Content Linking and Mention System
Overview
An integral part of worldbuilding is to create relationships between everything in the world. On World Anvil it is possible to link to any kind of resources with either the mention system or with a specific BBCode. The mention system also offers up a dropdown where suggestions are shown as you type.
The available templates are listed in the bbcode reference sidebar while editing an article, but they are:
Note that when you save an article with a link that points to an uncreated article, the uncreated article will be added to the to-do list automatically.
Mentioning an Existing Article
To link existing articles, just type an and then at least three letters of the title, of a tag or within the content of any article within the current world. Suggested articles with the word in the title or within a tag are ordered first. After that is a list of all the articles which contain these letters in the main content (vignette). The suggested list can display at most 100 articles, except in the legacy editor, which provides a much smaller list. Use a more specific word if your article does not appear at the top of the list. The search for letters has some limitations.- Spaces have to be replaced with an underscore ( _ ) character.
- Characters that are not letters or numbers will not be matched.
- It is not possible to match Cyrillic, Greek and other non-Latin characters.
- Article with a title that only has one or two characters cannot be found via title (due to the three-letter minimum)
Mentioning a Non-Existing Article
You can also link an article that hasn't been created yet. To do so, simply add the link as normal, typing the full name of the future article. After the article title, type its template name between (parenthesis). Like this:
This only works for articles where you are the author. When someone else is the author, the link is not rendered and instead is just bold. Only the author can see and click on the article to create the corresponding article. The system does not take into consideration if you have the permission to do so.
- Character (character) or (person)
- Conflict (militaryconflict) or (conflict)
- Document (document)
- Ethnicity (ethnicity)
- Military Formation (formation)
- Geographic Location (location)
- Generic Article (article)
- Item (item)
- Language (language)
- Law (law)
- Settlement (settlement)
- Building/Location (landmark)
- Material (material)
- Myth/Legend (myth) or (legend) or (prophecy)
- Organization (organization)
- Prose (prose)
- Profession (profession)
- Rank/Title (rank) or (title)
- Spell (spell)
- Species (species)
- Technology (technology)
- Tradition/Ritual (ritual) or (tradition)
- Vehicle (vehicle)
Linking Categories, Secrets, Maps, Images, Historical Events and Variables
It is possible to get a suggestion for items other than articles by typing the character "[" instead of the . Then three or more letters of the title of the desired item. In this case, only the title is searched and not the content or the tags. The resources found are always listed grouped together by type in the following order: images, maps, events, categories (link & toc), secrets and variables. The suggester returns 50 results at most.Frequently Asked Questions
These are questions that come up regularly. If you feel something is missing please leave a comment or tell us on the Discord.Can I change the display text of a link?
Yes, the displayed text does not affect the actual link. Anything between the two square brackets can be changed to anything you wish.Can I force a mention link to open in a new browser tab?
No. You have to use the URL-BBCode with the open tab option[url:https://link-to-article|tab]TEXT[/url]However, in general the tab option should be avoided for internal links. This allows the user to decide whether to open a link in a new tab or not.
Can I make a mention link to target an anchor?
No. You have to use the URL BBCode as well to do so:[url:https://link-to-article#anchor-id]TEXT[/url]Make sure to store these links in variables to make sure they can be updated.
Horatio Hornblower
Is there a way to provide alt name for article link? E.g. I want to link a character, but I want to use only the first name, or I want to link a organization (e.g. Kingdom of X) but I want to use X?
Dragon
Yep, if you look at the first image you can see that I've written @world and gotten as a response at the top of the list "PatheticBarrel's World-Building Guide" Or did you mean something else?
Horatio Hornblower
Hmm, what I mean is that I have an article about some Taric LeSample. But I want to mention him as Duke LeSample for example. How can I do that? Is it possible if the article is not created yet?
Dragon
The mentioning system works on the title of the article. If you create an article for him and name it Taric LeSample and then when you want to link to him on his sister's article you write a @tar or @les and his article will appear in a list together with other articles with similar names. You click on his article and a string of text looking like this will appear:
Dragon
If you haven't created Taric's article yet but you are writing his sisters article and you want to mention him as Duke LeSample you just type (a)Duke LeSample(person) and this link will work when you create an article with that name. (if you click the link an you will automatically end up on an empty article with that name) If you are a Guild member the article will appear in the to-do-list and you can just change the title of the article later on when you have named him. If you aren't a guild member it's a lot easier to just create the article with the purple button and use the link that the button gives you and place it there and later rename the article. (it will still say Duke LeSample on his sister's article until you change it since the text within the [ ] is the name the article had when you linked it on that article. )
Horatio Hornblower
Thanks mate, cheers!
Dragon
Cheers :)