---
title: "Feature: A byline, footnotes and a table of contents"
manual: "Frontend Theme for Extension Development"
version: "main"
source: "Changelog/2.0/Feature-ArticleBylineAndFootnotes.rst"
rendered: "2026-09-28T12:50:34+00:00"
---

# Feature: A byline, footnotes and a table of contents {#feature-article-byline-and-footnotes}

## Description {#description}

Two components of long form text join the library, and the article of the
showcase - **Typography** \> **Article**, `/typography/article`
\- uses both:

| Component | Is |
| --- | --- |
| `.theme-byline` | The credit line between the title of a text and its first paragraph: who wrote it, when, and whatever else fits in one short phrase. One line rather than a list; the date is a `<time>` with a machine readable `datetime`. The items are separated by the border of the item that follows, so the separator follows the reading direction and is not a character the stylesheet invented. |
| `.theme-footnotes` and `.theme-footnote-ref` | The notes at the end of a text, and the superscript reference in the running text that points at one. Both carry the number literally, so a reader copying a sentence out of the page copies the reference with it. Each note ends on a link back to its reference, drawn from the vendored `arrow-turn-up`. |

The article also demonstrates two core fields of the **Appearance**
tab the theme renders but the showcase did not seed:
**Show in Section Menus** (`sectionIndex`), which is switched off on
the title, the byline and the notes so the table of contents of the page lists
the sections of the article and nothing else, and
**Append with Link to Top of Page** (`linkToTop`), at the end of the
notes.

The page therefore renders through the **Content with sidebar**
backend layout, the only layout with a column for the table of contents. Its
sibling pages are short enough to read straight through and keep
**Content**.

Neither component has a content element of its own. A site that publishes
articles would add one; the showcase writes the markup in a
**Plain HTML** element, and the references are part of the rich text of
the paragraphs they sit in.

## Impact {#impact}

The set `theme-demo` declares one more content element on page 56 and
renumbers the elements of that page: the byline is the second element, so what
was `5602` to `5609` is now `5603` to `5610`, and the notes are
`5611`. An installation that imported an earlier version of the set and
points at one of those uids has to be reseeded.