suppose
understanding all major headings should have links makes sense, but we’ve
probably got 30% (w.a.g.) of our tables with them as well. It also would
have helped here possibly by not looking like a random buggy thing on
mouse-over but instead quite evidently part of our navigation.

David J.