HTML Basics Studies & Important description Part VI

HTML BASICS STUDIES FOR STUDENTS

HTML Basics Description

5.   Links

Absolute Links or Links to Other Pages

<a href=”http://the_URL”>Words to Underline</a>        The anchor tag - absolute

The text in between the two tags is underlined.  When the user clicks on it the browser transfers to the URL in the first tag.   

NOTE: the quote marks are the usual ones --- not facing in any particular way.

<a href=”http://www.ignoufriend.co.in”>My Favorite Professor Navneet Vishwas</a>

This example (above) is an absolute reference. 

Notice that it gives both the protocol (HTTP ---- as opposed to FTP etc.) and the complete address.

Notice that the complete address is enclosed in quotation marks.

There is a convention that when a path name is listed (as above) without a file name at the end, then the browser will look for a file called index.htm or index.html.   So your opening page should be named index.

There is also a convention that user directories (those that start ~username) will

have all  their public files in a directory called public_html.

In other words,  when a viewer clicks on the text in the example, her browser will actually get the file   www.ignoufriend.co.in/public_html/index.htm

In this case (the absolute URL)  the URL completely defines where the browser is to go.

Links to Places on the Same Page

<a  href =”#NamedSpot”>Words to Underline  to go up or down the page</a>  

<a name =”NamedSpot” id=”NamedSpot”>Where link will go</a>

The anchor tag – same page (using the NAME attribute)

In order to link somewhere else on the same page you need two anchor tags –

 <a name=”ShortNameForTheSpot”>Text to link to</a>   

                                                defines a name for the place you wish to go to.

                        <a href=”#ShortNameForTheSpot”>Text to click on to go there</a>

                                                does the actual linking.

            Notice that both the a name=   tag and the a href= tag have the address in quotation

 marks.

In XHTML1 and in HTML4 you did not need the id= part, but beginning in HTML5
            you need the id= and further if there is both a name (for legacy browsers) and an
           id then they have the same value.

Notice the use of # inside the anchor where the linking is done ---this alerts the browser to look for a named place, not an absolute or (see below) relative reference.

Your link may go either up or down the page.  See the links8a.html and links8b.html examples.

You may also combine links to other pages and links to named spots on those other pages.   For example, let us suppose that you have built a page at with the URL

           

SomeComputer/MyBook/Intro.html

And that somewhere in that file you have a named anchor

                        <a name=”contents”>Table of Contents</a>

Then, on some other page, if you wish to link to the Table of Contents you would code:

<a href=”http:// SomeComputer/MyBook/Intro.html#contents”>MyBook’s Table of Contents</a>

Notice that there is the usual anchor with an href (in quotes) but that the #namedSpot

comes at the end of the URL.

Relative Links or Links to Other Pages on the Same Site

<a href=”OtherFileInSameDirectory.htm”>Check Out My Other Pages</a>