Yep, that was my experience as well. It’s tricky to write and edit. But I took a look at the top5 posts in the wiki category, turns out, it’s just a handful of people, that actually change something in the first post. The edits are mostly done by the OPs or, as you said, by regulars.
That’s why I decided to put readability in front of edit-friendly. I went that step further and put it in a category, where only I as OP can edit the first post. But that’s me, I know I can be a strange person.
The majority of users just want to get information, as fast as possible, and as easy as possible. So in the end, it makes my life easier, if I provide the information as readable as possible, while taking into account, that most of the changes will come from very few people, where I simply expect them to know, how to change a markdown table.
That’s why I love the Cookbook. It’s an effort from many people, but not too much of them, to get things done. Spreads the work load, and still leaves things in an ordered manner. Uh, Monk feeling coming up.
The easiest way would be to ask a team member, if the Discourse TOC (table of content) component could be activated. That would do the job automatically…
See here:
@petro@tom_l
Can this component be activated? Have no idea, if it’s even possible, or if there are costs, just asking!
EDIT: @Stiltjack I added a TOC to the Cookbook index, hope this helps you. You’re doing so much writing for the Cookbook (thanks btw.), these copy&paste tasks are the least I can do.
Please feel free to change or delete as you like!
Btw. I found something, that could be the reason why it’s not working for you. When you tried, did you by any chance add a heading to your index, like “TOC”? If you did so, with saving the topic, all following anchors change the number at the end. You’d need to adjust them.
Original https://community.home-assistant.io/t/the-home-assistant-cookbook-index/707144#getting-started-with-the-forum-1
By saving will get to: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/the-home-assistant-cookbook-index/707144#toc-1 https://community.home-assistant.io/t/the-home-assistant-cookbook-index/707144#getting-started-with-the-forum-2
With the wrong number, it jumps back to the top of the post.
And now ask, how I found out!
Just wanted to get a summary on a single screen - as we know, people dislike scrolling down.
Is it worth keeping? In the light of your point, if a new category is added the whole TOC will have to be manually edited, not just the entry for that item. I suppose that doesn’t happen too often.
Done! Sent a PM to balloob, frenck and Tinkerer. Made myself unpopular by tagging all three of them, but I really don’t know, who is the right person to ask…
This is often the case with these lists. They grow, get better and more informative, but less readable.
One solution to this would be to separate the chapters into single posts. We could link these from a TOC, and as we are able to edit all posts, we could set this up easily. Something along the lines
Post #1 (starting post) :: TOC
Post #2 :: Getting started with the forum
Post #3 :: Getting started with HA
You get the idea. Advantage would be, that we could link form “outside” to a specific chapter. Besides the way better readability, we could also add some context to these posts without disrupting the whole single start post.
Regarding the numbers and the TOC: in a one-chapter-per-post system we wouldn’t need that. We would link to a normal post.
But, if we add new chapters, we’d have to change all following posts as well, as the order would change as well… Same, same I’d say!
Yes, add it! I read that with great interest and I’m sure it will be useful for really advanced users! from me!
@MissyQ right now, She owns inherited us as the Social Media Coordinator…
And if I were to guess, it will be added to the list and will be considered during the revamp coming sometime after Discord changes settle. The same time the layout for the Regulars category is enabled.
You all want change too soon, I’d rather it be carefully thought out and planned…
She knows what she’s doing.
Would be nice, if this would be said anywhere… Are there any other things one should know? I haven’t heard about any of that. Regular category layout? What changes?
Sorry, seems I’m not on the memo, but tell me more, it sounds really interesting.
I have heard it suggested that we should watch the release party this week to know more.
Changes are coming is all I really know.
Lots of things are being considered. All I know are unsubstantiated rumors and leaks and I’m not passing any of that on, other than the Discourse changes are sometime after the Discord changes have settled a bit.
I have confidence it is in good hands and that at this point suggestions are welcome and will be added to the consideration list. (But she pretty much promised the level3 (regulars) only thread, so that’s kinda a given.)
omg stop being such a curmudgeon! (I’ve been waiting all day to use that word!) lol
Actually, I hate changes too, but from what I’ve heard (the same pretty much as @Sir_Goodenough), they could be good. I have high hopes at least as Missy seems to be on top of things and that’s been sorely missing for a long time.
Spreads the work load, and still leaves things in an ordered manner. Uh, Monk feeling coming up. 
Browser?
