Hi, I'm new to this list but read the recent discussion about embedded hyperlinks in the archives. I find this issue quite important for plain-text readability: While for long URIs, putting them after a paragraph is good, for short URIs, it seems quite unnatural. (Short URIs include references to the root of a web site as well as most relative URIs-- both common cases for hyperlinks.) To give an example [see example.html], I often refer to web sites like this [http://example.com/]. Giving the example__ like this__ seems much less natural, and actually sometimes makes me not put in hyperlinks where I would normally put them (or if they're absolute, put them in like above, which reST renders by showing the URI). __ example.html __ http://example.com/ Of course, things like this_@_http://example.com would not help me with my problem in the least ;-) The 'most obvious' syntax extension to reST would, for me, be having the URI-in-square-brackets trap the last word, or last `backquoted phrase`, like the underscore put right after the word/phrase does. Obviously this doesn't work, since reST already interprets these differently. I have come up with an only slightly different possible syntax that doesn't seem to have been discussed before. The first goes like this: This is an example [-> http://www.example.com] of `embedded links` [-> http://www.example.com/links/]. I find it especially comfortable with relative URIs: To learn more about Foo [-> foo.html], go to the `class documentation` [-> class-foo.html]. Or go back to the index [-> ../index.html]. I really like the plain-text readability of this syntax. It does not use the underscores that usually indicate links within reST and is therefore inconsistent; I don't see this as a major problem, because I find the syntax quite indicative of its meaning, but if this is seen as a problem, another possibility is: This is an example [__ http://www.example.com]. However, I find that less readable. Both syntaxes share the problem that the markup that makes a word/a backquoted phrase into a hyperlink is not directly connected to the word/phrase itself. However, they are still unambiguous, and especially the first jumps clearly out to my eye. My personal feeling is that some conceptional purity should be sacrificed for plain-text readability here. Thanks for listening! - Benja