Links inside Plain Text?
Summary: There doesn't seem to be a simple way to embed a Link inside a Plain Text Type. There should be.
I can easily embed a Link inside a Large Text Type, as so:
Getting an [[Electro-Pulse Explosive]] in Omnitron's opening turn was Very Bad.
(example taken from Record 1, in Sentinels space)
But the same thing doesn't seem to be working in Plain Text Type, as see either version of Baron Blade.
Justin: sorry, I should have headed this off at the pass, but I failed to notice how you were using things. Plain Text Type is not intended for such general use -- it is just for little constant strings like Display Name, that have no QL. (Indeed, that's more or less the definition of Plain Text.) Note that I almost never use Plain Text: the rule of thumb is that you should use Text or Large Text 99.9% of the time. It's not precisely just for internal use, since Display Name uses it, but it really isn't intended for ordinary end user usage.
I'll document accordingly: my apologies for not noticing how much you were using Plain Text before.
And yes, this is now a very good use case for allowing you to change the Type of a Property. In principle, this one is relatively easy (they both serialize/deserialize the same), so I can make it the first example. Can you live with the current state of affairs for the moment, on the theory that I will provide a Plain Text -> Text migration a bit down the line?
Later: actually, while changing the Type of a Property is very dangerous, it does seem to mostly work. I've just tried an experiment or two, and the issue seems to be live-updating. When I change a Property from Plain Text to Text, it is updating the database -- it just isn't being reflected in the system until the next reboot. I'll look into that bug, but I believe you should shortly be able to switch your Properties over to Text. (At the least, I could add a "reload this Space" command, which would cause it to take effect.)
"the rule of thumb is that you should use Text or Large Text 99.9% of the time"
Alexx: Perhaps, in that case, it shouldn't be exposed to the user? Or perhaps be renamed to something far less inviting sounding?
Justin: I think my preferred fix is to show some description of what a Type means, and how to use it, in the Create Property UI. I've added an Issue for that.
(In the medium term, I have plans to break the UI down into "Basic", "Standard" and "Advanced"; this would belong under "Advanced". But I don't want to hide it entirely, on the theory that there are likely to be use cases where forbidding embedded QL is a good thing. This is especially likely for large-scale Spaces, with large numbers of Members who are less trusted.)
