“ The first step has always been reaching some sort of community consensus of what exactly the "baseline" formatting for both occasional-complex and frequent-common table types should be and then build (templatizize) from there as user needs or formatting caveats may require.I never understood why we can't seem to do this for at least a single row of the more common toc entries between 2 to 5 table-cells long per row even. ”

“ TOC implemented via {{aligned table}} demonstrating column-level rules Case of "Simple" TOC implemented via {{aligned table}} demonstrating row-level rules Aligned table: Future potential issues How to handle cross-page structures? The current LUA code builds monolithic HTML and may not cater for creation of unbalanced open and close tags. Needs further investigation. Assuming above solvable ought consideration be applied to creation of an alternative (aligned-faux-table?) to create div class="faux-???" output? (May ease leap to mobile? The issue of spanning cells arises again.) ”

“ Same goes for leader constants if so decided. If I recall Module:dotted TOC page listing was abandoned primarily as at the time system profiling implied LUA overheads were only marginally different to those of template expansion. ”

“ Having said all that I think aligned table is fairly useless except as a familiarisation exercise: to handle cross-page+assembly stuff (a situation near unheard of in the Other Place) the first thing needs ditching is the mw.html stuff. Whilst a wonderful crutch neither the "add " nor the "hanging mismatched tags" approaches are going to work nicely; will break compatibility and all that lovely effective support derived from being able to resych. the latest enWP code. ”

“ Some questions How does go about one merging two adjacent "cells" within the faux-table model? (I realise this question may not make sense but within the TOC-forming family quite often centred section or book titles may appear interspersed with regular columnar Chapter-Description-Page sets and it seems contrary to close and reopen the table structure each time such an interruption to the pattern occurs.) Context of this enquiry: {{TOC row c}}, {{TOC row r}} compatibility. ”

“ In the mean time, I really need to work on re-vamping the header template as I'm getting more and more "complaints" about our mobile view's on phablets and smartphones lately. -- George Orwell III (talk) 03:02, 27 September 2015 (UTC) That is quite O.K. and I understand. I would like to tackle at least simple dot-leaders next and that will probably take me another week or so anyway. It was getting frustrating not being able to get LUA to "play" but I have gone back to utterly bloody-minded basics due to both documentation and current practice being at complete cross-purposes. ”

“ I'd rather mimic the current family of templates with a new family based on tags rather than wiki mark-up -- I believe superseding the current coding would/could require too many per application considerations for things like NOP usage or header/footer exclusion for example. ”

“ As you (may be able to) see the, normally hidden, list structure is revealed as a result of the LST process stripping off the outermost

...

This is not the issue as that is precisely the result of choosing and positioning the sub-section tags; and in an ideal world simply replacing the missing structure would restore full function. ”

“ One should never assume that his side of the issue will be recognized, let alone that it will be conceded to have merits. 7.95 Bruschetta 5.25 Margherita Pizza 10.95 bending the basics (to see what breaks) Salmon Ravioli 7.95 Fried Calamari 8.95 Almond Prawn Cocktail, with orange and potato salad, spring carrots, blue cheese, tuna, and prawns. ”

“ I have uncovered a wealth of oddities in the real-world TOC of Index:Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes Volume 12.djvu (progressive evolution: User:AuFCL/SandBox) and if I manage to eventually cover all the cases therein will consider this a worthwhile outcome. (You will have noticed I fell into the trap heavily of assuming and related tags could be sensibly be emitted by LUA code (big answer: no they can not!) ”

“ Did you mean one LUA module invoking another LUA module (effectively one level handling the "list" and the innermost the "table"s, giving the user the ability to choose from a predetermined set of leader/column/ (layout?) alternatives) ? This is almost getting back to the {{TOC begin}} concept via different means ”

“ One down. The answer was hiding in the detail of {{dotted TOC page listing}} all along. I never learn. AuFCL (talk) 01:48, 22 October 2015 (UTC) Re: problem #2 -- Are they cases where {{hi}} is being used? If so; that's your problem (uses a div based wrapper) . I just edited 2 pages mentioned/copied-into in your sandbox where I think you were having that problem and -- with the use of straight P tags instead of the HI template -- now have the previously split portions rendering as one in the mainspace. ”

“ Actually, the template syntax should be more like...
{{TOCstyle |starting=yes |model=2H3P/s |FORMER }}{{TOCstyle |completing=yes |model=2H3P/e |LATTER.|}}
... than what you had ( |'s at the 'end of the line') -- George Orwell III (talk) 03:43, 25 October 2015 (UTC) I never cease to amaze myself how dopey I can be. Thank you. That is the best outcome that could be expected. ”

“ Just goes to prove your eye is still true. AuFCL (talk) 04:28, 25 October 2015 (UTC) It was just happenstance the example wasn't a single word hyphenated across the imagined page break this time. I'm pretty sure if this was a true transclusion to the main namespace, the extension would add/strip the spaces as needed. ”

“ Representative cases (existing template survey: may be severely pruned?) {{Dotted TOC line}} (probably sub-case of {{dotted TOC page listing}} discussed above?) {{TOC line}} {{TOC page listing}} {{TOC row 1-1-1}} {{TOC row 1-1-1-1}} {{TOC row 1-2}} {{TOC row 1-c-1}} {{TOC row 1-dot-1}} (probably sub-case of {{dotted TOC page listing}} discussed above?) {{TOC row 1-out-1}} {{TOC row 1-r-1}} {{TOC row 2-1}} {{TOC row 2-1-1}} {{TOC row 2dot-1}} (probably sub-case of {{dotted TOC page listing}} discussed above?) ”