Optional "name" field, or checkbox to copy title to name parameter

[andy5995]

I've been using Citer on Toolforge the last few days and it's very nice!

I think that it might be good to add a "name" field.

A person could enter the URL into the URL field, and also enter the value for the "name" of the reference. If the field is blank, then the output after hitting submit would be the same as it is now. But if anything was entered in the name field, it will use that for the "name" parameter of the reference.

I suggest this because often I have to edit the name.

Perhaps it would be good to have a checkbox as well... Something like "make title same as name". Though I'm not sure about that yet. Or perhaps "make name the same as title" would be better".

[5j9]

Thanks for the suggestion.

The recommendation for names is to keep them "simple and restricted to the standard English alphabet and numerals". Using titles as names may violate that recommendation in some cases. Not sure if it will be worth it.

I'm also not quite sure why you need this, but I guess it's because the generated names are sometimes irrelevant/wrong/too long. Maybe it would better to just use a short hash string instead of the current name generating method. That will violate another recommendation of having "semantic value" of-course.

Anyway, it will be nice to have a more advanced UI that allows editing citation fields, including the name, more easily, but unfortunately I'm too busy to implement that in the near future. :(

[daniel-barrows]

@andy5995 I don't think I fully understand the need for this feature. Why is it easier to enter a name in a form field than to edit the template output?