Hyperlinks as text properly

[a.l.e]

This is a topic that comes up from time to time: defining hyperlinks as a text property.

Now that we have a sane table of contents, it's even more relevant.

As you probably have guessed (mostly from the fact that Scribus does not have it yet...), it's not trivial to add this feature.

For once it's not the usual suspect: it's not that hard to add the link when generating the PDF.

In this thread I'd like to have a discussion on the challenges, on the features to prioritize, on possible solutions.

For the start, here are a few thoughts of mine.
In random order.

How to define how the link will be visually rendered in the pdf viewer? From my experience, I have the feeling, that some authors want to style them... (But we might be able to solve this with "simple" char styles).
Does it need to be shown in the same way on the canvas and in the viewer?
What about the view on hover?

Next: how to store them in the .sla?
Personally. I wonder why we can't store them like all the other formatting.
Are there better solutions?

Where should be the widget for editing the link properties?
Just like now, in a popup, displayed on demand?
In a new section of the text palette?
A new dockable palette?
A toolbar?

How to define the target for dynamic links, like the one in the table of contents?
How to delete the ones that are not in use anymore?
Are they only valid until the next edit?
Are the generated on the fly when producing the PDF?

But also for the other internal targets, how can we avoid that the user has to scroll around like crazy?

How to render the links on canvas?
One has to find them again...
We cannot show them in blue and underlined!
Or we can, and it's up to the user to define (import) a better char style?
And if they choose to give them the same appearance as the surrounding text, it will be their challenge to find them...
Well, we could improve the search tool and allow to search for links (and tatgets).
Or we could add a new tab to the outline panel (or add a new panel...), listing all the links and allowing to jump to them and/or their internal target.

Voilà, enough for today.

I've already created a ticket in the bug tracker

https://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=17281

But i think it is better to first have a discussion in here... If anyone wants to partipate : - )