[pmwiki-users] RFC: Indexing categories and links

[Petko Yotov]

On Sunday 07 March 2010 11:25:19, Oliver Betz wrote :
> 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).
> 
[[!Page]] is more than a shortcut,
* always shows a normal link even if the Category.Page does not exist
* has a different html snippet, different CSS class name and can be styled 
differently.

[[~Name]] is on the contrary just a shortcut to [[Profiles/Name]] and nothing 
more.

> 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?

Users have asked for it :

  http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wiki.pmwiki.user/42456
  http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PITS/00447

The latter is IMO the place where we should continue this discussion -- feel 
free to vote "X" if you disagree that the feature should be implemented.

> 
> Besides this, the ! shortcut is something one has to _learn_.
...
> 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
...
> Im afraid that this kind of shortcuts does more harm than good unless
> the wiki is used as CMS by highly skilled editors,

I agree.