How to imbed links in your <i>Helpline </i>post

Actually, html is not that difficult to do (Kent taught me how). I describe it on my website at www.germantravel-info.com/html.htm. I also tell how to put things in bold, underline, and italics.

On Internet Explorer (at least with a PC) you can right mouse click on any browser page, then click on View Source, to see what the "source code" looks like.

HTML makes use of "tags" (commands inside < and > symbols) to format the text as to bold, underline, links, etc. The message box into which you enter your replies on this site is a text box for HTML code. Then the text is displayed on a browser, the browser interprets the html tags for you.

I learned a lot about HTML last year from Lee. Also about how to type €, ü, £ and other Europe symbols.

I'd be interested to know how to add the € symbols on a PC. I have no problem accessing various symbols on my Mac at home, but don't know how to access those on a PC (Net Cafe or whatever).

Ken: While holding down the Alt key, type 0128 from the numbers keypad.

Kent,

Thanks for the info. Good heavens, that's primitive compared to the Mac!

If Kent could help me, he can help you!

Thanks, Kent. And thanks Mozilla. It took me awhile to figure it all out but with enough experimenting, I got it.

Awesome! Kent, how do you do the umlaud's?? (spelling??)

Here's a useful website for all of those symbols and their codes. (For PCs anyway)

http://www.forlang.wsu.edu/help/keyboards.asp

Amy, ä is 0228, ö is 0246, and ü is 0252. For capital letters, substract 32 from the small letters' numbers. The Scharf-S, ß, is 0223.

Ken, primative? Well, yes. ASCII has been around along time, since the beginning of computer (mainframes used it before desktops). Any text file (PC, Mac, or Unix) is stored as a series of numbers (0-255), one number for each letter or symbol. The alt numpad method is just one way of inputting the characters. Fortunately, this website's text window accepts the numpad characters. When writing a website in HTML, to be read by any browser, you have to understand that all browsers might not interpret the characters properly. It is safer to use HTML ampersand codes, ä is "&auml;", ö "&ouml;", etc.

[url]http://www.wachau.at/donau/WN/?ln=EN[/url]

Kent,
once I copy the link into my document and right-click on it, then I choose URL? It doesn't seem to be working for me - what am I doing wrong?

Kent thanks for great info. Always wondered how everyone got the € sign on the e-mails. It worked.

[URL] or <URL> are not HTML tags and won't get you a link in a browser. You need to use <a href="URL">.

Corinna: For my method to work, you have to be using Firefox as your browser with the BBCodeXtra Add-On. Then, go to your wachau websitecopy the URLgo to Helpline posting window where you want to imbed the linkright click to bring up the bbXtra context menuand left click these: htmlXtra-->clipboard-->URLand here's the link http://www.wachau.at/donau/WN/?ln=ENAhhh, the Melk Abbey (in the website), the 1000th anniversary renovation was funded in part by the sale of the Abbey's Gutenberg Bible to Harvard, right?

In the above example, the "a" tag is followed by the link word, then </a>. If you leave of the closing tag, </a>, then everything following will be a part of the link.

I don't know how Firefox does it, but in the text box the link should start with "http://". If not, the brower will not direct you to the Internet, but to a non-existant part of the ETBD website, and you will get an error message that the page does not exist.

Also if you leave a space after the "URL" (still in the 'a' tag) and insert target="_blank", then the link will open on a new page and not send them away from the Wall site.

What Firefox does, after you add the BBCodeXtra Add On, is it automates imbedding a link in a post, so it's just click click click, without having to do any HTML programming.

Got it, Kent! Thanks a million! I was doing it backwards, copying the link into the message, then right-clicking on BBCodes Xtra. That's why it didn't work!

Yes, the Benedictine monks sold their copy of a Gutenberg bible to Harvard in order to finance renovations.
Abbey Melk is also one of the settings of Umbert Eco's novel 'The Name of the Rose', and these days meeting ground of philosophers, thinkers and religious leaders from around the world.
It is considered one of the sacred sites of the world, you can feel it when you are there :-)) And one of the most splendid Baroque abbeys of Europe.

Oh good. Once you copy the URL and go to the Helpline posting window, it's one right click and 3 left clicks and you're done, takes 3 seconds to imbed the link.

If it works, here is a goodie for all who love Austria. Enjoy :-))

http://austria-360.at/

Corinna: Yes, I recently saw the 1980's film adapation/simplification of the novel you mention (The Name of the Rose), with a very young Christian Slater in the role of Adso of Melk. More action and less philosophy and semiotics in the film than the novel, of course. I understand the film interiors were shot at Eberbach Abbey and the exteriors were shot at a large set constructed on a hilltop outside of Rome.

Lee,

I'm familiar with ASCII, but I just felt that typing "alt" and a series of numbers to get the Euro symbol was quite primitive compared to the Mac, which only requires a control key and a "2".

However, I haven't tried other characters with the Mac (umlaut or Euro alpha characters, for example), so not sure how it may access those?

Cheers!

So what do you do if you have a laptop without numbers pad? If I do the Alt+number combination using the numbers on top of my keyboard nothing will happen.

So far I'm copying and pasting symbols and umlaute of other websites. But that's quite bothersome as well.

Beatrix: You can buy a numbers keypad at BestBuy/Office Max/etc for about $20, attaches to your laptop via the usual USB connection.

Bea, for posting on this website, in the "Reply:" box, the HTML "& codes" work. Ä is &Auml;, ä is &auml; - note the cap A and small a before the "uml". It's pretty intuative.

You use the letter you want to umlaut (A, a, O, o, U, u). Just proceed it with & and follow it with uml;.

In other words, München would be written M&uuml;nchen.

Test München

Great! Can I do that on other websites, too? In a word document?

Probably not. That is how an HTML interpreter (i.e., Browser) reads it. Word might not.

If you save it in a text editor, like Notepad with a .htm extension, then just click on it, it will open in your browser, with HTML codes interpreted. Hint: that's how I do my website.

In Word, if you hold down the <cntl> key, while pressing shift ":" (for the umlaut) then hit "a", "o", or "u", you can compose the umlauts.

As for simulating the number keypad, I don't think all laptops are the same this way, but on mine, if you use the Fn key and the keys around J,K,L, etc, you can often simulate the numpad keys (1,2,3, etc).

For me, this is more foreign than learning another language, but I intend to give it a try. But not this early in the morning.