Board Thread:Support Requests - Getting Technical/@comment-24577530-20200520121600/@comment-3218221-20200521190107

I know you're hoping for solutions that result in a horizontal TOC, rather than alternatives, but one way you could reduce the TOC's existing length ('for the time being' or otherwise) is by 'hiding' the sub-headers (which are all H3 headers on your page). In other words, it is possible to restrict which headers a TOC lists.

There are a couple of ways to achieve this. One way is to simply increase the font-size of all your sub-headings rather than actually tag them as H3 headings (e.g. using div style="font-size:16px;" for each sub-header). This way they would not be recognized as headers by the TOC.

However, this would be time-consuming to implement and certainly not all that practical in the long-term, so another option is to use a TOClimit-type template to hide the H3 headings instead...which I now see you have indeed borrowed from the Templates Wiki, as I have done myself. Your parameter input is '2' on the Versions History page, so you clearly already thought of hiding the H3 headings... Given that the TOC is still listing them despite your parameters, evidently something has gone wrong.

The template's documentation explains the template will not work without the required CSS, and lo, your MediaWiki:Wikia.css page is indeed blank. Ask someone with the necessary permissions to copy the template's Required CSS to your Wikia.css page.

(Remember, you might have to purge your cache and/or hard refresh or null edit before the effects are visible.)

If you want proof it works, here are links to the wiki where I have successfully implemented TOClimit and use the same 2 parameter: article where I use the TOClimit template | Wikia.css page with the CSS. Each Volume in the volumes list template was being detected as a H3 heading by TOC, so TOCLimit is successfully excluding them from the contents.

You might also want to take a gander at FloatingToc, a script that adds a button to TOCs that, when clicked, turns the TOC into a floating panel users can drag around with their mouse, adjust, and dock on the right rail while they scroll through the page. I implemented this myself on the Baccano! Wiki a few months back out of the same length concern; sure, I don't know how many people actually notice or use this feature, but I think it's definitely something you could use in the interim.

Edit: Ah, memories. I remember spending hours and hours attempting to figure out how the WoW Wiki had managed to make the TOC dock on the left rail by default when initially 'paneled' (click on the 'panel' button for this article's TOC as an example), back in the day. Trawled through their JS, played around with Inspect/Dev tools, etc; eventually I conceded retreat...

TOC_right was also a fine suggestion; I've used it on at least one article myself, but probably could stand to make use of TOC_left and _right a little more often. I recall that The Long Dark Wiki uses it for their Changelog page. I also recall that the Hollow Knight Wiki has a horizontal TOC for its Updates page...ah, a manually made one, rather than an automatic one. That explains that.

Edit x2: Chucked Fngplg's CSS at MagicCSS for a preview; this is the result. Had to maximize my browser window to fit it all in the screenshot. As Fngplg pointed out, the code isn't yet customized margin-wise and whatnot; some experimenting might very well be in order, eh?