What is an ACRONYM?
An acronym is an abbreviation that is typically made up of the first letter or letters of a phrase. A very familiar example would be WWW standing for World Wide Web. In Foswiki, an acronym of 3 or more letters will be automatically linked only if a topic of that name already exists in the Web. When you type an Acronym, you establish a possible hyperlink. It's as easy as that. Just like WikiWord linking, acronym linking is easy to use:- You don't have to know the full path to where the topic is stored - you just type the name
- You don't need to write HTML
- Without HTML, the topic text is easier to read when editing
- Easy linking leads to interesting texts with links placed in context
Syntax of an Acronym
- 3 or more Uppercase letter(s)
Acronym = 3*upperLetters ; upperLetters = "A" | "B" | "C" | "D" | "E" | "F" | "G" | "H" | "I" | "J" | "K" | "L" | "M" | "N" | "O" | "P" | "Q" | "R" | "S" | "T" | "U" | "V" | "W" | "X" | "Y" | "Z" ;
Examples of Acronyms
- HTML
- RADAR
- HTML5 - A digit breaks the acronym link.
- FAQs - The lower case letter breaks the link.
Variations in linking
When you write an acronym and the acronym topic already exists, it becomes a link. There are more ways- To force a link to to an acronym, use bracket notation:
[[HTML5]]
- this becomes: HTML5 and will display the broken link indicator (?) if the topic does not exist. - To link to an acronym in another web, write:
Sandbox.HTML
- this becomes: Sandbox.HTML - To link to an acronym on a site like the Acronym Finder, use:
Acronym:HTTP
- this becomes: Acronym:HTTP (sites are defined in the InterwikiPlugin)
Hints
- To stop an Acronym from being turned into a hyperlink, insert an exclamation point immediately before the Acronym. For example, write
!HTML
to get HTML. - Unlike WikiWords, plural Acronyms are not automatically linked to the singular topic.
-
FAQ
will be linked, butFAQIndex
will not. Turn acronyms into WikiWords, i.e. ChangeFAQIndex
toFaqIndex
for a "FAQ index" topic. - It is possible to turn off the auto-linking and to rely only on the bracket notation using the NOAUTOLINK preference setting.
- You can set NOAUTOLINK in your personal topic, or directly in any topic to change linking behavior for you or an individual topic.
Related Topics: WikiSyntax, TextFormattingRules