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Story and Mechanics Links

Parody said:
Things to consider:

1. It makes links less recognizable, diluting their meaning.

2. It's easy to end up with something that looks horrible even to those who are using the standard settings.

3. Vision issues (like color deficiency and needing high contrast) are more common than you think.


Personally, I wouldn't use this feature (both because of numbers 1 and 2 above and because I don't care about the difference in destination) and would revert imported text using multiple link colors to the default. But that's just me.
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Agreed... if something like this were implemented, it is one of the first things that would have me looking for a way to permanently disable it across all Realms.
 
AEIOU said:
Rather than the orange I used for demonstration, I'd personally prefer a medium grey with underline. It isn't obtrusive but is easily discernible should I need the reference.
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+1! Love this idea, as it would make loads of mechanics references a lot less painful.
 
Parody said:
HTML5 and CSS3 are tools that must be used with caution. :)
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Agreed. The value of visual cues comes from using them sparingly. Over-used, they are an eye-sore. Used sparingly, they draw attention to the points where they are present.

I remember years ago going to help support someone who had used the Windows 3.x customization to turn all the colors into a mix of canary yellow and hot pink/magenta. That's one of the few times I can say I really thought "it makes my eyes bleed" to be an appropriate description.
 
Although I agree with the idea I would not have as many links in a sentence as this example. I would probably only link one time to the article orcs.
 
@ Cornelius: I tried doing that. But as my categories increased I gave in to letting RW do what it does best and let it link. It would be awesome for RW to link only the first instance per paragraph as an option but if that happens, it's probably 5+ years out. This seemed easier to do now.
 
AEIOU said:
@ Cornelius: I tried doing that. But as my categories increased I gave in to letting RW do what it does best and let it link. It would be awesome for RW to link only the first instance per paragraph as an option but if that happens, it's probably 5+ years out. This seemed easier to do now.
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If the mechanics links were less intrusive, I would be fine with linking everything. I like the idea of being able to looking something up in context.

The only reason that I would like the option to only link the first instance of certain links (for me nearly 100% mechanics articles) is because the current link format makes the page hard if there are many instances of the linked words.

Make the words look like every other word or just a lighter shade or something similarly subtle and I don't care if you have a large number of links.
 
No snippet should include two links to the same topic, no matter how many times the word(s) may appear in the snippet. I think some of the concern about clutter is due to the automatic linking of "common" game terms that may appear many times in a paragraph.

This is a style convention quite common in places like Wikipedia. So users already expect it even if they aren't aware of it.
 
kbs666 said:
No snippet should include two links to the same topic, no matter how many times the word(s) may appear in the snippet. I think some of the concern about clutter is due to the automatic linking of "common" game terms that may appear many times in a paragraph.

This is a style convention quite common in places like Wikipedia. So users already expect it even if they aren't aware of it.
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This may be a "convention", but it is definitely an opinion. I want a term to be linked to the appropriate topic/article *every* time that term appears. If I want to see the linked topic/article for a term, I don't want to have to hunt for the first instance of the term - any instance should be equivalently linked.

It would definitely be nice if we had control over the appearance of the text, though - CSS would be ideal, now that everything is in HTML.
 
It just struck me that I normally want story links once per entry but mechanic links almost every time. I need to check my realms to see whether this pattern is really the case as it might be a useful formatting division for LW to explore if others have the same patterns of desired use as an option to implement.

EDIT: (added qualifier of "...as an option to implement" as I'm just throwing out ideas, not proposing a final solution)
 
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What AEIOU said. BUT only if mechanics links could be formatted to be unobtrusive.

That said, with the current formatting, only linking the first instance would be fine, but why just one time per snippet? Why not one time per article? (which is how it is now if you use ignore all further instances after linking the first instance)

When I started using RW, I would link all instances because I liked the idea of being able to click on a link in context rather then trying to remember whether it was linked above and scrolling up to find the linked term in a large topic.

But I quickly came to rely more on the "Content Links" section in the right navigation column. Actually, now that I think of it, I could do away with all link formatting. As long as the linked-to topics are listed under the Content Links section, that's really all I need.
 
Well, I have some rather long articles here and there, so having only the first instance having a link would be tiresome.

Besides, I use the linking in the topic/snippet to tell me at a glance that I have further information on a subject in a topic.

So, if there is no link for the Bürgermeister I know I (must likely) have to wing it when it comes to describing him. If there is a link, I know I have to take a look at what I have written earlier on in order to ensure consistency.

So,if we are going to lower the number of links, let it be an option (weeh, another option, I can hear the programmers at LW sigh).
 
Vargr said:
Besides, I use the linking in the topic/snippet to tell me at a glance that I have further information on a subject in a topic.

So, if there is no link for the Bürgermeister I know I (must likely) have to wing it when it comes to describing him. If there is a link, I know I have to take a look at what I have written earlier on in order to ensure consistency.
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Good point. If the list of Content Links gets very long, it may be a bit less convenient to have to look it over to determine that information.

If the HTML in the links use the CLASS attribute to differentiate between topic links and article links, AND if they give us the ability to edit the CSS (whether through the GUI or dirrect access the file(s) with all the caveats and warnings), then it should be very doable.

Now that everything is in HTML, it should be easier to allow greater control over the formatting. The problem is coding the GUI for tweaking the formatting settings is a lot of work. I'm sure LWD is loathe to give us access to the CSS files, but it would sure be nice.
 
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