Link Types

This essay by Al Macintyre covers yet another topic that can be a source of great confusion for beginning Webloggers.  Check my other essays for conceptually related posts such as those whose titles start with the word Understand.

Weblogging has many types of links, which can be excessively confusing to people who are new to web site design work.  Here I list the types of Radio Weblogging links that I am aware of, try to define each kind, and provide links to documentation on them.

Most internet users are familiar with the concept of a hyper link.  That's a word or phrase, underlined in blue, that you click on, and you are taken to the site or page that it is linked to, then if your PC is remembering places you have visited, to help make it easy for future navigation, the blue link turns purple, meaning it is one you been to before, and remembered.  Later when you purge temporary stuff to help your PC run more efficiently, the purple underlined link goes back to blue underline.  And that is just about all that is known to a person new to weblogging.

Oh, some people will also know that some e-mail can also do that, while some people's e-mail it not work, and you have to spell out the url in full.  Thanks to spam and viruses, many people also like to have the links clearly indicate what they are for, because a virus could send you a link that looks like e-mail from a friend, and you click on it, and now your PC is infected, like getting an e-mail attachment.  Check my Security Category for links to information on that other topic.

Some people might also have noticed that you sometimes can click on a picture or icon, and it is like a hyper link.  Ideally the button should have suitable phraseology, or the picture should appear to be raised, so it obviously is a button, but whether a web site actually does that depends on the skill of the designer, and how aware the designer is of the need to conform to standards expected by the average user.

• Archive Links = See Calendar section (more or less alphabetical below) for clarification.
• Blog Rolling = See Category links (more or less alphabetical below) for explanation.
• When the Radio Icon is in your Systray and you take the second menu option to Open Radio Desk Top Windows Application, the third menu pull down is Bookmarks.  I have not yet learned what this is for, like if it has any relationship to the Bookmarks or Favorite Places of our Web Browsers.
• Browser Favorite Bookmark Link Tips to help navigate your Radio pages are provided by Russ Lipton.
  • In my Browser, I have a category of my bookmarks for my weblog that take me directly to the pages that I use the most in navigating my site.  Some of them are now on upper left corner of most of my pages.
• Most Radio Userland Weblogs have a Calendar, which you can click on to get to a post on the date in question.  On my weblog, this is currently on the upper right hand corner of my pages.  This is a feature that comes with most Template Themes, and can be modified in the Prefs by someone who knows what they are doing, or can figure it out. 
• • I have not yet done any documentation on my weblog with respect to the topic of Template Themes, but you can find links to Radio Start on this topic via my Radio Doc Sources such as the stuff by Alison BlogFish, Russ Lipton, and others. 
  • Check Radio Userland Discussion Group for posts by people asking how to manipulate appearance of your Calendar (such as in languages and cultures other than American English) and how it functions.  We can call this topic, Calendar Links to Archives of past posts.  It comes standard with the software.  You do not need to be manipulating it, but if you want to spif it up, check out these Archive Macros, that provide links to navigate from a day to the adjacent posting date.
• Category Links:  Assuming you Understand Radio Categories (use this link for an explanation if you don't, and you might also check out the Al Categories story), and assuming you have visited a variety of other people weblogs (use RandomFreshBlog (developed by Philringnalda] repeatedly if you curious), you have probably noticed that a lot of webloggers have links down the side of their weblogs that include links to their subject categories, and those of other people.  I believe the technical name for these types links is Blogrolling.  The place where this is setup / managed is in your Preferences / Navigation Links.  If you not comfortable with editing this, check out the tutorials on that subject by Jenny Levine, Mark Pilgrim, or Rick Klau (other links like those in my Radio Doc Sources).
• Directory Links are where we have a column of file folders with individual labels for people to click on, such as different types of related document collections.  Also when we go to a professional site that does directories, such as Yahoo, we see what I call drill down and backup menu links, where each layer has a brief name with a hyperlink to it, with an arrow to the next level of more detail, so when you are several levels deep, you can also see how you got there.  For an example of this on a Radio site, see Skip Dodson's Radio and Manila Documentation.
• Domain is based on the ISP host of your web site.  Suppose you decide to move to an new host domain url.  This means that all your old links to urls within your site are potentially broken, but according to Radio Userland Discussion Group you can get a script to re-write urls that are in your Radio data from the old domain to the new one.
• Global Links vs. Local Links.
  • This is terminology made up by Al Macintyre, not seen any place else, to help clarify an aspect of Radio Userland Hyper Link support.
  • Al got the terminology from Global and Local Variables found in many programming languages.
  • Global means something works the same way all over the place.  This is like some value in a program - it means the same thing no matter where you find it.   See Stories and Shortcuts which are global links - the hyper link works the same way no matter where you use it in your weblog.  Where I explain how to get the url established, using the planet globe icon, that is a local link at that point.
  • Local means something works a certain way inside this document and no place else.  This is like a variable inside a subroutine that is meaningful that way only inside that one subroutine.  See down below (more or less alphabetical) for more info on Local Links.
• Hostile Links are Al's name for links that do not work on some kinds of web browsers, some versions of software, or are an invitation to users to be messed up by computer viruses, because to make them work you have to disable some common sense computer security.  For more information on this concept, which is incredibly popular in some circles, see Mark Pilgrim's June 26 post on making sites accessible to the handicapped.
• Bryan Bell, of Design Weblogger, believes that many people are not comfortable editing with XML, so he explains the Include Message Macro, in which each message has a number that can be included in a url pointing to that message.  However, his illustration shows a box of links that I have not yet learned how to create, except what I get through the selection of an appropriate Template Theme. 
• • Incidentally, one thing that Bryan Bell seems to be extremely skilled at is creating different templates, so a person who wants to become good at this, or alternatively get something unique for your site, might consider offering Bryan some $$$ to either create something great for you that meets your needs, or get some extra education from him.  More on this line of thinking in my essay on Blog Money.
• Local Links - see up above where Local Links defined as opposed to Global Links.  An example of setting up something that is a Local Link, is you are in the editing box to create some chunk of text.  You highlight a word or a phrase with your mouse, then, at the top of the editing box, at the far right of the bottom row of icons, there is a picture of planet earth on wheels.  Click there and key in some url.  Now when you post the story, the word or phrase that you highlighted has become a hyper link to whatever url you keyed into the icon up top.  I am calling this a Local Link because those words or phrases are a hyperlink to your selected url, ONLY in this one location on your web site.  I am going to give examples of alternatives to this, as I develop this story.  The same deal is on posts to the Radio Userland Discussion Group, which I believe is a Manila site.

Last update: 10/18/2002; 3:19:55 AM.