Relation or standard text?

Talk
1

Another question that’s not clear is with regard to relations and text just entered on a page or a note. Let’s say I have created my own type called “Process-description”. I have created several Relations to capture the different properties of a process. Finally comes the description of the process as a text block. Would this have to be defined also as Relation or is it better to just create a heading “Description” and the users can enter their text under it? What is the advantage of creating a relation for this?

Thank,
Michel

2

I face a similar situation. I would like to link concepts with Song’s lyrics. But if I create a relation for lyrics, I couldn’t do it, so I turn to simple block and tex; but then I cannot label the whole thing as a single unit of lyrics. If I want achieve this, I will need to create a lyric object for that song object, then relate the lyric object to song object under relation lyrics. Then I would be able to reuse the relation content elsewhere.

The advantage of creating a relation will probably enhance with the following:
FR build title from relation → combine the process components
FR Relation as object → Better reuse of relation, or reduce the difference between relation or object block.
Alternative FR transclusion → Reuse part of the object content as the description(text type or object type) relation, then the ability to reuse elsewhere.

3

This only partially answers my question. What you mention makes sense and the FR do also, but what I‘d like to know is, what the drawbacks are of using a standard text block vs. a text relation.

  • Obviously one drawback is, that you can‘t sort or filter in sets on text blocks, but that is not so useful for larger text chunks anyway.
  • Content reuse is another, but since the text is unique in my case, that also is of no concern.

What about text search. Does the search include text blocks? Are there any other drawbacks I need to consider when using a text block vs. a relation?

4

Both approaches have different drawbacks, but for longer texts, it’s probably best to use blocks instead of relations.

The search function does search inside of objects.

5

It would be great to have an overview of the advantages / drawbacks when using relations vs. text blocks. This would allow for an informed decision when to use what…