Site News & Announcements

[BETA] New xLinks and Locations!

Greetings Members!

For a long time, people have asked for a way to make their URLs into nicer links. We've been against that primarily because we felt offsite links should clearly present themselves as URLs, making members However, it is now becoming more known that single underlined links stay within a site, while double underlined links send the visitor to offsite content, whether that be other site or ads.

We're going to adopt the double underlined approach and provide new WritingML to support it!

          {xLink:http://www.Google.Com}Google{/xLink} yields: Google  

, right??   (If anyone is curious, I'll note that we're using xLink as the WritingML tag because at the moment, I can't get the old "unclosed" link WritingML tag and new closed "link" working on the same page and I'm pretty sure we won't be able to. If we figure it out, we'll support both close xlink and link tags.

You can also xLink to item URLs within Writing.Com. These links too, however, will have the double underline because the link title may be different than the item. The clicker of the link needs some notice that this internal site link is different than one generated by the WdC site for an item or page.

** Please be mindful where you use offsite links. Some forums and activities don't allow them.


... But wait... There's more!
We're going a step better.
We're adding another new WritingML tag: {location:here} or abbreviate it as {loc:here}

In the example "here" can include any letters, numbers, underscore or dash. I do not believe there is a length limit, but use good judgement. maybe 32 characters at most should be plenty. IE: {location:pauls_answer} is OK! {location:paul's_answer} is not.


When you place a location in your item, you can then link to it from somewhere else in that item and direct the reader to that "location".
For example clicking here will bring you back to the top of this particular entry, clicking here will bring you to the bottom of it. Since these links are within Writing.Com and this very page, they are single underline and offer no "new window" icon. These are great for helping readers navigate a long item or for directing your read in creative ways.

For this example, I have a {location:top_entry} just before "Greetings Members!" and the click here link's WritingML looks like this:
          {xlink:#top_entry}clicking here{/xlink}

You can also link to a location directly within an item with an item tag: {item:206127#top_entry} ... Alternatively, use the randomly rotating WritingML to link a reader to different parts of an item: {item:206127#top_entry,2006127#bottom_entry}


Who will write the first stories that one can read top to bottom, or by also clicking links from the end of each paragraph that force the reader to read that same story out of order?


A reminder this is a BETA posting announcement, which means this is still in testing and development. We appreciate all bug reports, feature enhancements, general opinions, etc. It is helpful if you post them there and provide links to any examples you'd like to share.


Enjoy and Link On,
~~SM