I imagine Max will get around to fixing the blickifier sooner or later, but he's still tweaking the main operation of things. When you overhaul a car, it's best to make sure the powertrain is working perfectly, before you spend much time on the accessories.

But in the meantime, instead of trying to make the blickifier work, why not just learn how to make links directly? Except for testing, I have never used the blickifier because it's quicker for me to make my own links. It really isn't hard.

Here's my standard explanation. All you really need is what's in the box:

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

(there's discussion above of "internal links," but that's a further step and they are not absolutely necessary. Learn standard links first, and the rest will come easy.)


<a href="mailto:joe@mudcat.org">Click to e-mail</a>
(I find little value in email links like this because they don't work with the Web-based email that a whole lot of people use)


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.

To explain the colors:

• The black part is the standard, required part of every link.
  
• The red part is the Target URL (address) where you want the link to take people to. Unless the URL leads to another page on the current Website, it must include the full address that's in the address bar of your browser, including the http://. This may be enclosed in quotation marks, but the quotation marks are optional.
  
• The blue part is the reference text (that's what the "ref" refers to). This word can be anything, or it can be the target URL repeated, if that adds to clarity.

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.

You'll notice that we moderators often change URLs posted in messages into clickable links. We don't do it in the case of URLs that we don't consider completely safe.

-Joe Offer-