Hyperlinks

There are basically two reasons why one might want to place a hyperlink into a DellT@lk post, to refer to another Web page with information to answer someone else's post or to make a file (program file, sound file, or graphic) available for other users to download.  The HTML for these two purposes is quite similar (and in fact could be the same--it's a matter of personal preference).

To Refer to Another Web Page

Let us assume that the page of interest is at http://www.goodstuff.com.  In this case, the HTML is:

<a  href="http://www.goodstuff.com">some text</a>

The forum software will add target=_blank to the URL inside the quotation marks.   If you preview the post you will see that the hyperlink now reads:

<a href="http://www.goodstuff.com" target=_blank>some text</a>

The inclusion of this makes this particular Web page open in a new window so your post is still available to view in its original window.  The <a at the beginning sets the "anchor" and the </a> at the end closes it.  The some text can be anything you wish.  It is the only part of this code that will be displayed in your post.  DellT@lk changes the color of this text to blue so that it can be recognized as a link to be clicked on.  If you want to make this follow standard appearance (with an underline) you can modify the HTML with <u> and </u> above to read:

<a  href="http://www.goodstuff.com" target=_blank><u>some text</u></a>

If you also wish to make the link bold place <b> in before the text and </b> behind it, so with both bold and underline it will be:

<a  href="http://www.goodstuff.com" target=_blank><b><u>some text</u></b></a>

To Make a File Available for Downloading

The HTML for this is nearly identical to that above (in fact, it can be identical but the target=_new portion doesn't accomplish anything).  If Xyz.dll has been posted to your site (http://www.mysite.com/Xyz.dll) site, the code to make it available on DellT@lk would be:

<a href="http://www.mysite.com/Xyz.dll"><u>Xyz.dll</u></a>

This will produce an underlined blue statement under the text of your post which will be Xyz.dll.  The person who has asked for this file (or if you want to share a humorous .wav file or whatever) can then right-click that and select "Save target" from the menu.  If the file is of a type that your browser doesn't recognize (.dll, .exe., .zip) you can simply left-click it and a menu will give you the choice of opening it or saving it.

Remember, you start the entire statement with <a so you must end it with </a> and if you use the <u> before your text to underline it you must use </u> after the text to turn underling off.

Note that some servers (Geocities, for example) do not allow uploading certain file types, including .dll files.  If this is the case with your server, you must find another or forgo providing some files to others on the Webboard.