Hmm. You win some, you lose some.

Obviously the machine is interpreting the separate parts of the html instruction spread over stages 2 to 6 as a single complete instruction.

What I wrote in 2 was "[open angle bracket]a href=" , and in 6 I wrote "Type [close angle bracket] at the end of the phrase" (both without quotation marks), but that had the effect of converting all the text in between the opening and closing angle brackets into a link.

How to overcome this in a way which isn't misleading is part of the advanced course as far as I'm concerned (maybe using quotation marks will fool the ghosts in the machine?).

I also just noticed that the stages need to be renumbered. Also the stage showing what the full link should look like before posting is meaningless because once I post it it is automatically converted into a link.

Let's try it again and, just to be clear, the sentence in brackets beneath the word "Example" below is meant as part of the instructions.

EXAMPLE (leave out the quotation marks when following this example)

Suppose you have typed the sentence

"If you want to practise blue clickies, use the practice thread to try out."

and want to turn the phrase "practice thread" into a link.

1. Open a separate browser window [CTRL-N] and select and copy the URL for the thread referred to.

2. Return to your text, position the cursor before the phrase "practice thread" and type "" after it

4. Type "" at the end of the phrase.

5. If it's an internal Mudcat reference, delete "www.mudcat.org/"

Finish typing your posting and submit it. When posted, the clickable link will appear automatically.