Copy/Paste Anchor

[Tim Frost]

Feature suggestion:

1. I would like to right click on a TOC entry, or on an anchor icon inside a topic, and find a new selection: "copy as anchor"

2. When topic text is highlighted and control-L pressed, I would like a button on the insert Anchor dialog labelled "Paste Anchor", which would act as if I had filled in the dialog manually and allow me to check and select OK if so. This would underline the selected text as a link to the anchor. The paste-anchor button would only be enabled if an anchor was ready for pasting in to the dialog.

I am often in the anchor location rather than the link location when I decide that a new anchor reference is needed, so the ability to do as I suggest is the logical sequence of operations in this case. Also I may need to create two links to the same anchor.

[Tim Green]

How would this work for a TOC entry? Or do you mean TOC entries that are already anchors (and deprecated, because anchor TOC entries create confusing navigation that we really want to stop happening entirely, by the way...)

[Tim Frost]

If I had right-clicked a TOC entry and selected 'copy as anchor', it would make an anchor to the top of topic available for 'pasting' using my suggestion 2.

[Tim Green]

If I had right-clicked a TOC entry and selected 'copy as anchor', it would make an anchor to the top of topic available for 'pasting' using my suggestion 2.

That's unnecessary. All topic links without explicit anchors go to a virtual anchor at the top of the topic.

[Tim Frost]

Sorry, I clearly have not explained my goal with sufficient accuracy. I am aware of how to make an anchor link to the top of a topic. My problem is that if I use Control-L on highlighted text I am presented with an enormous list of topic names which I am not familiar with, in unhelpful alphabetic order, from which I have to waste time searching for and finding the location of the wanted anchor (in my hierarchy of topics). I want to ELIMINATE this annoying search and selection, either for topic top or one of its anchors pull-down items.

If I can first go to the familiar topic title on the left, or to an existing anchor icon in its text and right click to 'copy as anchor', this is much faster for me to find. I then want to highlight some text elsewhere and use no more than control-L and keystroke or click to create a link to the most recent location I have 'saved as an anchor', if such exists. It might need an option to 'use, then clear' the recent save also, perhaps control-shift-L.

Just a small idea to save time and effort. But I will carry on as it is now, if you think it complicates matters.

[Tim Green]

This is already implemented, in several different ways:

1) If you click on a TOC item, right-click and select Copy, or press CTRL+C. Then click in the topic editor and press CTRL+V or right-click and select Paste. This gives you a link to that topic. You can also select and copy multiple TOC entries and you get a link list. Copying in the TOC is smart: If you paste into a topic you get a link or link list. If you paste into the TOC you get a copy of the topic.

2) Drag a TOC entry into the topic to create a link.

3) Select text in the editor and drag it onto a TOC entry to create a link to that topic, using that text as the link text.

Caution: Dragging text from the editor BETWEEN entries in the TOC will create a new topic with that text as the title.

[Tim Frost]

Thanks, I can work with that.