Allow automatic linear navigation to be added for category articles. | World Anvil

Allow automatic linear navigation to be added for category articles.


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Allow automatic linear navigation to be added for category articles.

User Interface (UI) / User Experience (UX) · Articles & templates · Created by DMFW
closed

What functionality is missing? What is unsatisfying with the current situation?

  This is a "quality of life" suggestion. Everything I am about to suggest can already be done but maybe we could have a slightly easier way to do it?   One of the site patterns I find myself very often implementing in my worlds, is a mixed tree view for articles under a category, coupled with linear navigation between the child articles which I want to follow the same order as the tree view.   The following example shows what I mean, where I have added linear navigation to the detail article to match the category tree navigation.  
  In the editor these are two distinct concepts. We first weight the article to order it in the category tree view, then we add linear navigation if desired as in the following screens shots.  
  Whilst I completely appreciate that linking category and linear navigation isn't mandatory and isn't something everyone always wants, in my case at least it is an overwhelmingly common pattern which is particularly useful when laying out a story or something where guiding readers through a reading order is desirable. It's a little bit fiddly to keep category weights and linear navigation aligned, and I want to suggest an optional way to link them, so that we only have to maintain one order, with the other one being automatically generated for us.   My idea is this. At category level add a new check box as shown in the first mocked up screen below. Unless this is checked, all behaviour remains exactly as it works now, retaining full flexibilty for those that want it. However, if it is checked, then the linear navigation is generated automatically. The linear navigation tab could then look something like the second mocked up screen, where the ability to select articles is removed (note no drop down) and instead we see the linear navigation being inherited from the order within the category that controls the tree view and just shown in read only mode. Perhaps some text like the text I've shown in purple would also help to explain why linear navigation edtiting was locked, so that if anyone was confused or wished to go back to adding linear navigation manually, they would be directed to the category editing page to switch it off.  
  There may be a better way to integrate the concept into the UI, the mockup is just my thought about one way it could be done.  

How does this feature request address the current situation?

  By setting one switch on a category, there would no longer be a need to keep linear navigation in manual lock step, saving a lot of work for big categories and when moving articles around. Only the article numeric weight would matter and linear navigation would be automatically maintained for you when this was changed. Full manual control over these features would still be possible by switching off the new property on the category.  

What are other uses for this feature request?

  Although this is maybe not be so useful, could there also be an argument for doing the same thing at article level, so that child articles can be automatically chained via linear navigation in the same way if a similar property was set on an article? I haven't given as much thought to this possible extension to the core idea but others may want to comment on it.

The Team's Response

1. Very good presentation and examples. The logic had some issues that did not take into account. 2. The problem remains that this will mean that every time that an article is rendered the whole category needs to be parsed in order to find the previous and next article of that category   Not impossible but it will severely slow down the load of those pages.   Very low support and by doing a quick survey the feature is actually very rarely used in general. It can be argued that this is due to the fact that is hard to use it and I will grant you that, but still, the support was too low for something that can SIGNIFICANTLY lower the performance
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Current score

28/300 Votes · +5670 points

Votes Cast

  • +300

    by tophertalks
    on 2022-05-29 17:08

  • +300

    by SunkinggMC
    on 2022-05-25 19:19

  • +300

    by M. A. E. Krawczyk
    on 2022-05-24 19:05

  • +100

    by A Revolutionary Orc
    on 2022-05-21 17:33

  • +300

    by MaximusErebus
    on 2022-05-20 23:16

  • +300

    by Careen Ligh
    on 2022-05-20 19:21

  • +300

    by Drasos
    on 2022-05-19 12:11

  • +300

    by RiverFang
    on 2022-05-17 13:43

  • +300

    by A Roaring Unicorn
    on 2022-05-16 19:28

  • +100

    by PrincessESH
    on 2022-05-15 20:32

  • +100

    by bexka2112
    on 2022-05-15 05:19

  • +100

    by Shadow Malachi
    on 2022-05-15 00:55

  • +100

    by Jontaro
    on 2022-05-14 10:06

  • +300

    by Adcheryl
    on 2022-05-14 04:58

  • +300

    by geoflame1
    on 2022-05-13 12:58

  • +300

    by skidznet
    on 2022-05-13 12:22

  • +300

    by cmdrmarsk
    on 2022-05-12 22:50

  • +100

    by AceMaster
    on 2022-05-12 19:34
    oh man! this would be so helpful when doing session notes, not having to go to the pervious one and link the new one. so nice

  • +100

    by 13Leagues
    on 2022-05-12 17:53

  • +100

    by Michael Chandra
    on 2022-05-12 12:40
    This would really be a great help! In my case it's really frustrating when I'm creating a set of Scene articles in an Adventure category and have to manually connect them to each other.

  • +300

    by charley2020
    on 2022-05-12 12:31

  • +10

    by tjtrewin
    on 2022-05-12 12:02

  • +10

    by valhaia
    on 2022-05-12 11:34

  • +300

    by LisaGrimm
    on 2022-05-12 11:09
    Oh, yes, this is SO needed. Having to go edit every single small article when you finally put everything in the order that you want is painful. It would save so much time if we had automatic linear navigation!

  • +50

    by Angbrennil
    on 2022-05-12 02:42

  • +100

    by illumiinae
    on 2022-05-11 22:27

  • +100

    by AuraGuard
    on 2022-05-11 19:02

  • +100

    by Tijmuhn
    on 2022-05-11 18:59

  • +300

    by DMFW
    on 2022-05-11 11:26

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