779881 - Kuma: Editor - Add UI to add a name="" attribute on headers

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(developer.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Wiki pages, defect, P3)

Description

[Eric Shepherd [:sheppy]]

In order to let us specify permanent names for headers (so that the text can change without breaking links), we have the name="" attribute. However, there's not currently UI for this. Please add some.

This might be a context menu option on headers.

Comment 1

[John Karahalis [:openjck]]

Wondering if we might want to take a different approach here. If the underlying problem is that changing a heading can break links, maybe the ID of the heading shouldn't be based on the content of that heading.

MediaWiki also generates IDs based on heading content, and it can get pretty annoying at times. Often, I will click an anchor link only to be dropped on the main page (not a particular heading) because the heading that the link pointed to changed by a word or two.

Anyway, it seems like lots of Wiki platforms struggle with this. Is there any precedence of Wiki platform that does this right -- that allows users to change headings without breaking anchor links?

Comment 2

[Eric Shepherd [:sheppy]]

(In reply to John Karahalis [:openjck] from comment #1)
> Wondering if we might want to take a different approach here. If the
> underlying problem is that changing a heading can break links, maybe the ID
> of the heading shouldn't be based on the content of that heading.
> 
> MediaWiki also generates IDs based on heading content, and it can get pretty
> annoying at times. Often, I will click an anchor link only to be dropped on
> the main page (not a particular heading) because the heading that the link
> pointed to changed by a word or two.
> 
> Anyway, it seems like lots of Wiki platforms struggle with this. Is there
> any precedence of Wiki platform that does this right -- that allows users to
> change headings without breaking anchor links?

The problem is that until we have good, site-wide support for linking to subheadings on target pages using UX, we have to be able to type out these URLs, and the easiest way to deal with it is for them to be based on the text of the heading itself.

Comment 3

[Eric Shepherd [:sheppy]]

Not to mention that nobody really likes page URLs that are just gibberish. :)

Comment 4

[Eric Shepherd [:sheppy]]

We no longer use the name attribute this way, so this bug is no longer valid.