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Linking to posts with anchor text is too hard
One place in which I'm finding that more friction at Codidact than I was expecting is creating links to other questions with the question title as the anchor text.
I'm going to use https://meta.codidact.com/posts/39450 or "How does Codidact avoid repeating Stack Exchange's mistakes?" as an example of a question to which I would like to link. Ideally there would be a quick way to get markdown for that link ([How does Codidact avoid repeating Stack Exchange's mistakes?](https://meta.codidact.com/posts/39450)). I'd also like to be able to copy and paste a link with that anchor text directly into a rich text editor.
There are three ways that I would expect this to work, but all of them have problems.
Using the H1 tag containing the question title
On Stack Exchange, the H1 at the top of the question is a self-link to the question. On Codidact, it it is not.
On Stack Exchange I can select that link and hit ctrl-c to get a rich formatted link to the question. I can then paste that into rich text editor such as an email or a office document.
I also have a copy selection as Markdown browser extension installed that will let me right click on a self-linked heading and instantly get the markdown link that I want.
Feature request #1: Self link the H1 on question pages
Using the page <title>
Another way I can get the links to the current document is by pressing ctrl-c with nothing selected. In many browsers, that copies the page title as a rich link to the current page. (And if it doesn't extensions are available.)
The extension I linked above also allows me to right click on whitespace in the page and copy the page title in Markdown format.
The problem is that page titles on Codidact are truncated with ellipses when they are long. So I only get [Codidact Meta - How does Codidact avoid repeating Stack Exchang...](https://meta.codidact.com/posts/39450).
Feature request #2: Don't truncate question titles in the <title> tag.
Using the "Copy Link" functionality.
The third way that I would like to work would be using the 
Feature request #3: Implement a drop down on "Copy Link" with three options:
- Copy URL
- Copy Rich Link
- Copy Markdown Link
Post titles are now self-links, and in addition, the "Copy Link" control (everywhere) now offers two options, raw and ma …
4mo ago
In the comments it was noted that a previous question points out the position of the "Copy Link" button feature in the i …
9mo ago
2 answers
Post titles are now self-links, and in addition, the "Copy Link" control (everywhere) now offers two options, raw and markdown:
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In the comments it was noted that a previous question points out the position of the "Copy Link" button feature in the interface, which at first seems like a natural "home" for this feature.
A big part of my workflow on SE sites was right-clicking the title of a page to open it in a new tab so I can temporarily shove the current question aside while I look up something else. Using the explicit copy-link button is more difficult. The button is not that attention-grabbing, but more importantly it isn't at the top of the page. It's basically always easier to reach the top of a web page than an arbitrary point a short way down from that; for example, pressing the Home key might do it instantly, or a scrollbar can be mindlessly dragged straight to the top. For the same reasons, this is also more convenient for people who found the Q&A useful and want to share it elsewhere.
Speaking of which, sharing. Copying a link as Markdown is useful internally, but there are also many external uses - for example, share widgets for social media. There's a lot of bikeshedding possible there, but I'll boldly offer my thoughts regardless of the risk of multiplying the things to argue about.
In my opinion, a good link sharing interface would:
- Show the HTTP link in plaintext in an editable field and not in any way interfere with selecting editing the text in that field. That text field should be labelled in a way that makes it clear that this is what's going on.
- Offer "Copy original URL" and "Markdown link" buttons (I don't understand what a "Rich Link" is) that work based off the original URL, not anything edited in the previously mentioned text field.
- Include buttons to facilitate link sharing on other specific sites, where possible - and let each community decide which other platforms are the most relevant sharing targets (for example, I personally would rather see Mastodon links than
TwitterX, but I'd be happy to be outvoted on that) - since showing all the options for everyone could be overwhelming. - Remind people explicitly of the content license. (In the current design, the ordinary notice is adjacent to the Copy Link button; but the changes proposed here would break that.)
- Not shove user IDs etc. into share links for logged-in users, but base them off the normal URL. The system doesn't need to know who's responsible for that social media link that drove tons of traffic and doesn't need the ability to infer an association between someone's social media account and the same person's Codidact account (not that I think you would, but still).
As for presenting the interface, my best-of-all-worlds preference is:
- Self-link the title, as described before.
- Move the "Copy Link" button to be in-line with the title, flowing with that span.
- Have the button open a drop-down menu with the previously described sharing interface.
I'm not worried about making it harder to copy the text of a question title, because the primary reason for doing so is to create a Markdown link manually, and this way, the option for an automatic link is right there. Separately linking the title preserves the right-click -> "open in new tab" workflow without interfering with the share widget, and I saw a comment to the effect that it might also be good for SEO.
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