Links

A key feature of WikiWikiWebs is the ease of creating links to other places in the text of the document. PmWiki provides multiple mechanisms for creating such links.

Links to other pages

First, to create a link to another page, simply enclose the name of the page inside double brackets, as in [[wiki sandbox]] or [[installation]]. These result in links to wiki sandbox and installation, respectively.

PmWiki ignores all spaces between words when creating a link from the text inside the double brackets, and will automatically capitalize words following spaces and other punctuation (like ~). Thus [[Wiki sandbox]], [[wiki sandbox]], and [[WikiSandbox]] all display differently but link to the same page - which is titled WikiSandbox.

In other words, when a page is created PmWiki will automatically create a WikiWord for its title, but links to the page will display as written.

A suffix can also be added to the end of a link, which becomes part of the link text but not the target. Thus [[wiki sandbox]]es is still a link to WikiSandbox but displays as wiki sandboxes. And you can put parentheses around any text you don't want to have displayed, so that [[(wiki) sandbox]] still links to WikiSandbox but displays as sandbox.

Finally, you can specify the link text via a vertical brace, thus [[WikiSandbox |a play area]], which links to WikiSandbox but displays as a play area. Alternately, you can use an arrow (->) to reverse the order of the text and target, as in [[a play area -> WikiSandbox]] (a play area).

Some sites also recognize WikiWord links, in which a WikiWord appearing in the text is automatically treated as a link to a page of the same name.

Links to external sites (URLs)

Links to external sites simply begin with a prefix such as 'http:', 'ftp:', etc. Thus http://www.google.com/ and [[http://www.google.com/]] both link to Google. As with the above, an author can specify the link text by using the vertical brace or arrow syntax, as in [[http://www.google.com/ | Google]] and [[Google -> http://www.google.com]].

InterMap links are also supported (see InterMap).

Links to specific locations within a page

To define a location within a page to which you may jump directly, use the markup [[#name]]. This will create an "anchor" that uniquely identifies that location in the page. Then to have a link jump directly to that anchor, use one of

  • [[#name|link text]] within the same page, or
  • PageName#name or [[PageName#name|link text]] for a location on another page

You may find the form [[PageName(#name)]] more useful than [[Pagename#name]] as the former hides the anchor text while the latter displays it.

Links that open a new browser window

These are particularly useful for links to external sites where you want to keep the window to your Wiki open, allowing users to return to your site easily.

You can also specify that links should open in a new window via the target attribute: 

    %target=_blank% Any links on this line like http://www.pmichaud.com 
    will open in a new window.

which gives

Any links on this line like http://www.pmichaud.com will open in a new window.

(This method is described in WikiStyles).

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