I'm an HTML dummy. I know the baby stuff, but beyond that, I've got a LOT to learn.

Today, I wanted to place a link to a website within the description for a Lot (didn't want to do it as a template component). I thought it was working, but when I viewed the auction on eBay, the link wasn't displaying right.

So I revised it and after about 30 minutes of fooling with it, I finally got it working. Then I copy-pasted the corrected HTML into the AW description (might have to relist it).

But when I Preview that Lot, it displays only the regular text (not the name I gave the link, but the bit of text saying "Here's a web site....") and no link at all (and it's not just hidden in the black background -- it's not there at all).

Why does it work online/on eBay but not in the AW Preview? Oh, and I have Enable Preview of Pure HTML Descriptions checked in Program Options.

Thanks, Sue

Here's the link with parentheses instead of carets:

(CENTER)(font face="maiandra gd" size="4" color="blue")(Here's a web site devoted to his work: (a href="http://www.michaelwhelan.com/" target="_blank" )Michael Whelan)(/font)(/CENTER)(/a)

Sue,

You did a good job of figuring out the a href syntax. But you put the "Here's a link" in the wrong place. Try this and see if it works better for you.

<CENTER><font face="maiandra gd" size="4" color="blue"><a href="http://www.michaelwhelan.com">Here's a web site devoted to his work: Michael Whelan</font></CENTER></a>

Judy/blue

Hi Judy. Sorry for taking so long to reply to this.

Note that I've replaced all carets with parentheses.

My original link:
(CENTER)(font face="maiandra gd" size="4" color="blue")Here's a web site devoted to his work: (a href="http://www.michaelwhelan.com" target="_blank" )Michael Whelan(/a)(/font)(/CENTER)

The link as you re-wrote it:
(center)(font face="maiandra gd" size="4" color="blue")(a href="http://www.michaelwhelan.com")Here's a web site devoted to his work: Michael Whelan(/font)(/center)(/a)

They both look good and work fine when pasted into Arachnophilia HTML editor and launched in a web browser. The only difference is that mine has only the words Michael Whelan clickable (underlined), which I guess has something to do with that target-blank thing. But they both take you to the same internet site.

The problem I had wasn't actually how to write the link. I had it wrong to begin with, but then I revised it at eBay and got it working. Then I pasted that corrected link back into the description in AW and was puzzled about why it didn't display properly when I previewed the Lot.

Today, I also pasted your link into the same description and previewed it.

My link displays like this but isn't clickable:
Here's a web site devoted to his work:

Your link displays like this and the whole think is clickable:
here's/"http://www.michaelwhelan.com")Here's a web site devoted to his work: Michael Whelan

I think both links would probably display right when uploaded to eBay, and I think yours for sure and maybe even mine would be clickable when online, but for some reason, they don't look right or work properly in an AW Preview window. I guess it's just not intended to work that way -- we are supposed to use page components in Template Editor to add links to our descriptions, but I thought if I had the Program Options set to "Enable preview of pure HTML descriptions" that these links would preview in a sort of wysiwyg fashion. I tried unchecking that Program Option, but the links still don't display correctly in a Preview. So I'm stumped. It's not a big problem -- just puzzling.

Sue

Sue,

Are you saying that neither link is clickable in the Preview pane?

Judy/blue

My link is NOT clickable. Your link is clickable (get the hand cursor when hovering mouse cursor over link), but if I click on it, I get "The page cannot be displayed" (I am online, and the Whelan web page is still there; I can hit the Back button to be returned to the Preview window).

Here's what the Preview window looks like:

http://members.dslextreme.com/users/emailshere/AWPreviewLinks.jpg

The link to email me DOES work from the Preview window.

Sue

Sue,

Is your email link in a Header as opposed to the listing template itself? Or did you add a page component?hyperlink?

The link is displaying the term "Here's" before the HTTP which it should not. You should delete the extra "here's. See if that makes it work.

Judy/blue

Judy/blue

The email link is a page component. I mentioned it just to show that links can work from the Preview page.

I owe you an apology. I pasted the link you wrote from having pasted it into some other program, so it repeated the link name.....or something. Not sure what happened, obviously. Anyway, I pasted your unadulterated link text into that same Lot, Previewed it, and the link works fine.

http://members.dslextreme.com/users/emailshere/AWPreviewLinks2.jpg

I still don't understand why my version (with minor funkiness) doesn't work/display properly in the Preview but does work when submitted with Arachnophilia and does work on eBay....not that it matters, really. I'll just follow your link format from now on.

Thanks, Sue

Sue,

"a href" text is only clickable after the a href syntax. Not what is before it. In other words. "Here is a website devoted to his work" is prior to the "a href" which will keep it from being clickable. The "Michael Whelan" portion is part of the "a href" link which is why it is clickable.

Everything between the 2 tags <a href> and the ending tag </a> are part of the hyperlink. With only the terms "Michael Whelan" being clickable.

Does that make sense?

Judy/blue

Oh my gosh! It was something so simple! I took another hard look at my link. There was a space between one of the quote marks and one of the carets ("_blank"-SPACE-caret). I eliminated the space, and voila! the link works fine. HTML is sooooo picky! I still don't know why Arachnophilia or for that matter my HTML validator program didn't catch this. Or maybe those programs just eliminate spaces by default and don't even inform the user of these small edits.

Sue

Sue,

I knew you would get it. Congratulations!

Judy/blue