Thread

I’ll ask this here before I move it to any specific forum..

It’s always puzzled me why CMS systems don’t provide an easy way to link “internally”...i.e. from one page (or database entry) to another page (or database entry). I know it’s possible, but you probably have to have Einstein’s memory to recall the url addresses of your entries….😉

An early look at Expression Engine reveals no change. When writing a blog entry I can indeed select some text and press the link button. But then I am only given an http:// field to complete…..which means I would have to leave my entry, go off to a list of entries and laboriously look up the URL Title, before returning to my interrupted blog writing and paste in some web address of which I know the start (http://) and the end (URL title).

So is there no widget or module or plugin or prayer which allows the link button to show both the external URL field and a list of URL titles (i.e. pages in old html construction) which can be linked to?

It seems extremely odd to me that one of the foundation stones of the web, the ‘hyper-linking’ of documents and pages, and that includes internal linking, too, should be so overlooked by CMS engines.

Or am I missing something obvious?

Hugh

Hi Hugh,

Yes this is something that I have always wanted too. I did ask about this some time back. I remember when I used to use PHPNuke (Ugggghh I hated that!) and you could click a button to enter a link and it would come up with a list of all other pages that you had created and you could insert one as a link.

I think (might get shouted at for this though) that this would probably be quite easy for someone to code as an extension if they know what they are doing as really all you would need is a button that you click that pops up a new window, or perhaps even a light-box 😊 and then this would run a query over the database to bring back all entries, perhaps sorted by weblog or even better still when the window pops up it asks you for the weblog so you can cut down on database queries and then you could click on the entry and have it inserted into the text box for you. I admit that I did give this a try some time back but got completely lost and actually ended up hosing an install of EE so completely gave up in the end. Luckily the install was on a dev server so it didn’t matter too much! 😊

Would be great to see something like this though. Any of the clever coders out there want to take this on as a pet project? 😉

Best wishes,

Mark

Hi Mark,

Glad to see you agree!

However, there don’t seem to be many takers for this debate. I wonder why?........

I must admit I’m rather surprised. In any decent web site authroing programme, Dreamweaver, Freeway etc., there is a simple method of linking a piece of text to another page in the same site. Why this doesn’t seem to be of any importance in a CMS situation is quite beyond me!

As you say, I’m sure some coder out there could do this at a dop of the hat. What is weird is that it hasn’t been done from day one!

Oh well…..

Hugh

Probably the thing that makes this one difficult is that you can’t link to pages.
You might be able to create an extension where you could link to an entry, but you would always have to add a link to the template where you want to show the entry by hand. Or you could of course create a dropdown with templates and a dropdown with entries, but the risk of that is that authors could link to a wrong template.

I’ve seen this functionality in a CMS before: CMSMadeSimple. So I guess it has to be in other page-type CMS as well. But do you really want to go back to a page-based cms once you know the power of EE?

I’ve seen this functionality in a CMS before: CMSMadeSimple. So I guess it has to be in other page-type CMS as well. But do you really want to go back to a page-based cms once you know the power of EE?

Yes!!!

Franky, I don’t think any CMS is very powerful if it doesn’t cater for the rudimentary fundaments of the web…linking between documents (loosely called). EE probably is very ‘powerful’, as you put it; but just what do you mean by ‘powerful’? Word is powerful, but 95% of its power is probably not used by 95% of its users!! Is this the kind of ‘power’ which EE is endowed with? Frills for the few?

Anyway, I think you neatly point up the essence of things, here. EE is still a blog script, with the emphasis on publishing ‘niceties’ rather than belt and braces content management. And if it’s not possible to link, with comparative built-in simplicity, between entries, then I am obviously not saying hello to the most flexible web publishing system I will ever meet 😉

QED

I will certainly look at CMSMadeSimple, thanks for the tip.

Hugh

Franky, I don’t think any CMS is very powerful if it doesn’t cater for the rudimentary fundaments of the web…linking between documents (loosely called). EE probably is very ‘powerful’, as you put it; but just what do you mean by ‘powerful’? Word is powerful, but 95% of its power is probably not used by 95% of its users!! Is this the kind of ‘power’ which EE is endowed with? Frills for the few?

Oh dear, I guess you misunderstood my intention, so I’ll shout it out loud: DON’T USE ANY OTHER CMS THAN EE!  😉

Ok, so you can’t link to a certain page from the backend, but is it really worth that much?  EE can give you the possibility to magically create related links without the interference of an author. That is a power that is worth so much more than being able to create a link manually from the back-end.

In the end another CMS might be the solution for you, but all the sites I create are based on pure content. That content could be complex and often has many layers. EE is the only CMS I know that gives you the possibility to analyze your content and actually re-use that content in a very efficient way. If that’s NOT what you want/need, you could always use the pages module to create a page-based site and probably with an extension/plugin you could create the functionality you need. But that might take you more time than using any other simple CMS.

Oh dear, I guess you misunderstood my intention, so I’ll shout it out loud: DON’T USE ANY OTHER CMS THAN EE!  😉

Hehehe!!

Hi Ronny,

No offence meant, and believe me I was a huge devotee and apostle of pMachine in its day!

However, I must question some of your evangelism, mainly because I don’t understand what you’re saying!...

EE can give you the possibility to magically create related links without the interference of an author.

....well, that’s flight 548, right over my head! What do you mean? How does that work? Does it easily allow me, when I’m writing my ‘blog’, to link to that sage piece I wrote three weeks ago? If so, how?

..but all the sites I create are based on pure content.

....what is pure content? Is it the extra virgin olive oil of content, without any swear words at all? Actually, I guess ‘pure content’ is an aphorism of some kind, but for what I don’t know.

That content could be complex and often has many layers. EE is the only CMS I know that gives you the possibility to analyze your content and actually re-use that content in a very efficient way.

.....can you give me an example?

you could always use the pages module to create a page-based site and probably with an extension/plugin you could create the functionality you need. But that might take you more time than using any other simple CMS.

.....well, it’s good to know that there’s possibly some provision for it. I can see some flexibility there, although it doesn’t sound simple.

Last night I had a look at CMS MadeSimple. It might not have the slickest or nicest looking interface in the world, but it looked pretty powerful to me. I was relieved not to have to make decisions about tracks and pings and stuff, and I thought there was a pretty logical assembly of tools there. Within minutes I was creating new pages (which automatically formatted into new menu links, too) and shovelling content in. It all looks good stuff. But being able to click on a word and link to other ‘pages’ from a list of everything on the site - that really took the biscuit, that is exactly what I need to do. And it was so easy and logical.

I don’t wish to deride EE in any way, I can sense it’s power. But I will keep going back to this thing about the fundaments of the web - hyperlinking. If it’s not easily possible to interlink your content, then I think one of the basic premises of the web is being overlooked. Why I can’t say, and I’m sure there are many happy bloggers and publishers out there who think EE is the bees knees.

I think it comes down to what a site really needs to do, and that is why I feel EE is still a blogging tool (a damn good one) rather than a content management system.

cheers,
Hugh

ps. have you a site you’ve made with EE where I can look at some pure and complex content? I’d be interested.

I don’t have the time to respond as extensive as I would like right now, so I might come back to some of your questions but here’s a huge difference between our views of EE:

EE is really more than a blogging tool. In my humble opinion it’s even more than your average CMS. Do you know any CMS that can have the same functionality out-of-the-box as imdb.com? I’m not saying you can create an exact copy of that site with EE, but I bet most of the functions could be done.
If you have a page based cms and you would add a new movie to imdb.com with a cast of 10 members you have to create 1 page for the movie and adjust 10 actor-pages with links to the movie. In EE all you have to do is create a new entry for a movie with a list of the cast and your done. Links from the movie-page to the actor page and vice-versa can be done for you. And it goes on: if you create a review for that movie you can relate it to a movie and/or an actor(s) and in your article overview, the actor page and the movie page the review of that movie can be listed.

I hope I’ve made it a bit more clear; english is not my native language so perhaps somebody can jump in to explain it even better than I can.

Your English sounds very native to me, Ronny!

What you say sounds very interesting. Although I don’t understand how it would be done in EE, what it achieves sounds very clever. And I’m sure very useful in some situations.

If such cleverness can be achieved with EE, though, surely it should be possible to achieve the humbler objective of page-based (or entry-based) interlinking? Manual linking still has its place. Not everyone, nor every site operator, understands ‘relational’ linking. They are the sort of bod who just want to make a link to another page; not rocket science. If EE wants to be the “most flexible web publishing system” then I feel it should also cater to simplicities as well as complexities. By all means have something which can do as you describe, but let’s have the basic stuff, too.

I just feel that in the exuberant (and why not!) pursuit of intelligent sofware, some of the basic premises of the web, plus an understanding of the more humble internet user, are being overlooked. Intelligent software is well and good, but not if it’s just Oxford and Cambridge intelligence 😉

Still, horses for courses. And EE may be the horse for another course which I’m not on yet!!

I’ll be interested to hear what you have to say when you’ve time, if you want.

regards
Hugh

I believe Ronnie’s talking about Related Entries and Reverse Related Entries. Pretty powerful stuff, there.

Anyway, I fall right in the middle of this argument. I love the power and extensibility of EE, but the one thing that has always frustrated me is the lack (or perhaps more accurately, difficulty) of dynamic navigation; meaning that whenever a new entry is created in a weblog, there should also be a link to that entry added to the appropriate menu. I know there are ways of doing it, but they all kind of feel like work-arounds to me. When I’m maintaining a site myself, I really don’t mind that, but when I’m showing a client how easy it is to edit their pages and add entries, I always dread the “How do I add a new page?” question. EE suddenly goes from easy and elegant to “well, first you copy the url, and then go over to this other weblog and create a new entry and set the category and… and if you want a new top-level page, you have to go over here and create a new category and…” Ugh. What I really want is to say, you just make a new entry, and then look, here it is, automatically added to your menu in the proper section. I had never even considered having a dynamic list of previous entries, but that sounds great, too.

What I really want is to say, you just make a new entry, and then look, here it is, automatically added to your menu in the proper section. I had never even considered having a dynamic list of previous entries, but that sounds great, too.

....which is exactly what CMS MadeSimple does 😊

...well, the first part anyway, I’ve not checked the dynamic list thing. It’s just that if you choose a word in your new entry, you can double click it with the link tool and a list of all previous entries, shown as sections and sub-sections, flies up for selection! Select, and the link is written into your entry! Easy peasy.