[pmwiki-users] Note on tooltip options

[Thomas Lederer]

Joachim Durchholz schrieb am 20.03.2006 9:33 Uhr:
> Neil Herber schrieb:
>> Other than the fact that it might break existing markup, I would say 
>> get rid of the [[ Link Text -> http://www.example.com ]] markup 
>> altogether.
> 
> Sorry for jumpin in late, and I have to confess I haven't followed this 
> thread. Let me just cast my vote for the -> syntax: it's far more 
> intuitive than the | syntax.

Hello,

as we are casting votes ;) i would vote for the pipe: |

Reason: from my point of view it is the _more_ logical choice:

Standard link: [[http:\\example.com]]
Link with Title (advanced link): [[http::\\example.com | example title]]

However, even though i understand your (Joachim) reasons, i would ask to
keep both, (if dropping one is really an option) for backwards
compatibility and for liberty of choice for the users.

As for your comment on German keyboards below:
for me, the | ("pipe") character is a very common one (using Unix,
Linux, Mac OS X), and on the Unix (Sun) Keyboard, it is "AltGr" (which
is right from the spacebar) and the "<,>" key (left from the y), same
seems to be true for all the Windows Notbooks here is the office, and on
the iBook it is "alt" left from the spacebar and the _normal_ "7" key.

So actually the | is not better or worse than @ for example. What type
of keyboard do you use?

For more take a look:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Tastatur_de.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout

Best Regards,
Tom

> Two reasons:
> 1) (The important one) It's better when authors first think about what 
> their readers will read as link text, then about where the link should 
> point to. The link target can be looked up if wording the link text is 
> so difficult that the URL gets "swapped out" of the author's mind; if 
> the link is complicated, I tend to forget what I wanted to write, and 
> since the flow of words was broken by having to write the URL, the text 
> I'm coming up with later is usually not as good. (I have switched to -> 
> exclusively for this reason.)
> 2) (A less important one) The -> arrow nicely underlines the fact that 
> the link text is referring to the URL. The | syntax has no such 
> intuitive meaning; I found it awkward to remember that link text should 
> come after URL. (Well, maybe not so unimportant: such points are 
> relevant for newbies.)
> 
> If dropping one of the link syntaxes is ever a real consideration, 
> please, drop the | one. I always found it too ugly to live.
> 
>> It never made sense to me, the GUI link buttons in the edit window
>> don't generate it, and we have a perfectly good markup that does the
>> same job using one fewer character. (I never use it as a result.)
> 
> On a US keyboard, you're right.
> 
> On a German one (or actually for most European countries), it's 
> Left-Ctrl Left-Alt 'y', which is horrid. (Right-Ctrl/Right-Alt keys 
> don't work for that. Yeah, I know it's braindead. No, I don't know what 
> idiots defined that standard; everybody is sticking to it for no good 
> reason at all. Actually all of @|{[]}\~ are "hate characters" because 
> typing them on a European keyboard requires a considerable amount of 
> prestidigitation, which disrupts any attempt at ten-finger blind-typing.)
> 
> Regards,
> Jo
> 
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