the Links menu

Add Link

This is as simple as we described in the Quick Start section. Selecting this menu item, or pressing Cmd A changes the cursor into the add mode. This command is a toggle, so selecting it again, before doing anything else, turns the add mode off. If you are in a text-type document the cursor will change to a small rectangle as if to surround a word. In a graphic document it changes to a cross-hair, for dragging out a rectangle. 

In the text mode, simply double-click on a word to make it a “hot” or active link word. (The word must be greater than or equal to the length set as minimum size in the preferences dialog (see below). The default minimum word size is four characters, but you may change it.)

In a graphics document, press and hold the mouse button for a moment before dragging out a rectangle. The rectangle set up when you release the button will be the active area in that graphic for the following link.

After double-clicking (or creating the rectangle) you are presented with the same kind of open-box you get when you select “Open” from the file menu. The difference is that you are selecting a file to be opened  from now on when the “hot” word (or rectangle in a graphic) is clicked on. Note that the file will not open when you select it now; you are just telling LinksWare what file to link.

It takes much longer to describe than to do: just

a) Double-click a word and

b) Double-click a file.

That is all there is to creating a link. Now, to see the link, just double-click on the word again.

If you have linked to the wrong file, simply repeat the process and link to the correct file. You do not have to remove the link first: LinksWare will take care of all the housekeeping for you.

Remove Link

Pressing Cmd R selects the remove cursor, a series of lines. Double-clicking on a linked word will remove the word (or rectangle) as a hot link in the current document. It does not remove the link from the same word in other documents since it may be linked elsewhere. For this reason, if you are in the expanded mode (see below) the word will still show as a link.

Show Links

LinksWare has several ways of displaying the linked words for you. The most obvious one is the Words menu. If you choose to have it created automatically then each time you open a new document, whether from the menu or by activating a link, a menu item named “Words” will appear in the menu bar. It will contain all the words that are linked in context in the current document. You may use this menu to select a word, just as if you had double-clicked on it in the body of the text.

You can also ask LinksWare to display the links in the body of the text. To do this, press Cmd L (the same as selecting “Show Links” from the Links menu). LinksWare will run through the text and highlight the links in a different text style.

The preferences dialog box controls how LinksWare will display the links, how many links it will display and what area of the text it will search to find the links. Please see the Preferences section in the utilities menu description for more information.

Expanded vs Context Styles

When you select Cmd A and add a link in a document, that link is said to exist “in context” of that document. That is because you may have linked the same word, but in a different document, to some other file. LinksWare is smart enough to know,  for example, that the word “molecule” linked in the document “Salt” should retrieve a drawing of a chemical/atomic structure, while the same word “molecule” linked in the document “Advanced Finance” should retrieve the text file “Micro-economic structures.”

Now suppose that you have opened a brand new document which had never had any links created in it. And there in the body of the text is the word “molecule.” If you were to double-click on it, nothing would happen: nothing was linked.  It is still possible to retrieve linked information from this unlinked document!

Press Cmd E (or select Expanded mode from the links menu). Now every word which has ever been linked (in the current set) is an active link in the current document. You can click on “molecule” and retrieve the link. This is an extremely powerful option in LinksWare, for it allows the use of hypertext to expand searches instead of just narrowing them. Teachers and anyone involved in archiving find this feature vital.

Word List 

This menu item creates an alphabetical list of all the linked words  in the current set. If you’re sure you linked a word, but can’t remember where, come to this item. If you’re “just browsing” this is also a good place to start. To exit this window without making a selection, hit the go-away box like a normal window. On the other hand when you select a word from the list, you will be taken to the...

File List

If you got here by selecting a word from the word list (above) this window will contain a list of files in which that word is linked. This could be from none to several hundred files. Also you can select this as a menu item without going through the word list. In that case, the window displays a list of all the files that have been linked. You can either exit by closing the window or double-clicking on a file to open it.