ANCHOR tag

[Dragonwhisky]

Ok, I stopped by https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/help/bb-codes on a whim from a link here and discovered the ANCHOR tag exists.

So, I went to one of my old posts here and inserted the anchor tags around a section.
Questions regarding the use of [ANCHOR];

• Is there a limitation on how much text can be wrapped by the anchor tags?
• How, and where, can I place links to this section?
  
• Can it be linked to from separate posts?
  
• Can it be linked to from different threads?

Thanks.

 

[Jordan]

Is there a limitation on how much text can be wrapped by the anchor tags?

No, but the page will jump to the top of the anchor section.

How, and where, can I place links to this section?

After you create an anchor, you can link to by appending the anchor name with an octothorpe (or hashtag) to the end of the page URL.

For example, if you wanted to use an anchor named #myanchor in this very thread, the URL would look like this:

https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/anchor-tag.346768/#myanchor

When the page loads, it will jump to the start of that anchor section. It can be linked to from anywhere.

 

[Dragonwhisky]

Ok. Kept trying until I got it to work. Of the three links the second one worked as desired. The first and last one took me to the top of the page where the post w/ anchor is posted.

https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/anchor-tag.235094/#IRInstructions

https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/anchor-tag.235094/page-1213#IRInstructions

https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/anchor-tag.235094/page-1213#post-8825250/#IRInstructions

gears are turning now.

Thanks @Jordan

 

[Jordan]

Correct, the middle one is the only one that would work. (It's important to have some understanding of HTML and how URLs and anchor tags work to really make use of these tags.) Basically, the browser loads the page at the URL. After it loads, if the URL has the anchor specified, it will jump to that section of the page.

The first one didn't work because the thread page number isn't specified in the URL, so it loaded the first page of the thread. That anchor doesn't exist on the first page of the thread, so it didn't do anything.

The second one didn't work because the link includes an anchor to a specific post, #post-8825250, which is then preceded by your custom anchor. URLs can only have one anchor, so the browser just sees one big long anchor that looks like #page-1213#IRInstructions. That long anchor doesn't exist on the page, so it just leaves you sitting at the top of page 1213.

 

[polysmut]

Are anchor tags supposed to underline the text that is anchored?

Like this?

I typed:
[ANCHOR=dec20test]Like this[/ANCHOR]?

Edit:
It was underlined in the preview but not the post.

 

[Jordan]

No. I'll adjust the tag so that doesn't happen in the previews.

 

[kikie]

anchor="post_section"]Post Section to be Linked To[/anchor]


I'm trying to figure out what the "post_section" is.

 

[polysmut]

anchor="post_section"]Post Section to be Linked To[/anchor]


I'm trying to figure out what the "post_section" is.

It's just whatever is in the post between the tags. The part of the post you want to be able to link to. You don't need to type anything special in there to make it work.
It's the part that was underlined in my screenshot.

Edit:
Sorry I've just described the part labelled as "Post Section to be Linked To".

"post_section" is a label you create that will form part of the URL.
You can see mine were "dec20test" and "wline" which are labels I chose.
I think I've got that right now?

 

[Jordan]

Yep, that's exactly correct. The "post_section" is the text that you append to the URL after the hash mark. It's not actually displayed on the page.

So, @kikie, if you wanted to link to your section in a working anchor tag on this page, you would create a link like this:

https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/anchor-tag.346768/#post_section

 

[kikie]

I'm going to keep using this: ANCHOR tag



I just realized it is the same.

 

[Dragonwhisky]

I'm unclear how to set anchors inside a post. Does the full post URL still have to be used? Is there another code that won't have be changed for different posts using the same template?

 

[Jordan]

I'm unclear how to set anchors inside a post.

Check out these examples in the help section.

Just wrap whatever section you want to link to in [ANCHOR="your_section_name"][/ANCHOR] tags.

Does the full post URL still have to be used?

If you want to link to the anchored section from another page, then yes, the full URL still needs to be used. If it's on the same page, just use the [ANCHORLINK="your_section_name"]Jump to Your Section[/ANCHORLINK] tags and you don't have to use the full URL.

Is there another code that won't have be changed for different posts using the same template?

You can use the ANCHORLINK tags repeatedly (because the full URL is not required, just the section name), but keep in mind that anchors must be unique on each page. If two posts contain anchors with the same name on the same page, any links to that anchor would only go to its first reference.