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by hk1337 603 days ago
It’s really cool but it seems rather convoluted for the typical user. We should perhaps start making good use of the ID attribute and linking to that first before we start trying to use ~:text=
2 comments

Using text fragments is particularly useful when you don't control the page you're linking to and it doesn't have a good anchor to link to.
It's literally three clicks... Select text, right click, create link to selection.

I agree you should prefer IDs but they aren't always available, and often using them is very convoluted for users (how many are going to know how to use the element inspector, or even what an ID is?).

It's not difficult for you and me, sure. Try explaining you need to add a tilde, colon, the work text, equals sign then the text you want to the end of the URL.
You're missing that Chrome has this built in to the context menu. My dad has been sending me links like this for years now, they just haven't worked for me until this month because I use Firefox.

I'm assuming Firefox has this context menu feature on the road map as well, though I suspect it will be a long time before Safari adds it just because Apple.

The average person doesn't even understand a URL at all—as far as they're concerned they're generated by computers for computers and are copied around with little regard for what the various components mean. This feature doesn't change that, it just gives a new way of creating a URL that does something slightly different.

Why can't the browser do all of that when you create a link to the selection?
It would have to, kind of my point. Either the browser or someone would have to create some javascript widget to do it.
It does. Try it.
I didn’t say it didn’t.