I’m just learning how to use Ziplinks, but am running into a couple of frustrating problems:
How do you edit a Ziplink that’s in the text of a note?
I’m trying to use “::” to append text to a new note created by a Ziplink, but when I open up the newly-created note, the $Text is empty.
Any help is greatly appreciated!
Option-click to put the insertion point inside a link. Or use the arrow keys. Clicking a link in the normal way follows a link.
[[foo::bar]] should make a note name foo with a text “bar”. It does for me! If it doesn’t for you, contact support bernstein@eastgate.com with the details.
Just for clarity this is a once-only thing that only and option when creating a ziplink. The result of using the ziplink notation is a normal Tinderbox text link. At this point, i.e. after using a ziplink if you want to add target text, navigate to the note and add the $Text there.
IOW, ziplinks describes a notation for rapid note creation/configuration rather than the link it then creates.
Thanks for the assist Mark.
I guess my editing question is: how can I open up an existing (blue) Ziplink so that I can see the brackets and any other operators, etc.? Option-click seems to only put me within the blue word/words, but doesn’t reveal the underlying information…
You can’t. The ziplink isn’t “wrapped up”. It’s a shortcut for making a textlink in the usual way.
I think we are describing different things. I wasn’t referring to syntax used within a ziplink during creation but the fact a new user might assume that having used a ziplink that they could return to the note later and edit the (now-text) link there assuming it had special (ziplink) properties.
Mark, Paul -
My question is about the syntax used within a Ziplink and if it’s possible to ‘re-access’ that syntax after the Ziplink has been created…but my understanding is that’s not possible.
-TIm
Correct. I can see this ambiguity and have made a mental note to add this to the documentation.
Paul,
If I’m understanding correctly, let’s say that I have a Ziplink [[foo::bar]] in the text of a note. I cannot edit that Ziplink to change it to [[foo|strong::bar]], rather as you point out, I would have to create a different/new Ziplink?
-Tim
Thanks Mark. I really like Paul’s post (in a different topic) about creating reading notes with Ziplinks. Really useful functionality. I’ll keep at it.
Ignore my post; I deleted it. It’s not relevant to this topic.
The idea of Ziplinks is that they’re evaluated when you make them, and then they boom regular, first-class, normal Tinderbox links.
In this very specific case, where you want to change the anchor text for a correct link, you can make this change, but it doesn’t have anything to do with ziplinks. To change the anchor text “foo” to “strong” you move the cursor to the blue link text “foo” and edit it like normal text to say “strong.” This kind of editing of anchor text is possible for all Tinderbox links.
On a practical level, when I’m doing this, I usually start somewhere in the middle of the blue text, type what I want the new link anchor to be and then delete the extra text before and after what I’ve typed because I find it easier to manage. That’s not necessary though. You can do it however makes sense for you.
^^^ Yes, this is exactly my approach as there’s no method/UI (lest people assume otherwise) for editing anchor text. If we select the whole link and then type we are assuming the app can tell we are editing the anchor rather than replacing the anchor and link with something else. Now we have ziplinks deleting and starting over is more of an option. But, if doing that do make sure beforehand that you know to where the original link was pointed.
I’ve added this paragraph to the existing aTbRef article on ziplinks:
Note that ziplinks are a keyboard-centric method, albeit enhanced, of creating normal text links with normal link anchor text. Once the link is generated, the link anchor is no different from any other text link anchor, i.e. ziplinks do not create a special type of anchor text.
I’m open to a better wording. I can see that if not told otherwise a new user may simply assume ziplinks create some special type of anchor allowing re-use of the enhanced facilities (because no one told them otherwise!). I hope the above addresses that false assumption.
That makes sense to me!