How to Manage the TOC of Articles on dev.to?

I know there is no current standard in Markdown to write Table Of Content, but does anyone knows a trick to do it on dev.to?
Could it work by using HTML anchors?
But how can I know the future URL of the article I'm currently writing?

Any help would be welcome :)

Comments

[rhymes]

You can use inline anchors with Markdown:

## TOC
  * [Chapter 1](#chapter-1)
  * [Chapter 2](#chapter-2)
  * [Chapter 3](#chapter-3)

### Chapter 1 <a name="chapter-1"></a>

This way you don't need to know the final URL

[Rémi Lavedrine]

Thanks for the question and the answer.
I didn't know that trick and I am going to try it in my next post.

[Helen Anderson]

Thank you! This is just what I’ve been looking for.

[Benny Code]

The Editor Guide is also a nice resource to find out what's possible on dev.to: dev.to/p/editor_guide#markdown-links

[iamtodor]

I faced the issue when dev.to does not rended a few levels of table of content:

- [first](#first)
  * [second](#second)
    + [third](#third)

## first

first blah

### second 

second blah 

#### third

third blah

While markdown is rendering it as three level of content dev.to renders it only as two. What is the best way to tackle this problem?

[Sylvie Fiquet]

I managed to get a third level by using a 5 space indent:

- level 1
  - level 2
     - level 3

• level 1
  • level 2
    • level 3

Not sure why a 4 space indent doesn't work, possibly because it's interpreted as code.

[Lucy Linder]

Most solutions I found on dev.to are so tedious, I created a tool to do it for you: derlin.github.io/bitdowntoc/ (choose the dev.to preset ;))

To know more, see my article:

Finally a clean and easy way to add Table of Contents to dev.to articles 🤩

Lucy Linder ・ Jan 2 ・ 4 min read

#productivity #writing #beginners #showdev