A comment about creating links

[Aussie_Don]

Maybe it's just my "inner geek" showing, but I've noticed that most links in people's posts are of the form:

http://www.google.com.au/

Are the rabble aware that it is actually easy to create a more descriptive link?
As in:

Google

Both of the above are links to Google Australia, but I'd suggest that the second looks better.
So, how did I do the second one?

1. Find the link that you want in a different window or tab in your web browser
   
2. Type the text that you want to have visible for the link
   
3. Highlight the link text by dragging the mouse over it
   
4. Click on the link Icon in the compose message tools
   
5. Insert the URL into the box provided -- what I actually do is to use copy and paste
   
   1. Go to the tab or window where the page you want to link is displayed
   2. Highlight the the URL in the navigation window of your browser (Most browsers will
      display the URL by default, if it isn't there, you should be able to add this to the
      toolbar by using the browser's options menu.)
      
   3. Copy ( Ctrl/C or butterfly/C on a Mac)
   4. Paste in the URL box ( Ctrl/V or butterfly/V)
      
   
   

Voila!!



Note that this does not actually conceal the URL, as the browsers that I'm familiar with will show the
destination URL when you put your mouse on the link. Just makes things look a bit neater and potentially
gives a clearer statement of what you are trying to show. The improved link that I provided at the start
of this post is still clearly a link since it is in the "link style". (Underlined -- might be better if links were a
different colour, but it still looks like a link)

I hope that this is useful to others.

And to you, Jock, a big thank you for asking for more detail -- I hope that this is useful to you.


-Don

And a couple of definitions -- Ctrl/C is a way of showing the key on the keyboard with the letters
Ctrl (for control) printed on the keycap and the letter C key -- so that means press the two keys together
(like shift - c to get C)

URL - means a Uniform Resource Locator -- AKA web address

butterfly key -- I'm not really sure what to call this, but on an Apple computer the key that I'd call a Control key
has a funny symbol on it This is a link to a picture and description of the key - it is used like the Ctrl key on a PC

Note that I'd normally use Greater-than/Less-than around the key cap names, but I'll admit that I'm stumped--
there is no way to get the display system to just display the characters represented by HTML codes and the
characters just disappear when I tried to use them

[Jock Scot]

I am sure all of the above is very usefull and I would very much like to create links as they are a very useful tool. Sadly I do not understand a word of your technojargon, is there a chance of you interpreting it in words of one syllable for us technodunces?

[mookien]

Don: It's good of you to go to all the trouble to describe how to create a meta-link, and your instructions are excellent - correct, clear, complete, instructive, and illustrative. Personally, I hope they are made a "sticky".

But, they also dramatically illustrate why I rarely choose to do so. It is much easier for me to just copy and paste a url and then write something like ...

If you want to see something really cool, just click on

/www.whatever/it/may/be



John

[Jock Scot]

Crikey Don, thank you! I will give it a try----------- and after I have studied your super set of instructions,-------- you never know in a month------- or-------- three I may have worked it all out!

[Downunder Kilt]

In the same boat Jock, thanks Don for the brilliant instructions but to this computer sloth they are as clear as

[BCAC]

It's really relatively simple (it's probably the "relatively" that scares people!). Let me see if I can try to translate. Firstly you have to open a new tab (window) on the site you want to link to and copy the address from the address bar. Copy this by pressing the keys Ctrl and C at the same time.

Then, back on your post on XMarks, type in some text which you will use as and indicater of your link (example 'Click Here for Haggis') then select (underline) this (which covers the text in blue) by pressing MAJ and dragging the mouse over the text.

Once this is done, click on the icon (in the XMarks reply box which you are using) which is in the shape of a globe with a small sideways 8 on the bottom. This will open a window. All that is left to do is to paste the previously copied address (where you pressed the Ctrl and C keys at the same time) by pressing the keys Ctrl and V at the same time.

Easy, isn't it.

[Aussie_Don]

It's really relatively simple (it's probably the "relatively" that scares people!).

Let me see if I can try to translate.

Firstly you have to open a new tab (window) on the site you want to link to and copy the address from
the address bar.

Copy this by pressing the keys Ctrl and C at the same time.

With you so far

Then, back on your post on XMarks, type in some text which you will use as and indicater of your link
(example 'Click Here for Haggis') then select (underline) this (which covers the text in blue) by pressing
MAJ and dragging the mouse over the text.

I am assuming that MAJ is the French equivalent of "Shift" (A hangover from typewriters when the shift
key really did shift the innards where the little levers with the type were.)

Once this is done, click on the icon (in the XMarks reply box which you are using) which is in the shape
of a globe with a small sideways 8 on the bottom. This will open a window.

All that is left to do is to paste the previously copied address (where you pressed the Ctrl and C keys at
the same time) by pressing the keys Ctrl and V at the same time.

Easy, isn't it.

I'd have liked to show the mouse on the link icon, but unfortunately, my screenshot program "helpfully"
removed the mouse pointer from the screen picture.

Thanks for your comments -- I'll try to see if I can incorporate them in the original post to make it
more useful.

-Don

[BCAC]

Don, sorry, but of course you're right. MAJ is the French equivalent of Shift. My apologies.

Perhaps you could now explain the multi quotes?

I used to have this possibility. There used to be an icon on the bottom right of all posts in the shape of quote marks with a + sign, but this is no more?

[Llama]

You can also simply type it like this:

[ URL="http://www.google.com.au/" ]Google[ /URL ]

Without the spaces, though. It may seem more complex, but it's honestly less steps and easier once you get the hang of it.

[KiltedCodeWarrior]

And FYI, if you want to show somebody exactly what they need to type, but prevent the forum form interpreting the tags, just place the noparse tags around it, like this


[noparse]
[URL="http://www.google.com.au/"]Google[ /URL]
[/noparse]