How To Manage Relative Links

You can specify HTML links in two ways - as absolute or relative.

Absolute HTML links contain the entire path to the linked file object. They look exactly like the full address that is displayed in the 'Address' box at the top of your Web browser. For instance:

(Address link here). relativeLinkAddressInIE

Relative HTML links contain some of the path to the linked file object. They rely on the ability of another piece of software (in this case, Radio) to supply the missing part of the address and construct the absolute address to hand-off to a server so it can find-and-display the requested document to its readers. For instance:

/stories/2002/02/26/simplexVeriSigillum.html

If Radio can find radio.weblogs.com/0107019, I can leave that off the links I supply to Radio - whether in the text entry area when I select the linking globe icon or when I create navigator links, edit my templates, etc.

Why is this beneficial?

It enables me to change the server for my weblog without breaking my links.

So, if I later use the FTP option to publish my site to (say) russlipton.org, Radio will automatically upstream and assemble the relative link above to a new absolute link address:

russlipton.com/stories/2002/02/26/simplexVeriSigillum.html

Since we can imagine a world (in fact, it's here) where we want to organize our writing so that we can redirect any, some or all posts to different targets (some on our local machine, some on the Userland Community Server and some to other community servers, relative link management becomes critical.