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Northern Mariana Islands, National Day

LocalNameSet

IntComm:LocalName is about using a particular local name to link to an URL. The list of local names that map to URLs is usually fixed.

Known techniques of defining these LocalName → URL mappings:

  1. Pages on the local wiki (the PageDatabase) – traditionally these are the only local names defined on a wiki; redirects from A to B where both A and B are local pages are sometimes also available
  2. PermanentAnchors on local pages
  3. NamedAnchors? may define LocalNames for one particular page only (these targets are also available from other pages but using a different name – instead of using name, you have to use page#name)
  4. NearLinks based on the NearMap point to pages on other known wikis – since these wikis are known, we can retrieve the list of defined names on these wikis and therefore the list of names is limited.
  5. LocalNames based on a central repository of extra LocalName → URL mappings

Note that InterLinks that can be constructed based on the InterMap are not part of the list. We don't use a local name for these links; we always use a prefix. Furthermore, since we don't retrieve the list of defined names on these wikis, the list of potential names for every prefix is unlimited.

This page is about a technique not on the list. We want to to combine the local effect of NamedAnchors? with the automatic definition of names we get from the NearMap. Basically, a local near map or something very similar. We call it a LocalNameSet. These sets will probably be reused on other pages. On a WikiLog, for example, we could use a different set for every category.

TinyWiki has an interesting feature. You can "switch namespaces" for part of a page. You could, for example link to FooBar, then switch to the MeatballWiki namespace, and link to FooBar again. This time, however, FooBar does not link to the local FooBar but to MeatBall:FooBar. Maybe something like that can be used. We basically write on a page:

blablabla
(add the names from set X to the local names defined)
blablabla
(return to the default local names)
blablabla

Oddmuse currently has a "global" LocalNames page that defines Local Names → URLs for the entire page. I could imagine something like the following:

    <names "ComputerLocalNames">

This would parse the page ComputerLocalNames and add all the mappings to the current map for the rest of the page.

Maybe we could also use an URL that provides a mapping (a plain-text file). But I fear that would be very slow unless we implemented some caching mechanism. And if we do that, then we might as well run a cron-job that fetches the mapping from an URL and posts it to a local page every now and then.


CategoryLinking

EditNearLinks: TinyWiki PermanentAnchor PageDatabase WikiLog PatrickAnderson

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