feature - improve linking to fragments

[andrewfowlie]

First, this is a really cool project. I've been having a look at the outputs created and they usually look great.

One slightly hidden current feature I really like is that we can hyperlink paragraphs, equations, figures and sections. This can help streamline discussions, referee reports, and I can even imagine referring to such a URL inside a paper. I guess this was possibly with PDFs too, but much less appealing.

E.g., for this paper, https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org/html/1906.08684, I found I can add

• I can link sections using the fragment id S{section number} for a section,S{section number}.SS{subsection number} for a subsection etc, e.g. https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org/html/1906.08684#S1 and https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org/html/1906.08684#S2.SS2.SSS2

• Paragraphs by adding p{paragraph number} to the complete section information, e.g. https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org/html/1906.08684#S2.SS2.SSS2.p2

• Equations by adding the E{equation number} to the section, e.g., https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org/html/1906.08684#S2.E7

• Abstract by id1.id1, e.g. https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org/html/1906.08684#id1.id1

• Bibliography by bib, e.g. https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org/html/1906.08684#bib and particular items by `bib.bib{reference number}, e.g. https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org/html/1906.08684#bib.bib4

• Footnotes by footnote{number} e.g. https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org/html/1906.08684#footnote2

• It appears that we can also link to parts of paragraphs, e.g. https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org/html/1906.08684#S2.SS2.SSS1.p1.3 gives the third part of that paragraph, and even inline math, e.g. https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org/html/1906.08684#S3.SS3.SSS2.p1.2.m1.2.2 but the fragment tags get quite complicated

Anyway, the feature request is that I wonder if there was a simply way to facilitate easier creation and sharing of these kinds of links. For example, if every equation number, section/subsection ... title, perhaps even the first word of each paragraph, etc, was a hyperlink to its tag, people could easily copy the links.

[dginev]

Very reasonable upgrade request.

In terms of user experience -- do you personally enjoy the github link-on-hover feature in github's markdown previews @andrewfowlie ? Say you go to the README here and hover over the ar5iv heading, you should see:

That little "link symbol emoji" 🔗 can then be clicked and the link to the fragment in question gets copied to your clipboard for reuse in any other application.

I'm personally fond of it, and I think it would be quite easy to provide another small piece of javascript that enables it.

A good place to note that before we set onto the path of building a "high quality viewer application" for arXiv:
There are some preliminaries that need to be taken care of with setting up a proper javascript workspace -- that is likely the reasonable bit to do next, before I pile together too many separate independent mini-scripts.

[andrewfowlie]

Yes! That system works well and is a perfect example of the kind of problem and solution I had in mind.