Differentiate "ref" links from other types

[swcurran]

It would be really nice to have some sort of indicator/differentiation on a "ref" link (with the great mouseover!) so that the user could see (without a mouseover) if a link is to other content (internal or external) or if it is a ref to a definition.

[csuwildcat]

I can do this easily, will PR this week

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On Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 3:26 PM Stephen Curran ***@***.***> wrote: It would be really nice to have some sort of indictor/differentiation on a "ref" link (with the great mouseover!) so that the user could see (without a mouseover) if a link is to other content (internal or external) or if it a ref to an internal definition. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#44>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AABAFSQX76XVM57NIYQKJF3VT4Q7DANCNFSM53P626IQ> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[brianorwhatever]

@swcurran I'm working on related stuff right now and can add this as well - how do you think they should be differentiated?

[swcurran]

Asking me a design question??? :-).

It’s tricky. I did some investigating and found this on internal/external links:

• https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/31498/visual-differentiation-between-in-site-links-to-outbound-links
• http://www.welie.com/patterns/showPattern.php?patternID=outgoing-links

Both suggest tagging an external link with an icon. However, in our case, we want to differentiate a ref (hover/popup) from a non-ref (link). Internal and external non-refs should be treated the same — so the guides above don’t apply. As such, not so sure.

I find refs necessary and painful. Do you “ref” every instance or just the first in a paragraph. I our case — a paragraph about a use case (for example) is rife with distracting refs for issuers, holders and verifiers. Ugly!

Not much help. I’m open to ideas, but also happy to close this old issue without change.

[henkvancann]

An xref already has an external link symbol.

Follow this issue here to see the completion of your request: we'll add a different symbol for tag-generated full urls (xref) and anchors (ref).