Let me throw an extra angel on the head of this needle: a user might conceivably want to export a work when currently on a wikipage in these namespaces, and a user might conceivably want to export a single page, as defined by a Page: wikipage, of a work.

The Index: seems a reasonable place to want to start a download (export) of a whole work, or of a selected subset of it. The front matter of a century old book is not good user interface, but a progressively enhanced Index: page could be. And since a Page: wikipage is how we define the "page" unit of a work, anyone that wants to grab "only the page with that poem I love" are by proxy wanting to export a wikipage in Page:.

I don't think any of these are use cases we should currently worry about, and we should absolutely remove the links from Index:/Page: for right now, but it's worth keeping in mind to avoid hard-coding too many assumptions.

If they want to build a work, wouldn't we encourage them to use the old PDF build tool.

Plus what can they do from the Index page? None of the configuration exists to get the stream of subsidiary pages. If we want to do a whole work from the page, we add a top link. If they want a part, go to the part in main ns and grab it.

I'm not sure about encouraging people to use ElectronPdf, it's not really supported any more.

I think we should first add a means to create the download button (T275003), and then remove the links from the sidebar. That way, the index template could be changed to show a download button, but one which uses the mainspace title rather than the Index.

Alternatively, is it worth adding a user preference for the sidebar links? That way, people can choose and the sidebar is less cluttered.

We can also examine the logs to see how many Index and Page books are exported. Maybe that's the first thing!… :-)

Or change the sidebar links to do exactly the same as the blue button: pop the dialog. Then it's just a single entry in the sidebar and we can defer to the existing richer UI for the options.

That's a good idea. Although… I do wonder what the point of the sidebar links are, in a way. Is it just that we're used to having them? I think I use them now and then because I know it's slightly quicker than opening the popup and choosing PDF, but I wouldn't really miss them if they weren't there at all. It does feel a bit odd having the same function in two places.

I actually like the sidebar link and use it every time I want an EPUB for testing, but 1) I have set position: fixed; overflow-y: auto; on my sidebar so it stays put and 2) I'm mostly using it for checking exports rather than as an actual "reader" and 3) I can make my own links for nefarious purposes anyway

So I'm definitely open to the idea that the sidebar links are inertial rather than "designed".