:blush: I have seen a thread where someone explained how to do this and I wrote it down but can't find it. I've searched the site too but no luck. Soooo, at the expense of feeling silly or repetitive can someone tell me again how to do it please. Am I making sense :confused: changing the long name to something more user friendly like...

http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/newthread.php?s=&action=newthread&forumid=46

to

my thread.

Thankyou :)

Use this code utah :wink:

{url=YOUR WEBSITE ADDRESS HERE}THE TEXT YOU WANT TO APPEAR HERE{/url}

Change { } for [ ] and it would appear as THE TEXT YOU WANT TO APPEAR HERE

Hope this is what you wanted :)

i presume you mean in this forum?

if so, then simply click on the 'http://' button above where you type your reply. you'll be asked first for the text to dispay (this is where you type 'My Thread', then you enter the URL (paste in the http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/ ...etc).

thats all there is to it.

...but alternatively, you can type it in instead of using that button by typing in:

[ url=http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk ]my thread[ /url ]

(but you'll need to remove the spaces i've added to the above)

damn. beaten by 1 minute. ;)

Ooops this might come up twice it disappeared on me :o

Thank you vidster and LL :) I wanted to do it on other forums too, will it also work in emails?

Here goes, I'll try it in here where no-one can see ;)

my thread (http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/newreply.php?s=&action=newreply&threadid=60461)

Woohoo, thanks guys(?) :D you're a couple of stars, thank you. No 'huggy' smilies, you'll have to pretend ;)
I'll tape it to the screen till I remember it.

Originally posted by utah
I wanted to do it on other forums too, will it also work in emails?

Most forums use the same method:thumbsup:

Emailing links is a little different:


<a href="http://www.anydomain.ext/whatever/page/you/like.html">YOUR TEXT</a>

However, this requires the recipient to allow html formatted emails (some users do this, but can lead to scripts running locally, so others turn it off).

Hi sccsux, thanks for helping :) I've tried emailing myself but its not working. How do I find out if I allow html formatted emails? Maybe its that?:confused:

Originally posted by utah
Hi sccsux, thanks for helping :) I've tried emailing myself but its not working. How do I find out if I allow html formatted emails? Maybe its that?:confused:


You'll need to set you email client to compose as HTML and receive HTML formatted emails. Each email client performs this task differently.

What sccsux said is almost right, but not quite as simple as that. This is all from the top of my head, so forgive me if its not perfect :)

First, you've got to tell your email program that you want to send HTML emails. Normally, emails are simply plain text - you can't put anything special in them like images or links, but Outlook or Outlook Express (which I'm assuming you're using) can send HTML emails, which means that you are basically sending a simple webpage by email, so you can add images, links, colours, etc.

I'll assume Outlook is already set up to send HTML emails (I believe it does that by default). To check, go to the options and have a look at the mail format tab - see if it says send emails in HTML format.

Start a new email and I think you should be able to go to insert, then hyperlink or something similar. Fill in the dialog box that appears and hopefully this should work.

You can also insert images and so on this way.

The reason why sccsux's approach didn't work is because if you type in what he's suggested, your email client will think you're typing in text and not HTML.

Hopefully what I've said is at least close to the truth, its been a long time since I've sent a HTML email :)

I can't do it :shakes: thanks for trying LL200. I'm using Hotmail and it seems I am using hmtl thingy, so could it be Hotmail or is it just me :confused: Oh well, its not important, I'm happy with the forummy bit. Thanks anyway :)

no, hotmail doesnt allow you to create html emails unfortunately. so its not just you :)

Just as well really, HTML emails are a bad idea, I only ever send plain text emails. HTML emails are the kind sent by the eBay frudsters\scammers as the can hide code in the email. There is no reason to use HTML email unless you are a spamming con merchant, IMO.

There is no reason to use HTML email unless you are a spamming con merchant

Almost agree with you there, I never use them.

However, HTML emails are useful sometimes. They're more friendly for your non-geek type, they're commercially better for legitimate email from companies as they can be more attractive and keep within branding guidelines. They can also be useful in an office environment to allow you to, for example, highlight areas for discussion or including diagrams inline.

The problem is that many email clients allow any HTML to go into HTML emails. Perhaps it should be limited to colours/fonts, images (there are issues with this when the image is on the webserver of course) and other more safe markup.

The lack of a standard is probably to blame.

IMHO :)

Thank you LL. I'm not a spamming con merchant Lurch, so I won't use it :) I was just going to try and show off to my daughters ;) Thanks everyone.

Originally posted by LL200
Almost agree with you there, I never use them.

However, HTML emails are useful sometimes. They're more friendly for your non-geek type, they're commercially better for legitimate email from companies as they can be more attractive and keep within branding guidelines. They can also be useful in an office environment to allow you to, for example, highlight areas for discussion or including diagrams inline.

Sort of, but there's still no need for HTML emails, it's just handier, for some anyway. If I want to show someone some flashy whizzy charts and crap I send an attachment.

As an example of one such incident that didn't need to happen at all;

I recieved an email the other day from someone who was asking me about some product. I said email me the link to the site you've seen it on and I'll have a look later. I got back to find 2 emails from the chap which were HTML emails, sent from within IE via the 'mail this page' option I believe. The email had loads of attchments of buttons and borders, had loads of offsite links to images, ads and all sorts of other crap. It took me a few minutes to get the mail to display properly as it had been marked as a virus, a trojan, had ads blocked and all sorts of other warnings and errors were popping up. Following this, I get an answerphone message from the chap who sent me the link, saying that my email is broken because it keeps bouncing his potentially virus ridden spyware laden email back.

If HTML was banned in emails I wouldn't have got this, I'd have just got a link.

Sometimes, there's too much choice for the uninitiated. I get numerous calls from this chap and from his staff after he's 'fixed' things. He's of above average intellect but still has trouble with web and email security.

Originally posted by utah
I'm not a spamming con merchant Lurch, so I won't use it :) I was just going to try and show off to my daughters ;) Thanks everyone.
Impress them by telling them why HTML emails are bad. :wink:

Being able to format emails is (was) the logical next step from plain text emails, its just been badly implemented (by Microsoft mainly), perhaps with a lack of foresight.

I meant to put that bit in too! The only thing you may require in an email that isn't plain text is some highlighting and text size alteration. Complete HTML scripting within emails is totally unrequired.