Link Name Type

A "Link Name" is exactly that -- a name that can be applied to a Thing. It does not necessarily mean a name that is currently in use: the Link Name can be for a Thing that already exists, or it can simply be a Link Name with no actual Thing named by it yet.

Link Names are very restricted: they can contain only letter, numbers, spaces, dashes and underscores. User-defined names may not start with underscore. (System-defined names often do.)

Any given Space may contain at most one Thing with any given Link Name -- you can't duplicate Link Names.

When you choose "Link Name Type", the system will allow you to "Restrict to Model". This is optional, but sometimes helpful. When you are editing a Link Name Property, the system will prompt you with existing Link Names. If you choose a Model at creation time, it will only prompt you with Link Names of Instances of that Model. So if you know what sorts of Things you will be naming in this Property, it is worth specifying that Model here.

Note that Link Names are different from the more-common Names, which you will usually use. Normal Names have far fewer restrictions, and are usually what you will see in practice. Most of the time, a Thing's Link Name is derived automatically from its Name, by stripping out the illegal characters.

Link Names are used mainly to generate the URLs for each Thing.

Link Names are fairly advanced -- most users usually won't want to create a Link Name Property.