Granular Links

[Bidmaron]

Links are not as useful as they could be, especially in a large topic. I'd like to see two improvements to links:

1) If you click on a link that isn't the name of the topic (i.e. it's an alias), the program highlights all the occurrences of the word/phrase in the topic and scrolls the window if necessary so the first occurrence is within the visible window. This feature is important because for large topics where you keep things such as very minor NPCs who don't warrant a separate topic, you can rapidly get to that person (by making an alias to the topic for that NPC).

2) When #1 isn't good enough for a large topic, the ability to specify a snippet target (e.g. the '#' suffix of a url) that navigates straight to a section or snippet when you click the link. These targets would either be manually built when you create the link or by adding a target to an existing link. Further, I'd like to see a target menu similar to the way Microsoft Word displays a list of bookmarks in a document when you make a link to a document with bookmarks. In this case, the list would auto-populate with the sections, perhaps with the ability to make a "bookmark" inside a topic that would also appear in the link target list.

[Teresa]

+1 I like this idea

[Grey Mage]

+1 to this; especially point number 2 wherein you can link to a target snippet.

[Greebo]

+1, at least to point number 2.

[Silveras]

This is two request rolled into one... it should be two threads so each can be clearly evaluated.

I have no use for, and am not even sure I fully grasp, what #1 is about.

If I recall correctly, #2 is something that has been mentioned in the past as a long-term goal anyway... though I can't point at a specific reference and it may just be something said in passing.

[Bidmaron]

What number 1 was trying to do was fix it so you could have a lot of minor NPCs (or any other category) stuck in one topic with aliases that skipped you to different places in the topic. In other words, within a topic with aliases, you could make an alias point to a different portion of the topic (think like you might have a list of NPCs in the first section/snippet that would be like a clickable TOC that would then move the window to the appropriate place within the topic.

[Silveras]

Originally Posted by Bidmaron

What number 1 was trying to do was fix it so you could have a lot of minor NPCs (or any other category) stuck in one topic with aliases that skipped you to different places in the topic. In other words, within a topic with aliases, you could make an alias point to a different portion of the topic (think like you might have a list of NPCs in the first section/snippet that would be like a clickable TOC that would then move the window to the appropriate place within the topic.

So if I have this right, you want to expand Aliases/Alternate Names to not only refer to the Topic, but also optionally to a specific Snippet within the Topic?

[Bidmaron]

Well, I want to have that option. Every link doesn't have to get granular, just some.

If they have implemented topics as I suspect, where each topic is a table of sections/snippets, this would probably not be that hard to do. But I am totally guessing their implementation.