cerebral odd jobs

Over at the companion weblog

http://YKAlaska.uniblogs.org

I have been adding emendments (obscure large word for me and other people to mean changes) to existing posts without messing up the permanent link (the slug plus the date).

However, the comments boxes automatically format any URL as a hot link. This makes it difficult to force links to open into new pages or, if the URL or permalink itself is very long, then it appears all over the web page instead of wrapping properly. I figured out how to do this, but to keep from forgetting it and in case anyone else wants to try this, I’ll make a stab at explaining.

Here is the example in context
Professional Literature (H5N1) -
http://ykalaska.uniblogs.org/2006/03/16/professional-literature-h5n1/ and the comment itself is
http://ykalaska.uniblogs.org/2006/03/16/professional-literature-h5n1/#comment-193

Here is what the comment looks like to the human reader

VetGate, mentioned
here is part of BIOME one of a number of Internet subject gateways that together form the Resource Discovery Network (RDN).

Here is what it looks like to the human’s browser.

<strong>VetGate</strong>, mentioned <a HREF="http://ykalaska.uniblogs.org/2006/05/19/avian-influenza-in-other-animal-species-2/" TARGET="_blank">here </a>is part of BIOME one of a number of Internet subject gateways that together form the Resource Discovery Network (RDN).

Note—This may only apply to multi-user WordPress blogs. I don’t use the rtf editor but the plain editor.

1) After adding the link to your comment, view the site. In uniblogs, there is a little teeny-tiny e in the comment box of the comment just made.

This stands for edit. When that is clicked, the comment is opened into something which looks more like the “write new post” box, that is, there will be some “quick tags bar” . One can then format the comment (bold, italic, etc.) and add a “link”. Cut the URL. Highlight a piece of text (in the example above I used “here”), select the “link” button and paste your cut URL into the box which pops up. Close box and save (”edit”) comment.

The text link disappears but the hot linked text is still there. This prevents the comments box from doing weird stuff to the link.

2) I use Firefox or Opera as a browser which allows me to open links in a new tab, rather than replacing the page I’m still trying to read. One can also make links do this for the reader. You will see in my example that there is a TARGET=”_blank” (See Lorelle VanFossen for why this might be a good idea. OK, I didn’t code this special but just through the quicktags toolbar on my “write post” page.
http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2005/10/12/the-power-of-the-link/)

3) The only reason you the reader can see the coding in the example above (and not the finished product) is because it is coded specially.

I don’t remember how to do this special coding stuff, so I found two tools which do it for me. The Easy Text to HTML Converter is great for taking a copied URL and creating the hot link coding however you want for pasting back into one’s post. It is available here—
http://www.easyhtools.com/

The second tool is Show HTML Coding and is from Finn Ekberg Christiansen living in Copenhagen, Denmark.
hjem.get2net.dk/fec/shtmlc/shtmlc.html

4) Regular post page in non-rtf format click in image to view larger

5) Editing Comments page click in image to view larger

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