HTML Cheats - Make Quick Links Using Blogs

To start off. I'm just going to go to my Lensmaster page on Squidoo..

...and highlight a link...

...right-click, then copy.

I'm using Firefox, so your context menu may look different than mine depending on the browser you are using, or which addons you have installed in Firefox, but you should see "Copy" somewhere on the menu.

I'm going to use WordPress, this is a free WordPress blog at SquidTop. If you don't already have a Blog, you can sign up for one, a free one at WordPress will work, too.

Make sure you are set for "Visual"...

...Right-click, then paste...

...

...Now switch to "Html".

You can now see the actual HTML of the link that was copied.

Everything between "<" and the ">" highlighted here is the opening tag. The "a" tells us that this is an anchor tag. The "href" stands for "hypertext reference" which equals the URL in the quotes. (http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-link-squidoo-modules)

The text here is what we actually see as text on the web page.

Every opening tag needs a closing tag and that's just what this </a> is.

I could use this link as is, but I like to add some extras. Start by going back to the "Visual" part of the editor and click the link button in the toolbar (it looks like a chain-link).

I have the whole link highlighted in the picture, but you really only need that to make a link with text that isn't already part of one. If the link already exists, you can just place the cursor on it, and click the link button.

When the Insert/edit link Dialog Box pops up, the Link URL will be highlighted, if you were making a link from the text, you would need to type it in at this point.

The "Target" line is a drop down menu, if you leave it alone, the link will probably open in the same window when clicked. I usually like to set it to open in a new window, but it really depends on how I want my link to behave.

I like to add a title to my links, and that can be done on the Title line.

After clicking "Update" to save the information and close the Insert/edit link Dialog Box we can see that the Title Attribute has been added to the opening tag.

This shows the Target Attribute (target blank - open in a blank page).

Back in the Insert/edit link Dialog Box we can see the last line is the "Class" and while this can be useful in the Blog, or on other Web pages, it doesn't work in a Squidoo module.

I'll set it for "aligncenter" to demonstrate.

When the box closes, we can switch back to HTML and see the alignment code.

Now I highlight and copy the whole thing, and switch back to Squidoo, where I paste it in a Text with BIG Picture module (It'll work in the regular Text module, or the description area of just about any other Squidoo module).

What doesn't work is that class="aligncenter" - when I save the module, the text stays to the left.

Instead of using a class alignment, in a Squidoo module we need to add paragraph tags and align the whole paragraph with align="center" in the opening.

Don't forget to close the paragraph tag with </p>!

There! That's what I wanted!

Just type or paste your text into the WordPress editor and click on the chain link icon.

Add the URL to the Link URL line of the Insert/edit link Dialog Box that pops up.

Set the Target attribute, if you want to use it.

Add a title to the Title line, if you want a title.

Click "Update" to finish, and here's how it looks. Because I added the title, when someone hoovers their mouse over the link, the title pops up in a little balloon. Not necessary, but I like it.

You don't want to accidentally publish the draft copy of the post you've made while making links:

HTML Cheats -
Make Quick Links Using Blogs
by CleanerLife
is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
United States License.