Dictionary/Article links in posts

[Mike]

You may have noticed that some of the words are now underlined in posts. Whenever you make a post a "lookup" happens in the background and links are inserted for various terms. For example, I'm going to mention the word calcium and the forum will make it a link for me to the dictionary. This should help us out in a couple different ways:

1. Newbies just have to click the word to find out more about it. For example: GPH, activated carbon, LFS - I just typed the words and the system made them links.

2. Posters don't have to lookup links to insert for various terms.

I can add to the list as I get time. Any recommendations for words to add to the dictionary would be most welcome too. PM me or post them in this thread. I'll also use the acronym thread as a good starting point as well.

We can also make a lookup for certain threads that may be linked to often. Like the important betta topics thread. I made that a lookup so if you type in the phrase 'important betta topics' (with the quotes) it will turn into a link when you submit the post. Any other ideas, send them my way and we can add them.

Also, the system will only make a link the first time it encounters the word. All repititions of that word in the thread get ignored. This is so that the board doesn't look cruddy with tons of links in the posts.

As always we'll try it out but if we don't like it we can always turn it off in the future.

Thanks,
Mike

[agabr123]

lol, i was wondering why that started happening! i think that's a great idea!

[pinkfloydpuffer]

Hehe, I noticed that.

Are you going to link each fish to their profile? (If you haven't already)

[Mike]

Originally Posted by pinkfloydpuffer

Hehe, I noticed that.

Are you going to link each fish to their profile? (If you haven't already)

possibly... but the problem is that there are soooooooo many common names for fish. I'll start with the most commonly kept species where we have articles.

[pinkfloydpuffer]

It'd make things easier for me if you'd link figure 8 puffer, green spotted puffer, and dwarf puffer. lol

[agabr123]

lol, i can imagine so

[Lucy]

Great addition, thanks Mike!

[Mike]

Originally Posted by pinkfloydpuffer

It'd make things easier for me if you'd link figure 8 puffer, green spotted puffer, and dwarf puffer. lol

you betcha - look in your previous post, not the quote

[pinkfloydpuffer]

Thanks Mike!

[Lucy]

Originally Posted by Mike

you betcha - look in your previous post, not the quote

lol, That was fast!

[mathas]

Is there any way you can modify the dictionary lookup to preserve capitalization? If not, would you be willing to add most acronyms in both lowercase and uppercase formats (or in the case of pH, the correct format)?

For example, pH gets formatted as ph rather than pH as it should technically be, regardless of what is typed (as illustrated in the first occurrence in this post).

Another example is LFS. I'm one of those that believe all acronyms should be capitalized, and the current process formats it as lfs instead of LFS.

[articwolf]

Wow, I love this, it is really helpful for us beginners. I very often have to go looking for explanations when I read threads. TY!!!!

Lori

[Minnow]

I noticed this too, what a great idea. That will make it a lot easier for people replying to questions, since we don't have to look up the article or thread to link to each time.

I would suggest linking to the nitrogen cycle, that would be especially useful for beginners.

[Mike]

Originally Posted by mathas

Is there any way you can modify the dictionary lookup to preserve capitalization? If not, would you be willing to add most acronyms in both lowercase and uppercase formats (or in the case of pH, the correct format)?

For example, pH gets formatted as ph rather than pH as it should technically be, regardless of what is typed (as illustrated in the first occurrence in this post).

Another example is LFS. I'm one of those that believe all acronyms should be capitalized, and the current process formats it as lfs instead of LFS.

Great suggestion - I changed all of the acronyms to caps and fixed pH. Thanks!

Originally Posted by articwolf

Wow, I love this, it is really helpful for us beginners. I very often have to go looking for explanations when I read threads. TY!!!!
Lori

Cool, glad you like it and thanks for the feedback.

Originally Posted by Minnow

I noticed this too, what a great idea. That will make it a lot easier for people replying to questions, since we don't have to look up the article or thread to link to each time.

I would suggest linking to the nitrogen cycle, that would be especially useful for beginners.

Doh! I can't believe I forgot to link the nitrogen cycle. That should have been one of the first ones! Just added it - thanks.

Any more ideas, keep 'em coming. I'm working on adding some more acronyms to the dictionary now.

Mike

[Matt]

Brilliant Idea Mike

-Matt

[sirdarksol]

Gotta say that it drove me nuts the first time I saw it. I was trying to figure out why something I hadn't underlined was underlined.

It's a good idea for the terms, and awesome for the quick-links to certain threads (can we have a listing of these threads somewhere, please?), but I don't know if I like the idea of automatic links to fish profiles. That info is pretty readily available anyway, and we could end up with a quarter of a post underlined (which, if a person isn't noticing that they're links, could change the perceived intent of a post).

Which brings up another point... It seems that links on the forum are displayed as black with an underline. I was wondering if it would be doable to change that to blue (or some other color) so that it's more obvious that a word is a link, rather than an underline.

[≈ D ≈]

sirdarksol, you and me both I thought the forum had 'gone funny' at first.

The point of the links being black with an underline is definitely a good one, though the color choice would, IMHO, need to be something other than black, blue and probably red - some people like to have their posts in that color (me being one example )

[hkirchen]

LOL! I just thought everyone was smarter than me and knew how to link words! This will make posting a lot easier. No more clicking back and forth to get website addresses! Thank you!

[AlyeskaGirl]

LOL, I thought i was doing something wrong when I was typing ammonia and water change That explains that I wasn't going nuttso!!!

[sirdarksol]

Originally Posted by ≈ D ≈

The point of the links being black with an underline is definitely a good one, though the color choice would, IMHO, need to be something other than black, blue and probably red - some people like to have their posts in that color (me being one example )

I say blue because it is the internet standard for links, as black is the standard for text.
There's always gonna be some wierdo who insists on giving me headaches by using funky colors for their posts(), so I don't think we'd ever make it fit for every post.

[Mike]

I tried changing the links within posts to blue but it changes all the links to blue, too much blue for me. I did change the hover effect though to be blue for links.

[Lucy]

But blue is my favorite color.
I like the hover effect. Maybe more so than the linked word being another color.

[≈ D ≈]

Originally Posted by sirdarksol

I say blue because it is the internet standard for links, as black is the standard for text.
There's always gonna be some wierdo who insists on giving me headaches by using funky colors for their posts(), so I don't think we'd ever make it fit for every post.

Well at least I don't go for this color

Oh and I do like the hover color change.

[agabr123]

lol, i just noticed that a few minutes ago. i like it!

[Minnow]

I love the color change, it looks really nice. Blue is my favorite color, too

[BParker]

i think that this is a great idea

[Red1313]

Like the color change! Makes more sense now. :P

[Mike]

I just changed the links to the dictionary to be underlined with dashes to differentiate them from regular links. So, if you see a link with dashes it goes to the dictionary or article on the site.

[mathas]

FYI, the autolink for NH3 directs you to the 'A' page of the dictionary rather than the 'N' page.

[≈ D ≈]

Looks like Mike fixed that now