follow() should support names and titles

[mattbishop]

Currently it looks like follow(rel, options) only support templated URIs. It would be good to add a way to follow a link by title.

Also, for HAL links, these are useful fields in the spec that could be part of the follow() options:

• name
• type
• profile
• deprecation
• hreflang

Here is my workaround, using deprecated methods:

  public async followListEntry(name: string) {
    // NOTE: links() is deprecated in Ketting
    const entryLinks = await this.resource.links("https://level3.rest/patterns/list#list-entry")
    // @ts-ignore
    const entry = entryLinks.find((l) => l.name === name)
    assert(entry !== undefined, `cannot find link named '${name}' in list: ${JSON.stringify(entryLinks)}`)
    this.resource = await this.client.go(entry)
  }

[mattbishop]

About URL templates, I have an opinion.

[evert]

I would really like a better follow() at some point that has a few more options, but I was already under the impression that the rel is at least always a known key. I understand the purpose of name in HAL, but assumed that if anyone were to use those they would be looking for a rel + a specific named link.

Similar to hreflang, I'd assume people would be looking for a link with a rel and a language.

[mattbishop]

Yes, it's rel + name I am looking for. follow() lets me specify the rel, but I don't see how to add in the name parameter for follow the rel gets me a list of links, so I want to filter by the attributes therein.

[evert]

Yeah that makes sense. Definitely something I'd like. I have some other options I would like to be able to pass to .follow() (completely escapes me what they were), but makes sense to have an options object there.