Files
zulip/help/add-a-custom-linkifier.md
Shubham Padia 7ce87c66ac help: Make loose lists tight for help center files.
In our current implementation, loose lists and tight lists look the same
visually. Loose lists are lists with blank lines between list items, and
the contents of a list item should be enclosed in a paragraph tag in
that case. For unordered lists, paragraph tags have a bottom margin in
starlight and thus looses lists look much more spaced out than tight
lists.

That is not the behaviour we had in mind while writing the
documentation, the reason we had all these loose lists is to make the
documentation easy to write and read. So we attempt to remove all the
blank lines and fix the problem at source. Since paragraph tags are used
for other purposes in a list in starlight, it won't be a wise decision
to let the source be as is and just change things in css, other expected
behaviours might break in that case. See this topic for more details:
https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/channel/19-documentation/topic/new.20help.20center.3A.20regressions/near/2226084

All the changes were made by a one-off script which has not been
commited to the repo. The script wasn't perfect and could not decide
between blank lines that make a list loose vs blank lines necessary for
a sub-list or a code block inside a list item. A manual review of all
the changes was done before making this commit to ensure that no
unintended changes were made to the help center files.
2025-07-22 14:36:25 -07:00

209 lines
7.1 KiB
Markdown

# Add a custom linkifier
{!admin-only.md!}
Linkifiers make it easy to refer to issues or tickets in third
party issue trackers, like GitHub, Salesforce, Zendesk, and others.
For instance, you can add a linkifier that automatically turns `#2468`
into a link to `https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues/2468`.
If the pattern appears in a topic, Zulip adds an
**Open** (<i class="zulip-icon zulip-icon-external-link"></i>) button
to the right of the topic in the message recipient bar that links to
the appropriate URL.
If you have any trouble creating the linkifiers you want, please [contact Zulip
support](/help/contact-support) with details on what you're trying to do.
## Add a custom linkifier
{start_tabs}
{settings_tab|linkifier-settings}
1. Under **Add a new linkifier**, enter a **Pattern** and
**URL template**.
1. Click **Add linkifier**.
{end_tabs}
## Reorder linkifiers
Linkifiers are processed in order, and will not apply to text that
is already linkified. You can therefore choose which linkifiers to prioritize
when more than one linkifier applies. See the
[overlapping patterns section](#overlapping-patterns) for examples.
{start_tabs}
{settings_tab|linkifier-settings}
1. Under **Linkifiers**, click and drag the vertical dots to reorder the list of
linkifiers.
{end_tabs}
## Common linkifier patterns
The following examples cover the most common types of linkifiers, with a focus
on linkifiers for issues or tickets.
### Link to an issue or ticket
This is a pattern that turns a `#` followed by a number into a link. It is often
used to link to issues or tickets in third party issue trackers, like GitHub,
Salesforce, Zendesk, and others.
{start_tabs}
* Pattern: `#(?P<id>[0-9]+)`
* URL template: `https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues/{id}`
* Original text: `#2468`
* Automatically links to: `https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues/2468`
{end_tabs}
### Link to issues or tickets in multiple projects or apps
To set up linkifiers for issues or tickets in multiple projects,
consider extending the `#2468` format with project-specific
variants. For example, the Zulip development community
[uses](https://zulip.com/development-community/#linking-to-github-issues-and-pull-requests)
`#M2468` for an issue in the repository for the Zulip mobile app,
`#D2468` and issue in the desktop app repository, etc.
{start_tabs}
* Pattern: `#M(?P<id>[0-9]+)`
* URL template: `https://github.com/zulip/zulip-mobile/issues/{id}`
* Original text: `#M2468`
* Automatically links to: `https://github.com/zulip/zulip-mobile/issues/2468`
{end_tabs}
### Link to issues or tickets in multiple repositories
For organizations that commonly link to multiple GitHub repositories, this
linkfier pattern turns `org/repo#ID` into an issue or pull request link.
{start_tabs}
* Pattern: `(?P<org>[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)/(?P<repo>[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)#(?P<id>[0-9]+)`
* URL template: `https://github.com/{org}/{repo}/issues/{id}`
* Original text: `zulip/zulip#2468`
* Automatically links to: `https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues/2468`
{end_tabs}
### Link to a hexadecimal issue or ticket number
The following pattern linkfies a string of hexadecimal digits between 7 and 40
characters long, such as a Git commit ID.
{start_tabs}
* Pattern: `(?P<id>[0-9a-f]{7,40})`
* URL template: `https://github.com/zulip/zulip/commit/{id}`
* Original text: `abdc123`
* Automatically links to: `https://github.com/zulip/zulip/commit/abcd123`
{end_tabs}
## Advanced linkifier patterns
Linkifiers are a flexible system that can be used to construct rules for a wide
variety of situations. Linkifier patterns are regular expressions, using the
[re2](https://github.com/google/re2/wiki/Syntax) regular expression
engine.
Linkifiers use [RFC 6570](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6570.html) compliant
URL templates to describe how links should be generated. These templates support
several expression types. The default expression type (`{var}`) will URL-encode
special characters like `/` and `&`; this behavior is desired for the vast
majority of linkifiers. Fancier URL template expression types can allow you to
get the exact behavior you want in corner cases like optional URL query
parameters. For example:
- Use `{+var}` when you want URL delimiter characters to not be URL-encoded.
- Use `{?var}` and `{&var}` for variables in URL query parameters.
- Use <code>{&#35;var}</code> when generating `#` fragments in URLs.
The URL template specification has [brief
examples](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6570.html#section-1.2) and [detailed
examples](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6570.html#section-3.2) explaining
the precise behavior of URL templates.
### Linking to documentation pages
This example pattern is a shorthand for linking to pages on Zulip's ReadTheDocs
site.
{start_tabs}
* Pattern: `RTD/(?P<article>[a-zA-Z0-9_/.#-]+)`
* URL template: `https://zulip.readthedocs.io/en/latest/{+article}`
* Original text: `RTD/overview/changelog.html`
* Automatically links to: `https://zulip.readthedocs.io/en/latest/overview/changelog.html`
{end_tabs}
!!! tip ""
This pattern uses the `{+var}` expression type. With the
default expression type (`{article}`), the `/` between `overview` and
`changelog` would incorrectly be URL-encoded.
### Linking to Google search results
This example pattern allows linking to Google searches.
{start_tabs}
* Pattern: `google:(?P<q>\w+)?`
* URL template: `https://google.com/search{?q}`
* Original text: `google:foo` or `google:`
* Automatically links to: `https://google.com/search?q=foo` or `https://google.com/search`
{end_tabs}
!!! tip ""
This pattern uses the `{?var}` expression type. With the default expression
type (`{q}`), there would be no way to only include the `?` in the URL
if the optional `q` is present.
### Overlapping patterns
In this example, a general linkifier is configured to make GitHub
repository references like `zulip-desktop#123` link to issues in that
repository within the `zulip` GitHub organization. A more specific
linkifier overrides that linkifier for a specific repository of
interest (`django/django`) that is in a different organization.
{start_tabs}
* Specific linkifier (ordered before the general linkifier)
* Pattern: `django#(?P<id>[0-9]+)`
* URL template: `https://github.com/django/django/pull/{id}`
* General linkifier
* Pattern: `(?P<repo>[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)#(?P<id>[0-9]+)`
* URL template: `https://github.com/zulip/{repo}/pull/{id}`
* Example matching both linkifiers; specific linkifier takes precedence:
* Original text: `django#123`
* Automatically links to: `https://github.com/django/django/pull/123`
* Example matching only the general linkifier:
* Original text: `zulip-desktop#123`
* Automatically links to: `https://github.com/zulip/zulip-desktop/pull/123`
{end_tabs}
!!! tip ""
This set of patterns has overlapping regular expressions. Note that
the general linkifier pattern would match `lorem#123` too. The specific
linkifier will only get prioritized over the general linkifier if it is
ordered before the more general pattern. This can be customized by
dragging and dropping existing linkifiers into the desired order. New
linkifiers will automatically be ordered last.