Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:

Subject: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: Mr Happy
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 09:09 PM

I notice piles o' folk don't kno how to bloo clikies.

Its really simple [if y'all can read!]

Below the text box on every thread where it says Submit Message, if you look to the extreme right, you'll see it says:

'Make a link ("blue clicky")'

Click on it & the rest is self ex-planetary!

OR

Just cut/copy paste this URL onto a notebook or word page

http://www.mudcat.org/blickifier.cfm

Have fun!

Mr H

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: wysiwyg
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 10:11 PM

Yes, and the how-to-do-it-by-hand, old-fashioned way is described in large bold print in the FAQ.

~S~

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 10:33 PM

Mr. Happy, I know that when I first came to Mudcat, I had no idea what a URL was or where to find it. And when i finally figured out it was the address of the website I was on [found in the address line on the tool bar or whatever you call it on top of the page],
I didn't know how to copy it so it would be in that box that comes up when you click on that link.

Now I do know how to make blue clickies, and when I posted the step by step instructions in some other thread, someone wrote in that there was an easier way to copy that URL than what I said. So I won't 'muddy the water' by mentioning that I hold the mouse down at the end of the text and click on it and then click on the edit feature and then click on copy and then click on paste it in that box that came up when you click on that text below this box.

Like I said, I was told there's an easier way.

And btw, if information about how to make clickies is in that Mudcat FAQ page, and given WYSIWYG's post, I'm sure it is, good luck finding it.

No disrepect, but I have never ever seen such a difficult to read hodge podge of a Frequently Asked Question page. That page is enough to scare somebody off from this site.

And yeah, this is a criticism. And I have 'voiced' it before.

If Joe or Max wants suggestions re that page, or if they are ever seeking volunteers to help re-write that FAQ page, I'm interested in joining with others in that project.

And if they want to leave that FAQ page as it is, so be it.

Azizi

---

Well, the FAQ is only the first ten messages of the FAQ thread. After the bar that says "The FAQ stiops here," the rest of the thread is questions, answers, and suggestions that may or may not be included in the FAQ in the future. If you look at the FAQ from the top down, it makes sense. It begins with an introduction, and then has a table of contents with clickable links to take you to the subject in question. I also have the table of contents as a separate page on the Site Map that brings up topics one at a time, but that page went nonfunctional during the Crash of 2005.
But take another look at the FAQ, starting from the top. Make use of the Table of Contents. I added something to separate the FAQ from the Question/Answer part - I hope you like it.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 10:43 PM

<a href=the url>the text</a>

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 10:52 PM

show off!!!

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 10:55 PM

In case some people didn't get it, I was smiling when I wrote my last post.

Mudcat guests and members can show as much as they want.

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 10:58 PM

<a href=the url>click me</a>

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 10:59 PM

to whomever they want.

whenever they want,

wherever they want,

Well, on second thought...

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 09:58 AM

http://www.mudcat.org/threads.cfm#BS

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: Shiplap Structure3
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 10:23 AM

All well and good but how is coloured text done

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: wysiwyg
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 10:57 AM

To find out, look in your browser's menus for "View Source." Use that to locate the coding around colored text. Each color has either a name or a number that is used; HTML practice threads here will give you lots of things coded for your viewing and learning pleasure. Also see FAQ. :~) It's in there, too.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: leeneia
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 11:46 AM

When I follow the directions, all I get is a black copy of the URL, a copy which doesn't link to anything. I usually find that some kind soul comes after me and blueclickifies th URL on humanity's behalf, and I believe I will leave it at that.

(Unf'ly it's not true that everything would work if people would just read the directions.)

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 11:50 AM

Just click on the link "Make a link ("blue clicky")"

and then RTFM

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: leeneia
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 12:05 PM

Such faith.

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 12:15 PM

Start by not calling them "Blue Clickies".... it makes you sound like an idiot.... Just like scrolling or flashing text....

They're called 'links'... or urls....

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: Big Mick
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 12:19 PM

Some folks feel the need to constantly criticize. Helps with their self worth problems. There you go, Clinton, nice job. You really are a very smart fella. Here, have some candy as a reward.

On Mudcat we call them blue clickies or blickies. Part of the lore. I know you will have a hard time believing this, but we actually knew what they are properly called. Silly us.

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 12:28 PM

" On Mudcat we call them blue clickies or blickies"

Some do... and it makes them sound dumb

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: Kaleea
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 01:34 PM

As long as I am typing this in the good old USofA, I shall continue to refer to those whatchamacallitz as, "blue clickies!!"
Some of you show offs (you know who you are!) seem to think that just because you can achieve the stuff of miracles (tech thingies, blue clickies, text messages which meander across the screen, & such) that everyone who cannot is, in fact, an idiot. I maintain that you show offs who would accost the technically challenged are, in fact, prejudiced and pompous weasels! I also maintain that there are many persuits in which we the, technically challenged, have far greater talent and abilities than you prejudiced and pompous weasels.   
Furthermore, for some reason, my 'puter will not allow me to make a blue clicky by simply reading and following the directions. I know this to be true, inasmuchas an 9 year old neighbor (who is technically savy but not a prejuiced and pompous weasel), upon reading and following the blue clicky link directions, also could not produce a blue clicky. Being as he had to push off immediately to carry out trash for his bellowing mother (who is otherwise a great gal), he didn't have the opportunity to fix it or at the least explain what I should do to make the aforementioned clicky.
Now, everyone on the planet, with the possible exception of a couple of small tribes of aboriginal people in the Southern Hemisphere, knows that any 9 year old child who uses computers is a great deal smarter than any collective of 47 of you prejudiced and pompous techie weasels. Therefore, let us concede that the blue clicky link is not always the answer.
Since, evidently, I am not the only person for which the blue clicky thingamabob does not work, how about putting a colourful and meandering text message across the screen which, perhaps, we technically challenged but otherwise worthy persons could cut and paste into our message, then insert the URL in the middle (which we could also cut and paste), thus hopefully creating, in effect, a working blue clicky.



By the by, do any of the above sentences qualify as a long sentence by the standards of the long sentence challenge thread which I have not had time to look at inasmuchas I have been typing these long sentences in rebuttal to you prejudiced and pompous techie weasels (you know who you are!)?

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 01:37 PM

" achieve the stuff of miracles"
Basic HTML is hardly 'the stuff of miracles'....

" for some reason, my 'puter will not allow me"
Maybe it's because you call it a 'puter....

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: GUEST,pompous weasel
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 02:07 PM

<a href=[your url]>[your test]</a>

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: treewind
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 03:28 PM

The commonest mistake people make when their blue clickies don't work is to leave off the http:// at the beginning of the URL. You don't need it when typing into the URL box of a web browser, but you must have it in a link, unless it's a link to somewhere on the same site.

So unless you're linking to somewhere else in mudcat, that http:// has to be there!

Anahata

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 04:41 PM

Kaleea..*smile*...If you type or paste the right stuff into the formula shown above, it WILL become a clickable link. Your computer can't stop it..it's automatic... when it sees
<a href=http://www.mudcat.org>click here</a>

it WILL produce click here

When I was first online 10 years ago, I kept a little file with that basic code in it and substituted what I wanted...then after a few weeks, it dawned on me that I could 'see' the pattern, and I've been doing 'em by hand ever since.

Now, what *I* wish is that we had code in the page that recognized the pattern and automatically created clickable links, because even I sometimes get a bracket backwards or something.

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 04:44 PM

If you type
<a href=http://www.mudcat.org>http://www.mudcat.org/</a>

it will produce http://www.mudcat.org/

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: Big Mick
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 04:44 PM

Yep, Bill, I agree. I never use the blickifier because it is faster and easier, IMO, to just type in the code. If you follow the code, it will work.

Mick

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: Bert
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 11:44 PM

Aw Clinton!

The term "Blue Clickie" is a local (to Mudcat that is) term coined by a Mudcatter much loved by the rest of us.

It is still used in his memory with much reverance.

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 11:49 PM

I think it's always sounded stupid

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 04:06 AM

Here's my standard blurb on links. I like to think I'm the one who finally taught Rick Fielding how to make blue clickies - but frankly, I can't remember whether I did or not.
-Joe Offer-

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

<a href="mailto:[e-mail]">Click to e-mail</a>

If you're posting links at Mudcat, the quotation marks are optional. I prefer not to use them, because they complicate the task of making links. Simple is better, I think. Fewer misteaks.

I find it's best to open a new browser window [CTRL-N] and navigate your way to the site you want to link to. Highlight and copy [CTRL-C] the URL (address) of the site, and then go back to your Mudcat message and paste [CTRL-V] the URL into your link. Be sure to include the http:// in that URL. The quotation marks are standard procedure, but most links work just fine without quotation marks.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: Bert
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 12:32 PM

the quotation marks are optional... But if you use the first one then you MUST use the second one or the link won't appear.

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 12:50 PM

The first time I saw the term 'blue clicky' I knew exactly what it meant. At that time I wouldn't have known what was meant by 'a link'.

When I came across the terms 'puter' and 'puder' I hadn't the faintest idea what they meant - it was a long time before it dawned on me that they mean 'computer'.

Surely one of the most important functions of a word is to convey a meaning, and if it fails to do this to someone otherwise fluent in the language being used, it has not served its purpose.

(Other functions of words include sounding beautiful/poetic and stimulating interest. I think 'puter'/'puder' fails in both these aims.)

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 12:51 PM

Joe's blue clicky doesn't work in his post above, where it says "Click Here" ...

---

They're for display or copy-paste purposes only. If you copy-paste the whole shebang into a Mudcat message, it will work.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: GUEST,Pompous Weasel
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 01:10 PM

I don't mind people calling them "blue clickies" but:

The first time I saw the term 'blue clicky' I knew exactly what it meant.
...
Surely one of the most important functions of a word is to convey a meaning, and if it fails to do this to someone otherwise fluent in the language.

I'm a blue clicky, click me

I'm a hyperlink, click me

The "sense" (link makes more sense to me anyway, clicky doesn't give me a clue what it might be for) of one seems lost to me... and no, not all users have thier own links set to be blue by default.

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: GUEST,Pompous Weasel
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 01:37 PM

"the quotation marks are optional."

Not really. In HTML, attributes should be quoted although the quotes can often (not always) be ommited without causing problems.

At Mudcat, I believe more problems have been caused by the failure to close quotes than by the occasional failure to quote an attribute that requires it. As far as I understand the matter it is the recommended method here for that reason.

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 03:43 PM

Pompous Weasel 01.10 pm :

Both your examples include the words 'click me' - this, for me, is the clue to their meaning. A message saying just 'I'm a hyperlink' would have meant nothing to me when I didn't know what a link was. (And even now I would have to think about it before I remembered what it meant.)
However, I will take your word for it that not everyone's links are blue, and maybe I'll just call them 'clickies' in future.

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: dulcimer42
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 06:01 PM

inianafolkies

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: dulcimer42
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 06:02 PM

Hmm.   I tried it and "Indianafolkies" should be underlined to be a clickie. Wonder what I did wrong.

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 06:06 PM

you didn't put a space between the 'a' and the 'href'

Subject: RE: Tech: Blue Clickies How to do!:
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 06:12 PM

BTW...I NEVER...as in never, ever, at ANY time....put in quotation marks in an address. As sure as I did, I'd forget one and nothing would work. Whenever possible I copy the address directly from a page and paste it into the formula. I am a two finger typist who gets dyslexic sometimes, so I don't trust me.