Create "Instant Links" when certain word are typed??

[ataraxia]

Is it possible to set something up so that whenever someone types, say, the word "basketball" in a message, the word is replaced by a hyperllink to your Basketball forum or some other internal or external URL?

The really big advantage to this is that the users do not have to know or use any codes at all. When they type a certain word, it is automagically converted into a link. There is no learning curve or additional effort required from them. It's all automatic.

You could also use this as a kind of "automatic glossary", linking certain words to entries in your FAQ or to a permanent announcement. Or how about something more dynamic like a link to the current basketball scores on CNN or maybe today's closing stock prices for a particular company? Anyone typing a "$" or "?" sign could find it automatically linked to a currency conversion site. This has enormous possibilities!

Unfortunately, Replacement Variables do not work for this because the linking code is seen by the message editor as literal text rather than HTML if "Allow HTML" is turned off for security. There were also some other messy issues such as changing "hot words" into links in places where you would not want that to happen such as in the title of topics, threads, etc.

We'd need an "engine" that only looks for "hotwords" typed inside the text of a message in any of the editors. There should also be some simple facility for Admins to create, edit or delete HotWords as needed.

Any ideas on how this could be done?

thanks!