Submitted by Paul_J_Miller on 2019/03/18 10:51
One of the joys of using ConnectedText is the simplicity of making links between pages.  One merely needs to put the [[name of the page]] within square brackets and it is a link.  However there is more to this than it seems because if at a later date you change the name of the page then the name within the links to that page also change.  There is also a feature called backlinks which means you can see which pages have links to the current page, this can either be used in a query or there is a menu entry which says 'what links here?'.  Backlinks are useful.
 
This is all possible because although CT appears to be a wiki it is infact a database pretending to be a wiki.
 
Among the other magic to do with linking is a feature called 'Automatic Linking' which searches your page and finds the names of other pages and converts them into links.  This can be done fully automatically (all page names will be converted into links) or semi-automatically (when it finds a name it will bring up a dialog to let you decide 'OK' or 'skip') rather like a spell check dialog.  Automatic linking is slow with large databases but that is OK because on fully automatic you can leave it running and go have a cup of tea or do something else.
 
It should be noted that in the case of the 'Automatic' option there is a checkbox which says 'only link first instance' so that if you have a page with many mentions of 'Climate Change' then only the first mention of Climate Change gets converted into a link to the page with that name.
 
Another useful refinement would be the option to ignore case.
 
When you have a database of several thousand notes automatic linking becomes very useful.
 
One of the problems I had when transferring from CT to IQ was that even though I exported the CT wiki to HTML when I imported the pages of HTML into InfoQube the links between pages no longer pointed anywhere meaningful.
 

Comments

I have used ConnectedText though not in great depth and what Paul documented above : "One of the joys of using ConnectedText is the simplicity of making links between pages. One merely needs to put the [[name of the page]] within square brackets and it is a link. " is perhaps an understatement.

Besides the other benefits that Paul mentioned, I can say that this automatic linking, within the document text itself, not just merely linking two of more RelatedItems as I understand it as I was trying it out.

The ability to "One merely needs to put the [[name of the page]] within square brackets and it is a link." makes a great difference as we are in the midst of thinkng and typing something and creating a link on the fly so to speak, and so joy that Paul talks about could be said to be an understatement of simply put the [[name of the page]] and its positive impact to productivity. If the page exist, a link is automatically created. If not, a blank page is created although the link will then be in Red to indicate that the page is blank.
 
As I have indicated that I have not used ConectedText in great depth, actually only scratching its surface, this automatic linking is something I truly find very useful and powerful even as a novice user of ConnectedText.

LeftEccoForIQ

2019/10/11 17:06

Permalink

Here's what Slang did along this line in EccoExt, maybe it contains some helpful concepts / ideas for a possible InfoQube implementation. I am not quite sure, however, whether this discussion is about links between IQ items (i.e. from one item's text to other items - like in EccoExt) or linking to / from items' associated HTML text.
 
V4.6.3.1
    Enhance
        Add new way to use alias link.
            If you link to a item which only have several character, you can use [[LinkAlias Item]] method through set the [LinkAlias] folder
            If you link to a item which have lots of character, you can set [LinkAnchor] folder to name the item, and use the [LinkAnchor] folder value as anchor name
                Example, [[LinkAnchor method]] will link to the previous item, because we set the [LinkAnchor] folder value of the previous to "LinkAnchor method"
        The alias link now support link to Notepad or Folder in Notepad, you need set the ExtFlags bit 1, you can do this by right click menu 'EccoExt Flags / Link To Folder'
            Example, [[Feature]] will link to feature notepad, and [[Options]] will link to options notepad
V4.6.2.9
    Enhance
        The alias link text format's underline now doesn't include the prefix "[[" and postfix "]]"
    Change
        [[MaxItemTextForLinkAlias]] default change to 80
V4.6.2.8
    Enhance
        Link to Phonebook Item will goto the Phonebook notepad if it doesn't find it in the current notepad
V4.6.2.7
    Enhance
        Add two new method to use alias link
            First, you can use the item text as link alias if the item text less than MaxItemTextForLinkAlias(default 20), and the folder [LinkAlias] is checked. So you needn't create new item for "link alias = link value". You can use this method to link to PhoneBook item.
                Like [[V4.6.2.7]]
            Second, you can use [LinkTo] folder to hold a linked item's UniqueID.(Limitation, all the alias link in the one item link to same item, but you can use any text as link anchor). EE will first check the [LinkAlias] folder, if no match, it will check the [LinkTo] folder.
                You can create [LinkTo] value with three method
                    Manually paste UniqueID into the [LinkTo] folder
                    Using "Depends & ID# / Assign/Copy ID# ===> Clipboard", then "Link & Clone / Paste As LinkTo Item" command
                    Using "Add LinkTo ID# <=== Cursor" command
                        Right click on the line number area of non-current item in the notepad, you will see this command
                Like [[To V4.6.2.7]] and [[Link To V4.6.2.7]] and [[anything]] all goto V4.6.2.7, but this [[V4.6.2.6]] will goto V4.6.2.6
V4.6.2.6
    Enhance
        Now support alias link
            To use alias link, you need first create link alias item, follow the steps
                Create item with format "link alias = link value" or "link alias | link value" and check the folder LinkAlias
                Then using double bracket to include the link alias like [[google]] or [[V4.6.2.6]]