URLs aren't clickable in API docs when reading source code

[sethladd]

From a UX study.

It appears that "jump to definition" is really popular way to learn the system. Sometimes, we include URLs in the API docs (either to the website or the material site). It would be cool if the developer could just click those URLs and open a browser.

Workaround: copy the link out of the editor and paste into a browser window.

[pq]

This should already work in regular source files.

@sethladd can you point me to a link in a framework doc so I can confirm that it works there too?

[sethladd]

Sure this. Check out material.dart:

We're (apparently) using Markdown syntax here. Maybe we should change that? But I think it's expected that this would work.

[pq]

Interestingly, this works for me...

(Note that you need to hold down ⌘ while hovering... Maybe that's not obvious?)

[sethladd]

Yeah, that's definitely not obvious :)

Can we auto-link these?

[pq]

cc @alexander-doroshko for any ideas

[alexander-doroshko]

I think it was done just like all other references in code. There's no special highlighting for references but you know that you can Cmd+Click or Cmd+B on it to jump to the declaration. The same was done for links in comments.

I think special highlighting for links in comments is discussable (not with me :) ). I even noticed that the IDE already has a color setting for it that is simply not used for this case (Settings | Editor | Colors & Fonts | General -> Hyperlinks).

Interesting that @sethladd wrote that "jump to definition is really popular" but didn't try it on a link. :)