Posting Links
To post a link to a website you use the anchor tag <A>.
The main parameter you supply with this tag is the HREF parameter, which is the actual address of the website. For example, if I wanted to post a link to the site http://www.qgl.org, the anchor tag would look like this:

<A HREF="http://www.qgl.org">http://www.qgl.org</A>

The HREF parameter is the site to go to when the link is clicked. It must be surrounded by double quotes (") to work. The text in between the opening Anchor Tag <A> and the closing Anchor Tag </A> is the text that you will see on the screen, ie, what the link will say. You can put any text between the opening and closing tags and it will not effect where the link points to, so long as the HREF parameter stays the same. We could create a link to the same site as above using the following tag:

<A HREF="http://www.qgl.org">This is a link</A>

Even though we have changed the text in between the opening and closing tags, the HREF parameter is the same, therefore the link will still point to the same place when it is clicked. The first link would look like this on the page http://www.qgl.org whereas the second link would look like this This is a link. Notice how even though they look different on the page, they still point to the same site.

Another parameter which can be used in the <A> tag is the TARGET parameter. This parameter is optional and specifies the name of the web browser window that you want the page to open in. This parameter can be used in some rather advanced ways, but for now I will just explain its most common basic use; making a link open in a new window. What this means is that when you click on the link, rather than the linked page open in the current window, a new web browser window will be opened and the linked page will be opened in there instead. This is very useful as you can continue reading your current page and not lose your spot, while the linked page opens in a new window in the background :)

To use the TARGET parameter to open a page in a new window, the tag would look like this:

<A HREF="http://www.qgl.org" TARGET="_blank">http://www.qgl.org</A>

The only difference to a normal link is the addition of the TARGET="_blank" parameter. The value _blank tells the link to open in a new, blank window. Thats all there is too it!
You can also use anchor tags for email addresses, just simply put the email address in the tag as the HREF parameter, preceded by "mailto:". An example would be as follows:

<A HREF="mailto:user@domain.org">user@domain.org</A>

Notice how similiar it is to posting a link to a webpage? Its pretty much exactly the same. All the same rules apply, you just replace the HREF parameter with the email address with "mailto:" tacked on the front. The link would look like this user@domain.org. When the link is clicked it will open up your default email client and create a new message ready to send to the email address that was linked to.

Wish my work could access QGL.. :/ - Get back to work Hermy!

I'll take that bet and beat it by saying it'll happen within 12 hours.

I think most "learn how to link n00b" problems come from people directly cutting and pasting URLs into their messages which are usually parsed to create links automatically, but for URLs to news reports on sites like abc news or news.com.au they usually have comma's which f*** up the link and cause it to finish early.

e.g. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20534170-13762,00.html

Most people just post it and forget it, not realising it's even broken, just assuming it worked.

I'm guessing there's no way the forums can be changed to ignore the comma? and make it not end the link?

can someone show me how to quote i think copy and paste doesnt have the same effect

I actually looked at fixing it, but then decided commas have no place in URLs

Great post Hermi, added to the rules FAQ section.

apparently they do

yes, and the only time you should use a comma to deliniate end-of-URL is when it is followed by a space.

apparently they do

yes, and the only time you should use a comma to deliniate end-of-URL is when it is followed by a space.

rfc1738 appears to disagree

I think you guys should take trog's comment even more seriously!

Believe it or not I found an old page of html on an old and ancient backup disc while on holidays that I had saved from when I first joined up to QGL that Khel had written. All I did then was replace the < & the >

It's all 99% Khel, not me :(

hahah hermi I was going to say that, I've still got that page saved somewhere as well.

I even made trog add it to ausgamers once the big merge happened

I call for a sticky please

i belive ". Otherwise fix the comma linking thing and fix the "having to log into ausgamers network" just to edit a post please? :" is being looked into (i think?)

the other one is a bit silly. no one likes to ready stupidly long links anyway. and the only problem we have with it are news links. and if your posting news on a forum, you should be atleast techsavy enough to fix the thing and to understand that http://www.news.com.au/?story=xy,148219,321,8978dfa.html isn't as descriptive as News Story About Migets!

where are the midgets?

Most Surreal Moment - Watching Jim topple over his 4WD while out bush. You could sense the uneasyness as it was going up the small hill, the other 4WDs passed by without issue but the look on their faces, when seeing Jim, told unspeakeable truths about the impending doom.

Stolen from Letter from QGL

Nah commas have no place in URLs