How to add a link to a post

I have noticed lately that a number of folk have had trouble adding links to their posts. I couldn’t find any instructions about how to do it on the Forum’s Help page, so thought I try and explain what to do:

1- Click on the button labelled URL, the following text will then appear on the screen (and note that it will always appear at the bottom of the text you are typing!):

“[ url ]”

2- paste the link eg:

https://www.healingwell.com/community/?f=35&m=1717641
(I’ve just typed that without the ‘special’ code and thus at this point in this post it will not be an active link)

3- Click on the URL button again and then the following text appears :

“[ /url ]”

4 – When you finish your post it should then appear in the text as an active link.

(You can of course also type the special code yourself rather than click on the buttons )

I’ll now type all the right things in the right order so that that link above will appear as an active link:

www.healingwell.com/community/?f=35&m=1717641

Hope that helps

Alf

Post Edited (English Alf) : 8/30/2014 4:15:20 AM (GMT-6)

Startech,

1. After you click the url button, put your cursor right after the letters "url", insert an "=" and put the url there instead. It'll look like this, except with square brackets:
{url=http://www....}

2. Then type the words you want to appear after the "]"; e.g., {url=http://www...}click here.

3. Then hit the url button again. It'll look like this (with square brackets): {url=http://www...}click here{/url}

I usually just type it without hitting the button.

One way to show examples of the markup language for links here is to put spaces after the opening square brackets and instruct the reader to ignore them.

Thus [ url]redcross.org[ /url] when entered without the spaces gives this link : redcross.org
And [ url=redcross.org]American Red Cross[ /url] gives American Red Cross

A few complications:

1) You will only see the "[ URL ]" button if you have clicked the "+Post Reply" or "+Post New Topic" buttons. If you just enter your response into the "Quick Reply" text area at the bottom of the page there aren't any buttons for links but typing the [ url] and [ /url] (without the spaces) will work.

2) There are a few URLs (web addresses) that confuse the forum software and will never work. Any attempt to link to medicalert.org, for instance, will fail because the forum software recognizes the word "alert" and does something unfortunate with it. The workaround is to create a new URL using a service like tinyurl.com and link to that.

Here is a link that ought to work but doesn't: "[ url]medicalert.org[ /url]" gives medicalert.org
and here's one that uses a link I created: "[ url=http://tinyurl.com/psrjc8j]medicalert.org[ /url]" gives medicalert.org

If you create a link and it doesn't work, let your mouse cursor hover over it and look at the bottom left side of the window where your browser will preview the address of the link. If you see "" somewhere in the web address you have been bitten by the forum linking bug.