Hyper links in posts behave differently ...

2350 Views 13 Replies 5 Participants Last post by altterrain, Jan 16, 2008

acmartina

Discussion Starter · Jan 10, 2008

Overall, I like the upgrade.

Its a bit slower for me for some reason, but okay. I like all the new emoticons. I will have to create an avatar I suppose. I do miss a few features that have already been noted by others and are on the feedback list so I won't repeat them. But I have found one annoyance I would like to air. Maybe its just me, or maybe there's a setting I have missed, but ...

On the old forums, when you clicked on a hyperlink in a thread, it always opened the link in a new browser tab or window, leaving the original browser open to the forum topic. It was consistently this way, no matter how the link was shown - raw URL, logo, advertisement, etc. So if you wanted to open a link that takes a while to load, or simply for later reading, you could park it and have a look later. I did the latter often - breeze through the Active Topics, open any links of interest and browse them or bookmark them later as time permits.

In the new forums, it seems to be a mixed bag. In some cases it follows the old rule of opening a new browser tab, like the links in the first post of these threads:

http://www.mylargescale.com/Community/Forums/tabid/56/forumid/4/postid/2504/view/topic/Default.aspx
http://www.mylargescale.com/Community/Forums/tabid/56/forumid/23/postid/3955/view/topic/Default.aspx

But in other cases, it jumps straight there, requiring you to back-track to get back to the forums, or use the Right-Click | Open in New Tab option (which is annoying). Like the first link in this post:

http://www.mylargescale.com/Community/Forums/tabid/56/forumid/4/postid/2045/view/topic/Default.aspx

Or if you click the Chesapeake & Appalachian Railway logo in the signature of the third post in this thread (not picking on anyone, just a random example!):
http://www.mylargescale.com/Community/Forums/tabid/56/forumid/7/postid/2061/view/topic/Default.aspx

Advertisements seem to follow the old pattern. I am not an HTML expert. What makes these links behave differently? Whereas on the old forums, they all behaved the same (and properly IMHO

). Personally, I would very much like to see it consistently open in a new tab/window. But thats just my 2 cents. Thanks.

Steve

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acmartina

Discussion Starter · #2 · Jan 10, 2008

Interesting ... The URL's I posted above all behave like before - open a new tab/window. So the default must be the same as before. The examples I cited of ones that behave different are both more specialized links. The first has text for the name. The second is a logo. When you get to fancy hyperlinks, is there maybe an option that might be defaulting the other way?

Steve

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SteveC

· #3 · Jan 10, 2008

Steve

Don't know if Shad has changed anything recently, but when a user creates a link they have the choice of leaving the default setting alone which opens the link created in the same browser window/tab, or they can change it to open the link in a new window/tab.
[*]URL Link Creation [*]Copy the URL link to clipboard. [*]

Click the Insert/Edit Link button. [*]After the Link - Web Page Dialog displays. [/list] [/list]

[*]Click the URL Field to set the focus. [*] Either Paste {CTRL+V} the link from the clipboad into the URL field, or manually type the URL address into the field.
[*]Click the Target tab, after the screen refreshes click the drop down button of the Target field and select the New Window {_blank} item. [/list] [/list]

[*]Finally, click the OK button at the bottom of the dialog. [*]After you're returned to the editor screen. [*]Notice that all of the text for the link you just inserted is displayed and selected in the editor. [*]If you don't mind the text of the URL address being displayed. [*]Either use your mouse to de-select the text or...Tap one of the Cursor Arrow keys, then keep typing or hit the enter key to start a new line. [*]If you touch any other key you will imeadiately replace all the text of the URL address. [/list] [*]If you happen to have either a very long URL address that may create the need to scroll (left or right) if posted unaltered, or you just want some alternate text displayed in place of the URL address. [*]Start typing the text you want displayed. [*]The one very important difference is you can't use the Space Bar, if you do that's where the replacement text that's part of the link ends. Instead of the Space Bar use the Underscore character { _ } to separate the words. [/list] [/list] [/list] [/list]

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ShadsTrains

· #4 · Jan 10, 2008

Yes, they behave differently. Steve is pretty close to dead on there. A lot has to do with how the two forums interpret URLs. The old forum parsed all the text as it was displayed looking for urls and then formatting them in a way to make them into links that opened in a new window. The new forum reformats urls when they are submitted, saving process cycles when displaying. This changes the way I have to configure the processing, which is proving rather challenging. I'm sure I'll find something soon. Right now, members can post in HTML. If members reformat the URLs on their own, then they won't by default open in a new window. I'm looking into forcing it, but it may take time to figure it out. Look up regular expressions on google.. They're very complex and confusing.

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acmartina

Discussion Starter · #5 · Jan 11, 2008

Steve, Shad,
Thanks for the detailed responses!

Sounds like you are on the case, Shad.

I had not tried the create link button yet. It looks like a nice interface for making meaningful links (instead of raw URL's). I will give it a try (being careful to select new window!).

Thanks again,
Steve

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altterrain

· #6 · Jan 11, 2008

I agree with you Steve. I prefer the links to open up in a new tab. If there is a way for me to change something, I'd be happy to do it. I barely know how I got image link to work in this new format.

-Brian

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acmartina

Discussion Starter · #7 · Jan 12, 2008

Brian,
I'm more than a little out of my depth when it comes to these things. I hope someone more knowledgable comes along to answer your question. But I did enjoy my visit to your web site!

Steve

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SteveC

· #8 · Jan 12, 2008

Brian

You can go back and modify any URL link that you've included by using the Edit icon located on the right side of the header in any reply that you've posted.

once you've opened your previous reply in the full-text editor, point to the link with your mouse and right-click the link. A context menu will display. Point to, select, and click the Edit Link item.

This will cause the Link - Web Page Dialog to be displayed. click the Target tab, click the Target field's drop down button, select and click the New Window [ _blank ] item from the list. Finally click the OK button at the bottom of the dialog.

If that was the only change you needed to make then click the Submit button in the lower-left of the editor screen and you're done.

When you return to the Topic page you'll be at the top of the page, just scroll down to the reply that you edited and check that your link now opens in a new browser window.

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altterrain

· #9 · Jan 12, 2008

Thanks Steve. I will try that later.

-Brian

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altterrain

· #10 · Jan 15, 2008

Steve,

The options you showed me are for editing links in posts. Would you know how to change my signature image link?

*a href="http://www.grblogs.com/index.php?blog=25"*
*img border="0" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n214/altterrain/CARysigI.jpg" width="302" height="108"*
*/a*

( < > brackets changed to * ) for this -

-Brian

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Dwight Ennis

· #11 · Jan 15, 2008

a href="http://www.grblogs.com/index.php?blog=25"*
*img border="0" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n214/altterrain/CARysigI.jpg" width="302" height="108" target="_blank" *
*/a*

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altterrain

· #12 · Jan 15, 2008

This is what I have now and it doesn't seem to make a difference -

*a href="http://www.grblogs.com/index.php?blog=25"*
*img border="0" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n214/altterrain/CARysigI.jpg" width="302" height="108" target="_blank" *
*/a*

-Brian

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SteveC

· #13 · Jan 15, 2008

Here you go Brian, just put the target="_blank" attribute in the anchor opening tag...(Note: remove leading & trailing spaces in tag brackets)
< a target="_blank" href="http://www.grblogs.com/index.php?blog=25" >< img height="108" alt="" width="302" border="0" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n214/altterrain/CARysigI.jpg" / >< /a >

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altterrain

· #14 · Jan 16, 2008

That did it! Thanks guys.

-Brian

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