[pmwiki-users] FAQ Page Layout

Benjamin Wilson ameen at dausha.net
Thu Aug 4 00:16:20 CDT 2005


H. Fox wrote:

[snip]

> Like the Firefox FAQ, it uses list markup at the top that links to
> answers below, where the questions are bold and the answers have
> left-margin.
> 
> The designers of that page are probably PhDs with emphasis in UI design. :-)

I believe in wiki markup that's the DL/DD/DT set of HTML tags, and so no 
need to get fancy. As far as using PhDs, (present company 
excepted)--I've been reading depositions this week and can tell you that 
when PhDs get involved so do egos, so the UI was probably done by a 13 
year-old. :-) I know many PhDs are nice people, but when they're expert 
witnesses they get really pissy.
(Ex.)
:'''Question''':Answer is written here.

Just modify the Markup for the Q:/A: to create that effect.

However, I agree that the TOC is fairly standard.

> Here's another one:
> 
>    http://www.w3.org/DOM/faq.html
> 
> Notice a pattern?  This one uses a return-to-top link after each question.

That is/could be a feature of pagetoc when it gets incorporated into the 
core.

> Here's a(n) FAQ page with *lots* of questions -- probably too many.
> 
>    http://www.tux.org/lkml/#QI
> 
> Based on these and other effective FAQ pages, I think answers should
> be indented -- that is, have some margin on the left.

I can agree with that logic. Again, that's a trivial change to the Q:/A: 
markup:

## Q: and A:
Markup('^Q:', 'block', '/^Q:(.*)$/', "<dl class='faq'><dt 
class='Q'>$1</dt>");
Markup('^A:', 'block', '/^(A:.*)$/', "<dd class='A'>$1</dd>");

Or:
Markup('^Q:', 'block', '/^Q:(.*)$/', "<ul class='faq'><li 
class='Q'>$1</li>");
Markup('^A:', 'block', '/^(A:.*)$/', "<li class='A'>$1</li></ul>");

Then, whether the Q: is bold or not is site-admin preference. Notice 
that if you want to include the Q:, or exclude the A:, just move the 
open-parenthesis in the Markup.

> All three of these examples use bold text for the questions, but I
> still would prefer to see the font weight normal and use some other
> styling to set the questions apart.

Yes, but bold is a predominant factor in FAQ questions.

*Examples where Q:/A: are present in the FAQ:*
	http://frequentlyaskedquestions.com/faqs/domainFAQ.asp
	http://wiki.theory.org/BitTorrentFAQ
	http://www.kci.org/meth_info/faq_meth.htm
	http://www.animesuki.com/faq.php
	http://scsifaq.paralan.com/scsifaqanswers.html#18
	http://www.microsoft.com/xna/faq.aspx
	http://www.digitalmastery.com/companionsite/faq/
	http://www.bbc.co.uk/opensource/faq.shtml
	http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/faq/faqs1.shtml

Not exactly a limited set.

"Show me a set of numbers that prove your point, and I'll introduce you 
to my statistician who will disprove your point with the same numbers." :-)

Kind Regards,
Ben





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