[pmwiki-users] RFC: Indexing categories and links

Oliver Betz list_ob at gmx.net
Sun Mar 7 04:25:19 CST 2010


Petko Yotov wrote:

>Many times, there have been requests about improving the way Pagelists with 
>Backlinks are generated, particularly about the category feature. 
>
>  (:pagelist link=Category.Name:)
>
>There are two different markups, [[Category/Name]] and [[!Name]] which both 
>create a link to the page Category.Name, and pages both are currently 
>displayed in the above pagelist.
>
>Authors have asked for the possibility to list only pages containing the 
>category link [[!Name]] but not containing the regular link [[Category/Name]].

Why?

To me, [[!Name]] always was just a shortcut (and an abstraction of the
category group name).

I can't imagine why someone could like to link to [[Category/Name]]
but not want the link listed in the "backlinks" to the category page.

Could someone explain a scenario where the separation useful?

Besides this, the ! shortcut is something one has to _learn_. Someone
using also other wikis (without such a shortcut) might not consider
the ! shortcut and use the long version to get a page listed in the
category.

"Backlinks" used as "Category" links is a basic, old Wiki technique,
likely some users are confused if PmWiki changes this to a tagging
tool.

[...link prefixes...]

>the wiki, like for example
>  [[:Name]] = [[Projects/Name]] or
>  [[@Name]] = [[Tags/Name]] or
>  [[+Name]] = [[ToDo/Name]] etc.
>

[...]

>So my second question is should we enable this link-prefix feature?

Although this looks appealing, I'm not sure about the net benefit. For
a "power user", such (somewhat cryptic) shortcuts save some typing,
but for the occasional author, it might be confusing: "what the heck
means this @Name link?".

IMO there are already enough cryptic shortcuts in PmWiki, for example
in link presentation:

[[(Foo)Bar]] - I would use [[(FooBar|Bar]] for clarity
[[Foo]]Bar - I would use [[Foo|FooBar]] for clarity
[[PageName|+]] - well, saves a lot of typing, but is also cryptic
[[Foo|#]] - never understood what this might be good for without
corresponding footnote

Im afraid that this kind of shortcuts does more harm than good unless
the wiki is used as CMS by highly skilled editors, 

Oliver




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