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   Links
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 Hypertext Skills Group 
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Links

 
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Links are the way that web pages are connected to other web pages and other services available on the Internet. They allow the user to navigate around sites, and to move from one website to another. 

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Anchors

 
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The tags <A> and </A> are wrapped around a piece of text or an image to turn it into a link. The <A> tag should specify the type and address of the destination of the link. Typically the mark-up looks like this: 

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<A HREF="http://www.domain.con/dir/file.html">Some Text</A> 

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HREF indicates a Hypertext REFerence, http: indicates that the link is to a web page, www.domain.con is the address of a web site, dir is a directory in that website, and file.html is an html file. If no directory is specified the top level of the site is assumed, and if no file is specified a default file (typically called index.htm or index.html) is assumed. Directories are sometimes called Folders. 

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So, for instance, a link to the home-page of a site might look like this: 

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<A HREF="http://www.domain.con/">Naked Ladies</A> 

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Relative Links

 
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If the page that a link points to is on the same site as the page displaying the link there is no need to specify the address of the site, as the current site is assumed. 

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This is convenient when developing a website off-line, or when moving the site from one address to another. 

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For example, the link to the contents page of this site looks like this. 

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<A HREF="contents.htm">Contents</A> 

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As no directory is specified, the directory in which this page is located is assumed. 

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A link to a file in a directory called "sub" located within the current directory (the directory that contains the file for this page) might look like this: 

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<A HREF="sub/index.htm">Changing Directories</A> 

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eMail Links

 
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Links can also be used to specify an eMail address, so that the viewer can send eMail while viewing the page. 

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An eMail link might look like this: (Note that the address is fictional, so do not use it to send eMail. It will be returned to you with an error message.) 

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<A HREF="mailto:joe.soap@fictional.con">Send eMail</A> 

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   <A HREF="contents.htm">

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Contents 

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