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Common words and linking

G

Gord

Well-known member
I did a search and didn't find anything on this topic so my apologies if I missed it.

One problem we all seem to have is that while the automatic linking is one of the best features in RW, common words are an issue unless we never want to link them. I'm thinking of things like the "Fly" spell. Every time I have "fly" in my text, I have to "ignore link" at least once when saving. I've debated making the topic title "@Fly" or "FLY" (and matching cases but even that seems to pop up with a search).

I'm wondering if there is a way to set use italics in the topic title and use it as criteria for linking? Things like spell names seem to have this as a standard formatting procedure in D&D books at the very least.

What I am wanting to do is italicize certain titles like "Fly" and then choose an option to ignore the link if it was not in the snippet text in this format. "He was going to fly to the moon" would not come up with a link in this case but "he threw a Fly spell" would since I might want to go to the spell definition.

Using all caps is another option (I think) but it really looks ugly in the middle of the snippet text so I've been avoiding it. It's also more work since if you are importing from a pdf, you have to change the italics to all caps.

Perhaps I have missed something? Is there another easy option?
 
1) Do you really ever want to link to spells at all? How many such links do you actually have? When I had them in my PF realm they were basically never linked except in cases like you describe. It is why I deleted them all.

2) If you feel like you must have them set the names to never priority and set the links manually when you need them. When "fly" needs to be linked just select the word and right click it.
 
kbs666 said:
1) Do you really ever want to link to spells at all? How many such links do you actually have? When I had them in my PF realm they were basically never linked except in cases like you describe. It is why I deleted them all.
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I really do want the spells linked, as I don't get to play often enough that I don't need to refresh my memory (either that or my memory sucks -- probably both).

kbs666 said:
2) If you feel like you must have them set the names to never priority and set the links manually when you need them. When "fly" needs to be linked just select the word and right click it.
Click to expand...

Reasonable workaround for now, but the request is highly valid. It isn't just spells either. The same can be said for attributes (strength, etc) and many other info types.
 
Bidmaron said:
Reasonable workaround for now, but the request is highly valid. It isn't just spells either. The same can be said for attributes (strength, etc) and many other info types.
Click to expand...

I'm the same way. I was just using spells as an example since italics are a common usage for them. I actually do have them all entered up to the "T's" for 5e and I'm not about to toss out the work but it is indeed rare that I need to look them up. There are lots of other instances where the same reasoning applies.
 
If links to the actual topics are not actually being created then what is the point of the topics?

Pick any of these problematic topics and count the number of real inbound links. Are there any at all?
 
Another option is to disambiguate the title of the article. Change the title to 'Fly (Spell)'. You can make this a naming convention for all your spells, or just use it in cases where the name is too common.

Another place I have used this technique is for a common location name in an adventure site. For example, if Lyn Armaal and Ironslag both have a Main Gate, you could title them 'Main Gate (LA)', and 'Main Gate (IS)'.
 
snaggle2th said:
Another place I have used this technique is for a common location name in an adventure site. For example, if Lyn Armaal and Ironslag both have a Main Gate, you could title them 'Main Gate (LA)', and 'Main Gate (IS)'.
Click to expand...
This is where suffixes come in very handy.
 
Would suffixes come in handy in this situation? My understanding is that link matching is done on the title field only, not on the title-and-suffix pair.

Using my example, to have two 'Main Gate' entries, with a suffix of 'LA' and 'IS' respectively would still result in naming conflicts. Only by using 'LA' and 'IS' (ie. 'Main Gate (IS)') as part of the title field would you be sure that the two 'Main Gate' entries would not conflict.

Using the OP's example, adding a suffix to 'Fly' would still result in 'false positives', while using a title field of 'Fly (Spell)' would make them very unlikely indeed.

Am I misunderstanding some aspect of this? I'm sure that some people would not want to use the clunkier title, but personally, I find the false positive links to be more inconvenient.

EDIT: Wait a minute--DO matches get made on the title-and-suffix pair? Because that would be awesome! You have me doubting myself--but if that were the case, I wonder why no one would have brought it up in this thread...
 
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Link matching is done on the title only but the suffix is shown if their is a conflict. So if there are multiple Main Gate topics each with different suffixes a link to Main Gate will show all the possibilities with each one differentiated by its suffix.

This is an easier way to write entries. you don't have to try and remember what things are topics, are even know since with scan for new links things that weren't links might become ones later. You worry about disambiguation on the topic side not the snippet side. Yes, you have to manually confirm the link but so what?
 
I am using the always link without asking functionality and then remove "common" links. If something starts to get annoying I'll set it to "never link" but I would also like a better solution!
 
Perhaps an option can be added on names to "always ask" so that auto-linking occurs on everything else but not the ones marked "always ask".
 
Farling said:
Perhaps an option can be added on names to "always ask" so that auto-linking occurs on everything else but not the ones marked "always ask".
Click to expand...

Something like this might be the simplest solution. I might change the option to say "ask instead of auto-link" to make it clearer. There certainly is probably a better way to say it though.
 
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