Linking

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Internal Links

An internal link is used to direct the user to another page within the UNB wiki. These internal links are the most effective way to establish a web of connections throughout the wiki that enhance readers' experience by increasing accessibility of information.


RichTextEditor

Creating an internal link with the RichTextEditor is quick and easy, as MediaWiki provides the Contributor with a field to search the entire wiki for the desired destination page/entry. To generate this field, click the Link icon:


To create an internal link, enclose the title of the destination entry with double square brackets on either side:

Example: [[Example]]
  • If the destination entry exists and has been entered correctly (remember that Mediawiki is case sensitive - the first thing that the contributor should check for if a link does not work is the spelling and capitalization of the destination entry within the WikiTextEditor code), an operational link will be created.
  • If the destination entry does not exist, the hyperlink created will connect to a new page upon which an entry can be created, either immediately or in the future. The practice of creating links to non-existent pages is called lazy linking - this can be an effective way to communicate to other contributors the pages that need to be created in the future.


A listing of all the links to non-existent entries can be found here:
http://unbhistory.lib.unb.ca/index.php/Special:WantedPages


Linking with Alternate Text

Sometimes the exact title of a page is not ideal to insert into a sentence as a hyperlink. Instead, the ideal practice is to represent the hyperlink as text that flows within the entry.

Consider this sentence:
Debating has long been a popular extracurricular activity at UNB.

It is in the wiki's interest to provide a link to the Literary and Debating Society page, but inserting this title would obstruct the flow of the sentence. To create a link using alternate text, we must use what is called a pipe— | —to indicate that the text following the pipe will serve as the hyperlink instead of the title of the destination page:

[[Literary and Debating Society|Debating]] has long been a popular extracurricular activity at UNB.
(Result:) Debating has long been a popular extracurricular activity at UNB.

The pipe is not a capitalized i, but a character to the far right of the keyboard - a capitalized foreward slash \

 

Linking to a Specific Place on a Page

There may be circumstances in which linking to a the top of a page is ineffective, as the reader will then have to read through a body of text or scroll through the page to locate the reference. Linking to a specific place on an entry or page requires the use of an anchor.

  • This is particularly relevant for larger pages with a lot of content.
  • For these functions the WikiTextEditor is most effective.
  • Remember to verify capitalization and spelling of titles when creating links.


1. Some anchors exist naturally within a page. All of the section headers are anchors and can be easily identified by their presence in the Table of Contents at the top of a given page:

The first step should be to establish a basic link from the origin page (where the hyperlink is desired) to the destination page. Having successfully saved that change, the contributor will re-enter the Edit section and select the WikiTextEditor, and locate the link that has just been created.


[[Destination page]]
[[Destination page#Header title of Destination page]]
[[Destination page#Header title on Destination page|Alternative text]]
Example: [[Mark's Page#Sneaker Collection|Mark loves sneakers]]

The result will be a link that directs the reader to Mark's Page with the specified anchor/header (Sneaker Collection) at the top of the window, with the hyperlinked text Mark loves sneakers will be created on the origin page .


2. Some entries may not be effectively broken up by headers, while some sections might be too long for linking to the header to be an effective solution - do not fear! There is a way to manually create an anchor on a page, but the WikiTextEditor must be used:

First, on the Destination page, the anchor must be created. The following code must be inserted to create the anchor:

<span id="Anchor_name">Text can be inserted here (although the absence of text will produce an invisible anchor)<span>

Spaces cannot be used in the "Anchor_name", so make use of _'s, and remember to use quotation marks.

Having created this anchor, the next step is to link to it. This process is identical to linking to headers as described above:</span>

[[Destination page#Anchor_name|Alternative text]]
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