On 10/11/2017 01:34 PM, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
What if the XMLmind editors allowed me to create links from valid URLs
in 3 simple steps:
1. Insert/Write/Identify a valid URL in your XMLmind document (Docbook,
Dita, XHTML);
* E.g. https://example.com
2. Select that URL;
3. Click the Link-creation button.
OK. We'll try implement this RFE in the next version of XMLmind XML Editor.
Voila! Ready! (Although the user may post-edit the link text, if he/she
wants.)
* Expected code as result, HTML example:
o <a href="https://example.com";>https://example.com</a>
* Actual behavior today, HTML example:
o <a href="???">https://example.com</a>
o In the document, however, the link element has already changed
color to blue, so it “looks ready” - which in itself sometimes
is confusing.
o To actually complete the element, one must perform at minimum 5
additional steps (after the 3 steps I mention above):
0. often I find that I need first to reselect the very link
element;
1. now, go to/look at the editor’s attribute editing interface;
2. then select the right attribute - href;
3. then one must select the old content ("???")
4. and then one must paste the URL into the field)
+ (you might even need to re-copy the URL before you can
paste it!)
5. and finally press enter.
Meanwhile when you'll need this feature, think about recording the above
sequence of action in a macro and binding last recorded macro to a
keyboard shortcut.
This is what I personally do instead of repeating the above tedious
sequence over and over.
Tutorials:
* Automating repetitive tasks by recording macros,
http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_tutorial/record_macro/index.html
* Custom keyboard shortcuts,
http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_tutorial/custom_bindings/index.html
At step 1, possibly only a subset of the the valid URLs should work. For
instance if the selected text EITHER corresponds to a fragment URL
(#fragment), OR if the selected text corresponds to an external URL that
begins with "://" at the minimum (://wikipedia.org/wiki/XML as well as
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/XML and http://wikipedia.org/wiki/XML). Other
variants of this proposal is/could be that XMLmind editor also considers
whether the content of the clipboard corresponds to a URL. And yet
another variant is that the XMLmind editor ask for confirmation that the
selected text and/or clipbaord content should be used as URL. I am not
certain what, eventually,the perfect solution ought to, or could, be.
Often, one would be using the URL as link text. But in many other
situations, the user would, after the link has been created, edit the
link text to a more readable link text.
My justifications for this proposal:
1.
When writing, I need to point to external
references/documents/sources all the time. And I keep wishing that
this was simpler/faster to do.
2.
Currently, I tend to first go fetch (read: copy) the URL from my
browser. Then I paste it into the footnote or whichever place I need
it. Then I select the URL and click on the link-button in the XXE
interface, which turns the selected piece of text (in this case: a
URL) into an element that creates the link: an a-element in XHTML, a
xref-element in DITA, link-element in Docbook. The problem is,
however, that at this moment, the link has not been created because
the link’s URL attribute at this moment remains empty/invalid: One
must now manually select the correct attribute (href in DITA and
XHTML and xlink:href in Docbook) in order to actually create the link.
3.
One of the defacto competitors for WYSIWYG-like editors like the
XMLmind editors, is intermediate markup such as MarkDown and Wiki
text.
Yes, that's right and we don't really understand why.
We have created something similar to Markdown and Wikitext called APT
("Almost Plain Text";
https://maven.apache.org/doxia/references/apt-format.html) several years
before Markdown and Wikitext were invented. We didn't find APT good
enough for authoring advanced documentation, that's why we ended up
creating XMLmind XML Editor.
And one of the things that the intermediate markup formats
simplifies is the insertion of links.
4.
It is a pretty common feature of many programs of various kinds to
recognize URLs and turn them into links. And thus, some interaction
between text format and element formatting has many examples “in the
wild” and would not be something unexpected, for users.
Sorry if I have overlooked a feature that XMLmind has already
implemented ... !
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