Automatic linking

NimrodYanai
NimrodYanai

One of the bigger headaches of this wonderful website is starting to connect every wiki or character into each other.

What we need is an automated way of doing that. When I put in a character name, is should automatically link to the character page. The same with Wiki pages.

If there are several options (for example a character name and wiki page with the same name), there should be a small drop down to let me choose which one I want to connect to.

It will certainly make life much easier for everyone.

Comments

  • thaen
    thaen
    Posts: 1,059

    I like this idea a lot.  If others in the community want this, chime in!

    Obsidian Portal Developer

  • Krothos
    Krothos
    Posts: 230

    I like this idea as well. May add a "link" character, such as | (for example, |Character_Name|) to make it easy where we can decide whether we want the link to be put into place.

     

  • gastoff
    gastoff
    Posts: 136

    Would this feature also update text on existing wiki pages to make them into links or would links only be automatically created on newly created pages? One of my headaches is when I create a new page for an NPC, Deity, Region, etc that was referenced on another wiki pages and I have to go back to those old wiki pages to add the links to the new page.

    image

  • thaen
    thaen
    Posts: 1,059

    @Krothos, at first thought, it seems like the default would be that you would want the link, so instead of needing to type a special character to start the link, it seems like it should be that the link is assumed to be wanted if the text typed so far matches any named thing in the campaign, unless you "hit escape" to not accept the link.  Kind of like auto-complete works if you're familiar with it.  Feel free to say if you think that first thought is off.

    @gastoff, that's an interesting idea.  I think that's a completely separate feature that would need some "bulk changes" UI to work well so that the GM (or Players?) could see what all pages and text was going to be newly linked and quickly approve/disapprove/check/uncheck.  For example, I could see that leading to some issues if the created page had a generic name, like "Races", and listed out dwarves, elves, humans, etc.  But then you have an Adventure Log that says "The party was escorted to the chariot races."  The GM/Player should be able to quickly scan the list of proposed links, and uncheck any that they didn't want like linking the "chariot races" text to the "Races" page.  Does that still match what you were thinking?

    Obsidian Portal Developer

  • Krothos
    Krothos
    Posts: 230 edited September 2020

    Nope, I think you're spot on, though you did bring up a good concern replying to @gastoff. If these links are set to update all Wiki pages, old and new, that may be a problem for commonly used words. I guess one possible solution is make the auto-linking case sensitive. In your example, races wouldn't be linked because of the capital R in Races. Maybe add a right-click menu to "break link" or something similar for those special cases?

    (Though I will say it was easy enough to add the @ before gastoff to link his name and activate all the funtivities that comes with it.)

    Post edited by Krothos on
  • thaen
    thaen
    Posts: 1,059

    @Krothos, the capitalization idea might be close enough to "good" to not need a "bulk update" UI (which makes it more likely that feature will get done).  There might still be some undesired links created, like if the word was the first word in a sentence.  But that's not that bad and could be fixed (if noticed) just by deleting the word and retyping it and "escaping" the suggested link.

    There's always a balance to be struck between allowing enough specialization, and making things too complicated.

    Maybe one thing that would help would be to give the author that's Saving a "heads up" about how many Wiki pages will be affected.  And have it be a checkbox to create the links or not on Save, which could even be done after the first Save.

    And these would be two separate features.  Even if the "while Saving" feature respects capitalization, the "while typing" feature would probably ignore capitalization and give the choice to link to a capital version of the word you are typing because you'd be looking at it right there and could decide if it was what you wanted or not.

    I'm not sure I'm following on the "right-click menu to break link" idea.  What scenario do you see that being used in?

     

    Obsidian Portal Developer

  • Krothos
    Krothos
    Posts: 230

    @thaen The "right-click menu to break link" idea is if an desired link is created, you can right-click on that link and submenu opens (similar when you right-click on a web link in a browser). The submenu only needs to offer the option to Remove Link. But "escaping" on the suggested link when you type of the word is also good.

    I won't comment on the bulk update feature because I don't believe I would use it. I would start using this linking feature when I start to create a new campaign, if only to keep continuity on how I'm managing the pages.

     

  • thaen
    thaen
    Posts: 1,059

    Cool.  Thanks for the clarifications!

    Obsidian Portal Developer

  • gastoff
    gastoff
    Posts: 136

    I agree that there should be a prompt about what links would be created that the GM or player can then select/deselect. When making journal entries, I like to add the links to character profiles or NPCs when they are mentioned, but not EVERY time their name is types; that ends up looking sloppy. As a rule of thumb, I will only link to a character's page if a few paragraph's of information has gone by since the last link. 

    image

  • thaen
    thaen
    Posts: 1,059

    Yeah, I take your point about it possibly looking sloppy with too many links too frequently used.  So if the "while Saving" feature was the more automated version, and didn't have a select/deselect for each link, we could use your rule of thumb to determine how often to create a link within the same page.

    Obsidian Portal Developer

  • UselessTriviaMan
    UselessTriviaMan
    Posts: 546

    Yeah, I take your point about it possibly looking sloppy with too many links too frequently used.

     

    I think I feel personally attacked. wink


    Ptolus, City by the Spire - 2016 Campaign of the Year

    "Please pay attention very carefully, because this is the truest thing a stranger will ever say to you: In the face of such hopelessness as our eventual, unavoidable death, there is little sense in not at least TRYING to accomplish all your wildest dreams in life."  - - Kevin Smith

  • GamingMegaverse
    GamingMegaverse
    Posts: 2,998

    My Rebuilt site some things are linked literally over hundreds of pages- it would be ugly......

    Just trying to help out.

  • thaen
    thaen
    Posts: 1,059

    @UselessTriviaMan, ha!  Definitely not personally attacked.  Also, I just checked out one of your Adventure Logs, and in my opinion they look really good.  Your link colors are very subtle.

    Obsidian Portal Developer

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