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Comments on Thoughts on hiding challenge sections with expandable details tags

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Thoughts on hiding challenge sections with expandable details tags

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I've recently started experimenting with hiding some of the sections in a challenge, using an expandable <details> tag. This seems to have some advantages, but I'm interested to hear how people find this - any good and bad points and general advice on how and where to use this.

I'm asking this in the context of challenges specifically, not general Q&A.

I'm not expecting this to lead to rules, just guidance on what people find easiest to use. I'm interested in hearing from people who write answers and people who browse answers, and people who do both. I'm interested in what you find useful on a first reading of a new challenge, and also what you find useful when revisiting a challenge you have already read, to see new answers.

How does this vary on different types of device - small or large screens, landscape or portrait, touchscreen or mouse and keyboard. I don't want to disadvantage one device type.


For example, I initially just hid a terminology section, but more recently I'm considering also hiding the input, output, and test cases sections, so only the introductory overview is visible.


Partially hidden example

A brief introductory overview of what the challenge is about.

Terminology The terms used in a particular field; nomenclature.

Input

  • The data provided to your code
  • Specific details

Output

  • The data produced by your code
  • Specific details

Test cases

Test cases are in the format input : output

A : apple
B : banana
C : citron

Fully hidden example

A brief introductory overview of what the challenge is about.

Terminology The terms used in a particular field; nomenclature.
Input
  • The data provided to your code
  • Specific details
Output
  • The data produced by your code
  • Specific details
Test cases Test cases are in the format input : output
A : apple
B : banana
C : citrus
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I don't like the partially or fully hidden examples. Those require more work to see the details, instead of just scrolling on.

Anyone curious enough about a challenge from the title will want to read what it's about. Making that difficult is just annoying without any upside.

Short challenges don't need to do anything special. Long challenges can use headings to reduce visual clutter, as in your partially hidden example.

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Possible upsides (not sure they make it worthwhile though) (1 comment)
Possible upsides (not sure they make it worthwhile though)
trichoplax‭ wrote about 2 years ago

I agree that there is extra work for someone reading the question for the first time (which is why I wanted to get feedback before deciding whether to use this more).

The potential upside I'm weighing against that is the ease of getting to the answers for someone who has already previously read the challenge details. Maybe also the ease of getting to a specific section for someone assessing whether an answer is valid.

Some of my challenges have quite long sections so perhaps the short sections here don't make a good example. I'll try to find an example of a challenge with a longer section and edit a link into the question, in case that makes a difference.