Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- plugin:autolink4:differences [2018-12-17 18:08] – zioth
+++ plugin:autolink4:differences [2024-01-18 00:25] (current) – [Built-in functionality] Aleksandr
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 ====== Choosing an Auto-Link plugin ======
-Disclaimer: I am the author of autolink4, so I'm biased towards that one. Feel free to correct any inaccuracies, or add additional information.
+Disclaimer: I am the author of autolink4, so I'm biased. Feel free to correct any inaccuracies, or add additional information.
 ==== What is auto-linking ====
-DokuWiki already automatically links camel-cased words. It will find a page with the same name, and turn your text into a link. The Autolink plugins take that a step further, allowing you to add links to specific pieces of text. For example, you could make it so that the word "Things" will link to //mywiki:things//, no matter where it's found on your wiki.
+Auto-linking is adding links to test on your wiki, without the need to use wiki markup. For example, you could configure a plugin so that every time the word "Things" appears, it will turn into a link to //mywiki:things//.
-==== What do the names mean? ====
+==== What do the plugin names mean? ====
-You might think there are four versions of the autolink plugin. That is not the case. They're just created by different authors, who couldn't think of a better name. A higher number does not mean the plugin is inherently superior.
+Each autolink plugin was created by a different person. They are not different versions of the same thing. We just weren't clever enough to think of different names.
+=====Built-in functionality====
+Without any plugins, DokuWiki automatically links [[config:camelcase|camel-cased]] words. It will find a page with the same name, and turn your text into a link.
 ====autolink====
 [[tips:autolink|The first autolink]] is a script which searches your wiki, and replaces text strings with links.
-==Features==
+==Pros==
+  * **Maximum performance**: Since there's no plugin involved, there's no impact on page rendering time.
+==Cons==
   * **Difficult to use**: You have to run the script manually or with a cron job.
-  * **Extremely high performance**: Since there's no plugin involved, there's no impact on page rendering time.
   * **Permanent**: There's no way to undo it. The data files are permanently changed.
+  * **Not maintained**: No one is actively maintaining this plugin.
@@ Line 22: / Line 29: @@
 [[plugin:autolink2|Autolink 2]] uses per-page set-up to make linking extremely precise, if a bit tedious.
-==Features==
+==Pros==
-  * **Explicit**: Each page you want to link to requires individual autolink set-up on that page. Each page that replaces links requires set-up too. This is a lot of work, but has the advantage that you can decide exactly which pages should auto-link, or even link parts of pages.
+  * **Explicit**: Each page you want to link to requires individual set-up on that page. You can decide exactly which pages should auto-link, or even link parts of pages.
   * **Not error-prone**: Other autolink plugins have a risk of linking text you didn't mean to link -- for example, text inside of other plugins. Since autolink2 makes you choose exactly what text has replacements, that risk is gone.
-  * **Moderate performance**: Data has to be gathered from many pages to do linking.
   * **Temporary**: Because pages are not modified, you can undo linking just by removing the plugin markup from your pages.
+==Cons==
+  * **Tedious**: Because each page requires its own set-up, it's a lot of work to get this plugin configured the way you want.
+  * **Moderate performance**: Data has to be gathered from many pages to do linking.
+  * **Not maintained**: No one is actively maintaining this plugin.
@@ Line 32: / Line 43: @@
 [[plugin:autolink3|Autolink 3]], like [[tips:autolink|Autolink]], permanently replaces strings, but it does it with admin configuration, instead of a script.
-==Features==
+==Pros==
   * **Easy to use**: The admin interface makes it easy to add new links, though if you want to add a lot of links at once, you're better off modifying the config file directly.
-  * **High performance**: Some extra work is done when saving pages, but there's no impact on rendering performance, since links are added permanently.
+  * **High performance**: Saving edits can take a little longer, but there's no impact on viewing pages, since links are added permanently.
   * **Namespace scoping**: Replacements can be limited to a given namespace.
+==Cons==
   * **Permanent**: There's no way to undo it. The data files are permanently changed.
+  * **Not maintained**: No one is actively maintaining this plugin.
 ====autolink4====
-[[plugin:autolink4|Autolink 4]] replaces strings dynamically, so there's no permanent change to your pages.
+[[plugin:autolink4|Autolink 4]] replaces strings dynamically, so there's no permanent change to your pages, and it works with another plugin to create page previews.
-==Features==
+==Pros==
   * **Easy to use**: The admin interface makes it easy to add new links, though you have to be careful to type everything correctly, since it's just a plain text field. It uses CSV, so you can import data from a spreadsheet.
   * **Flexible**: Regular expression characters are supported, so a variety of text can be easily linked. For example, you can link a singular and plural word with the same entry.
-  * **Moderate performance**: All links are cycled through every time the page is rendered. This has been tested with up to 100 linked strings without noticeable performance degradation, but the risk increases as the list grows. Algorithmic complexity is O(unique linked terms on the page * total number of links).
   * **Namespace scoping**: Replacements can be limited to a given namespace.
   * **Temporary**: Because pages are not modified, you can undo linking just by removing links from the admin interface.
+  * **Tooltip support**: Automatically integrates with the [[:plugin:autotooltip|Auto-Tooltip plugin]], to display previous of linked pages in tooltips.
+  * **Maintained**: This plugin is actively maintained.
+==Cons==
+  * **Moderate performance**: Because pages are modified dynamically, it takes longer to render a page with than without this plugin. However, this has been tested with 500 links, and the performance difference was not obvious.
+  * **Limited**: Due to the way DokuWiki syntax plugins work, there's a limit to the total number of autolink strings that can be configured on your site. This is somewhere in the 500-1000 range. You also have to do a manual hack if you want non-English character support in regular expressions.