Nesting headers within expandable sections.

SB_ux233y

Hello.

Since my instance of Confluence contains pages with a vast amount of content, I've resorted to using the Expand macro to wrap content within expandable text boxes. As one would imagine, this significantly reduces the size of pages.

However often times, I have to include content under Header 3s within expandable sections along with the headers themselves.

Since the TOC on most pages index headers up to level 3, these naturally list all Header 3s of a page even if they might be hidden in an expandable section. 

On clicking the listings of these Headers from the TOC however nothing happens, simply because they're hidden behind expandable sections. 

Is there a way to overcome this issue? It would be helpful if clicking on a Header hidden behind an expandable section within the TOC would atleast take users to the respective expandable section.

Thanks.

Jared Brenner

Hi Sean,

I've had this same issue with Confluence.  Table of Contents navigation doesn't work with headings when they're collapsed in Expand macros.  You can't even use Ctrl+F to find collapsed content - the macro must be expanded.  I settled on other methods of displaying my content.

• Content Slider macro (in the paid Image Slider for Confluence plugin): Headings embedded in Content Slider Entry macros will still show up in the Table of Contents and can be clicked to navigate, and embedded content can be found with Ctrl+F.  This is still true if the heading/content is not on the active slide, but users may not find it intuitive to scroll through the slider to find their content.
• Tabs Container macro (in the paid Content Formatting for Confluence plugin): Also a good way to separate content while keeping it on the same main page, but you'll want to use the Table of Content Zone macro if you want each Tabs page entry to have its own Table of Contents without pulling headings from the others.

You could experiment with hiding headings in white text just above the corresponding expand macros, but then both headings would appear in the Table of Contents.  It might just be easier to change the maximum heading level in the Table of Contents to 2 so those in Heading 3 aren't displayed, and then break your content up into more Heading 2 sections.

Good luck!