Anchor-Links for Category, Course, Group and Folder

1 Initial Problem

Anchor links allow you to send users directly to a specific paragraph within a page.

This can be useful if you are using longer pages in ILIAS and want to link to a specific section elsewhere.

Currently, users can only add anchor links in wikis. 

This issue gains urgency with Abandon HTML/Javascript in Page Editor Text Paragraphs. 

2 Conceptual Summary

Comparable to wikis, the Anchor option should be available in Content tabs of

• Courses
• Groups
• Categories 
• Forlders

If users want to set an anchor link (e.g. in a category), they have to complete a two-step workflow:

1. Creating the Anchor tag "at the people should land on", providing a name for the Anchor tag to make it selectable. 
2. Adding an internal Link to Achnr on this Page.

Creating and naming the Anchor tag

The [Anchor] button is displayed under More

1. Click on Customise Page.
2. ILIAS opens Page Editor.
3. Click on the Plus-Symbol symbol at the place you want to link to.
4. ILIAS presents a Menu with Elements. 
5. Select Text. 
6. ILIAS opens Edit Text slate.
7. Click on the Anchor Button. 
   • Note: It is not necessary to select text before inserting the anchor link.
8. ILIAS inserts the Achor syntax int the text input field:
9. Enter a name between the quotation marks e.g. .
10. Click Save.

Adding an internal Link 

1. Navigate to the text element on the Content tab of the category, course, group or folder from where you want to link to the anchor.
2. Use the mouse to select the text you want to link to.
3. In the Slate editor, select Internal Link under Links.
4. ILIAS opens a modal.
5. Select Link Type Repository Item in the drop-down menu.
6. ILIAS shows you all Anchorable elements underneath the Repository object's title. Below that you will also find your anchor name behind a hash. (E.g. #example anchor)
7. Click on the link with the name of the desired anchor.
8. ILIAS inserts an internal link.
9. Click Save.

3 User Interface Modifications

3.1 List of Affected Views

• Page Editor » Content tab of Category
• Page Editor » Content tab of Course
• Page Editor » Content tab of Group
• Page Editor » Content tab of Folder 

3.2 User Interface Details

• Adding an Anchor Button in the Text Editing Slate (More Section)

3.3 New User Interface Concepts

None.

3.4 Accessibility Implications

No Accessibility Implications.

4 Technical Information

No technical issues.

5 Privacy

Current Page Editor Privacy Documentation: https://github.com/ILIAS-eLearning/ILIAS/blob/trunk/Services/COPage/PRIVACY.md

This feature will not implement any privacy related changes.

6 Security

No Security Implications.

7 Contact

• Author of the Request: Sesterhenn, Fabian [sesterhenn], Zenzen, Enrico [ezenzen]
  
• Maintainer: Killing, Alexander [alex]
• Implementation of the feature is done by: {The maintainer must add the name of the implementing developer.}

8 Funding

If you are interest in funding this feature, please add your name and institution to this list.

• TH Köln

9 Discussion

Killing, Alexander [alex], 27 Apr 2023: I checked this feature wiki entry, but it needs some clarifications before we can discuss this in the Jour Fixe. I do not understand the concept fully. What is meant by "Anchor option should be available in the entire ILIAS page editor". For all contexts? Like questions feedbacks, login page, learning objective introductions? How should these targets be selectable in the link dialoge?

Killing, Alexander [alex], 7 June 2023: This still needs some work. a) The article still states to offer "anchors everywhere in the editor" in multiple places. This is not possible. b) I think the cryptic first paragraph needs to be removed. c) I support this for container objects, please move the "Content Page" to a sperate feature wiki entry. d) The second "Conceptual Summary" chapter selects "Page" objects, but this is already existing. We need this for the "Repository Object" link targets (and here containers only will add the anchors).

JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], 24 JUL 2023 : We highly appreciate this suggestion and schedule the feature for ILIAS 9.

Klees, Richard [rklees], 15 Apr 2024: Thanks for this suggestion, this is something the page editor is really missing IMO. I have two questions/proposals to make this even more useful:

* Why is this restricted to that small list of objects? I have read that Alex wanted to restrict this to container objects only. Why is that? Why does this only cover some container objects and not all? To honor the Principle of Least Surprise and don't confuse our users, I would suggest to extend this to all locations where users can use page editor pages. If that is not possible I would suggest that we try to use a black list of locations where we cannot support the feature. If that's not possible either, we could at least expand this to all container objects. Users will be confused if the feature is available here, but not there.
* There already are HTML-ids on the headlines of the pages. Their naming is not very intuitiv though. Still, we can assume that people will most often want to link to headlines on a page. Can we leverage the existings Ids on the headlines, e.g. by adding a configuration option to the headline or assigning more intuitive ids, and include them in the list of link targets as well? Or maybe even include them directly, with Ids as is?

Mundra, Daniel [dmundra], 22 Apr 2024: Agreed that a standard anchor feature for all page editors would be good to have. I noticed this issue is schedule for ILIAS 10 now. Could it re-prioritized for ILIAS 9?

JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], 29 APR 2024: We highly appreciate the suggestion and schedule the feature for ILIAS 10. In addition to the concept description, anchors will be supported in all containers that are using the IPE.

10 Implementation

{ The maintainer has to give a description of the final implementation and add screenshots if possible. }

Test Cases

Test cases completed at {date} by {user}

• {Test case number linked to Testrail} : {test case title}

Approval

Approved at {date} by {user}.