Clickable Links

Subject: Clickable Links
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jul 99 - 05:23 PM

<a href=http://www.mudcat.org/>Click here</a>

I'm very pleased to see that so many Mudcatteers have mastered the art of posting clickable links. Once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy - especially if you copy-and-paste instead of typing all that stuff. Paste the URL (with the http, without quote marks) in the red part above, and the reference word or words in the blue part.
There's one thing I haven't been able to figure out, and I'm looking for a logical explanation. Some people here complain about links that don't have the URL visible. they don't want to see a link that says Click here. What they want to see is http://netministries.org/see/charmin/CM00803. I don't understand why. It seems to me, if somebody is smart enough to be able to use an URL, they ought to be smart enough to be able to find the URL:

Click on link and look at the URL that comes up at the top of your browser.
Or, move your mouse cursor over the link and look at the URL that shows up on the bottom of your browser.

As Ross Perot would say, "It's that simple." Or maybe is it not that simple, and could I be missing an essential piece of logic here? Can somebody please explain it to me?
-Joe Offer, confused-

Subject: RE: Clickable Links
From: Peter T.
Date: 07 Jul 99 - 05:42 PM

Joe, enlist me in the ranks of the clinically stupid. I have been making Web pages for 3 years, and can do HTML handstands, and I never noticed until you just said it that the url showed up in the bottom left corner of Netscape when you do that. I never look in the bottom left hand corner!! Tunnel vision!!!!!!
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Clickable Links
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Jul 99 - 05:45 PM

If you right click on the link, then click on "properties," you get the link shown in a way that is copyandpastable.

That right mouse button is your friend...

Subject: RE: Clickable Links
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Jul 99 - 05:46 PM

Joe...I think sometimes if the blue clicky part has something in it...wording or whatever, that tells you WHY you ought to 'click here' it can help...we do get obscure ramblings and then a 'click here'...and it turns out to be ...oh...dancing chipmonks or something..*grin*..

so, if I think there is any doubt, I'll make the blue clicky part read..'most amazing page on Possums you ever saw' or whatever...if there is useful information in the actual URL, you are right; waving the cursor over the link tell you what is there...

what I have found is that we all differ, and some folks just don't like surprises! and sometimes links lead to a java or javascript page that takes forever to load or does something weird that slows down those of us with 1928 Model T computers...;>{

Subject: RE: Clickable Links
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Jul 99 - 06:00 PM

umm...Jeri..maybe that is what right clicking does in IE..but in Netscape..(God's Browser!!)...it says 'copy link location' or 'save link as' and several other things, including 'view source' and 'view info' which tell you about the page ..and one which gives you the WONDERFUL option of opening that link in another window, so that you still have the page you came from open, too...save lots of time!

(Peter...you sound like my wife, who does close, intricate work, but simply does NOT see those things until they are pointed out...she can run rings around me once she has the concept, but I am the one who looks and pokes and opens everything and pushes all the buttons and says 'gee whiz!')

Subject: RE: Clickable Links
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jul 99 - 06:12 PM

Bill, I don't know how to tell you this, but Microsoft Internet Explorer does exactly the same thing. I kinda think it's fair to say that BOTH browsers are good.
My main contention is that it's better that the reference word in a link (the blue part) should be words, and not just an URL. I usually include both a descriptive word or two and (click here), hoping that's enough for even the the most hopeless amongst us.
Generally, I like things simple and clear. If you make a link complicated, you're likely to make mistakes. The only time I intentionally make things look more complicated than they really are is when I'm trying to impress my mother or other members of the opposite sex.
Otherwise, it's Click here.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Clickable Links
From: SeanM
Date: 07 Jul 99 - 06:49 PM

And if you want to get really tricky, you can post the link with "mudcat.org" target=new> in the link, and it'll open the link into a new page automatically... leaving the viewer to thread browse to their heart's content...

M

Subject: RE: Clickable Links
From: SingsIrish Songs
Date: 07 Jul 99 - 07:20 PM

Joe,

Here's the link to a discussion on the matter...I think what it boiled down to was that some people save particular threads to disk in text form which makes a link with only "click here" or "keywords" obsolete..There were other arguments as well.

A New Standard

SingsIrish

Subject: RE: Clickable Links
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Jul 99 - 08:20 PM

Joe - YOU GREW UP IN A LIGHTHOUSE?! Cool.
I love my right mouse button. Bill, when you right click in Netscape, do you get an option to "Order Pizza" like you do in MSIE? (I haven't tried it yet, so I don't know if it actually works.) Seriously, the "Open in New Window" is easier, which probably explains why I never noticed it.

Subject: RE: Clickable Links
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Jul 99 - 08:24 PM

Jeri..of course, but the pizza always comes with onions, which I hate....so I seldom use it..;>)

Subject: RE: Clickable Links
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jul 99 - 08:54 PM

Well, not quite, Jeri - but I could see the lighthouse out our front window, and the Great Lakes ore boats in the distance behind it.
-Joe Offer-
http://homepages.msn.com/YosemiteDr/joeoffer/Index.html

Subject: RE: Clickable Links
From: Wolfgang
Date: 08 Jul 99 - 03:45 AM

same response as Peter T. Until now I did it the hard way: View Source and so on. Just took about one minute longer than Joe's idea.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Clickable Links
From: AndyG
Date: 08 Jul 99 - 06:50 AM

Sucky to Savvy

Worth a look over I think.

AndyG

---

<a href="http://jeffglover.com/ss.html" target=new> Sucky to Savvy </a>

Subject: RE: Clickable Links
From: Dale Rose
Date: 08 Jul 99 - 10:43 AM

I use the Open in New Window feature frequently. However, I want that to be my option, not that of the person who made the page I am visiting. At the Mudcat, for example, if I see five threads that I want to investigate, then I open all five with opposite clicks. (I use that term, since some people ~~ including myself ~~ have their mouses or trackballs set up in the opposite direction)

I find this practice of opening new windows especially helpful with those pages that may be so interesting, but so frustratingly slow as well. I open them, jump back to what I was reading, then come back to them later after they've had a chance to load their pretty pictures, or whatever.