Re: radio transmit links across files

From: Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl>
To: Mark Aufflick <mark-emacs@aufflick.com>
Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
Subject: Re: radio transmit links across files
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 09:04:21 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <b5ae6114e2397c4ace13030fb6e453fb@science.uva.nl> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <1242f34a0703040352n7c4717e4rec679c2f1904241f@mail.gmail.com>

Hi Mark,

On Mar 4, 2007, at 12:52, Mark Aufflick wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> I have to say I'm loving org-mode, I'm using it for taking notes and
> writing papers for my (just started) Masters of law degree (a bit of a
> change for a programmer!)
>
> What I want to do is have a single file where I keep a list of terms,
> acronyms, etc, and have that one file "radio" links out to any other
> org mode file.
>
> I know that I can make links across files to specific headings, but I
> want the existance of a term in the file to automatically be linked in
> other files - so the same functionality as radio links - but
> transmitting across files.
>
> Has anyone ever implemented such a beast?
>
> At a guess I would need to extend org-update-radio-target-regexp to
> run org-all-targets on the terms file. My lisp is fairly limited at
> this stage, however, so any pointers would be appreciated!

Something like this could easily be implemented, as you say along
the lines of the radio targets, but making links to a different file.

The main problem with such an approach is that it quickly becomes
a performance issue.  It is ok for a few terms, but if you accumulate
a large number of terms, and if you want to use font-lock to activate
words as links, this means that after each letter you type, font-lock
will have to match all words in the current line against all those 
terms.
This can become slow.

Another approach would be to do it on demand, by replacing matches in
the file with explicit links like

#+LINK: term file:terms.org::%s

  word   ->  [[term:word][word]]

I guess the problem with this approach might be that you might also
*remove* terms, and so these links will point into nothingness.
A remedy would be to find all the term: links and remove them first, 
then
got through the file again and create new links.

- Carsten

>
> Mark.
>
> -- 
> Mark Aufflick
> e: mark@aufflick.com
> w: mark.aufflick.com
> p: +61 438 700 647
> f: +61 2 9436 4737
>
>
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>
>

--
Carsten Dominik
Sterrenkundig Instituut "Anton Pannekoek"
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Kruislaan 403
NL-1098SJ Amsterdam
phone: +31 20 525 7477