wayne on June 14, 2008
Don't know what one is or how to make one? This is the post for you then. This post is intended for those that really don't understand what a hyperlink is, or how to construct one in social sites such as MySpace or Facebook.
I'll simply start things off, and anyone can post comments to add detail to what a hyperlink is. Or if you want to know something else about it, simply post a comment asking. No worries, you can remain anonymous. :)
For that reason, I don't go into very much detail, I only cover the very basic workings of a hyperlink.
Why I'm Posting This
Someone that I know came up to me today and asked me how to make a hyperlink. I found this rather shocking actually. He's a nice guy, seems pretty intelligent and so forth. He's younger than me, and I think that is what shocked me most. I think before he asked me that question, I had felt that everyone younger than myself would already know this very basic, yet powerful part of the Internet! I'm glad he asked it though.
I pondered it for a few seconds, and being that we did not have to get into it right then and there, I told him I would blog the answer he's looking for. That's actually very good since not only will I be able to help him, but others as well.
Note: This post may go through a few live revisions from time to time. I'll try to groom it to best help those that just haven't had the opportunity to learn and understand the hyperlink.
Well, let's take a look at the darn thing first.
Creating a Hyperlink
This what you would type to compose a simple hyperlink:
<a href="http://www.waynejohn.com">Only a lad...</a>
It what is known as a 'start tag': <a> (called 'an anchor' tag). And an ending tag: </a> (End anchor). The text 'Only a lad...' is the text that will display to the surfer looking at it. The href property tells the web browser where to send the surfer when they click it.
Writing the tag like this: <a>Only a lad...</a> - would only give us this: Only a lad.... It has the color and appearance of being a hyperlink, and in fact it may still be called a link to some, but it's missing the href property and value for that property. For that reason nothing happens when you move (hover) your mouse over the link.
Therefore, if we added the following value to our empty <a> tag to make it <a href="http://www.waynejohn.com">, we would see this: Only a lad...
There are other properties for the <a> that do things also. If you need to no more you can ask me by adding a comment below, but at the minimum, this is what you need.
How can I use this?
For example, you use this to place a link in your MySpace profile. When you edit your profile and are editing your text, simply type in the <a href="*website*">go here</a> replacing the values with what you want. The same goes for many other web sites and social web sites, but it pretty much applies to any site that allows you to enter free-form text. No harm in trying it out.
Now you can say you know a little HTML. That is, after all, what that <a> tag is.
Many Resources
Granted, a much easier way for me to help my friend out would be to point him somewhere, and there are probably 'more better' explanations and definitions - not to mention grammar. Some the methods I use when I don't know something is to simply Google the term 'hyperlink' or check WikiPedia's entry for 'Hyperlink'. At this point in time, they have pretty much any general topic covered pretty well.
