Anchor Utility

Choosing the HyperText Link... or Named Anchor… command from the Anchor menu displays the Anchor Utility. Items within this dialog box are described below. For more information on creating an anchor tag or URL (Uniform Resource Locator), check out the Beginner's Guide section "Linking to Other Documents".

Sample Anchor
Shows the constructed anchor tag as it will be inserted into the document. While only the first 30 characters of the link text are shown in the sample, the actual text is not truncated when inserted into the actual document. 

Form
The "Full" and "Relative" buttons. Selects the form of the created anchor tag:

• Full URL. This will create the server portion of the URL using the information located in the Scheme, Server and Port fields, then append the HREF field to create an explicitly specified URL.

• Relative URL. This is the document name, optionally prepended with the relative path to the target document if not in the same directory as the current document. Note that use of relative URL assumes the target is on the same server as the current HTML document.

Note that entering a full URL into the HREF field supercedes the contents of the Scheme, Server and Port fields.

Form
When "Full" is selected, the Anchor Utility will include the server and path to the file if a Scheme and Server name are entered.

If "Relative" is selected, the anchor tag will ignore the contents of the server fields.

Scheme (required for full URL; not used with "Relative")
Either selected by the popUp menu or manually entered, this is the communication scheme of the file. Usually this will be "http:" for image files, "ftp:" for file transfer protocol, etc.

Server (required for full URL; not used with "Relative")
The server name as it is known on the Internet, such as "www.ncsa.edu". Clicking on the "Server:" button gives you the option of replacing the default server (as set on the Preferences card) with the current server name, or of using the default server.

Port (optional for full URL; not used with "Relative")
Most HTTP transmission defaults to port 80. If you've set up communications through a different port, enter that number here. Otherwise, leave this blank.

Include HREF= (required for HyperText Links)
The hypertext reference is the directory or file name of the target of the link, commonly an HTML document. If this document is not in the same directory as the current HTML document, prepend the relative path to the filename.

For example, if the current document is "/project/document.html" (a document named "document.html" located in a "project" folder on your server) and you want to reference two HTML documents, one named "contents.html" in the same folder, the other named "conrad.html" located in a "conrad" folder in the "people" folder on your server "www.server.edu", the full anchor tags would look like:

   <A HREF="http://www.server.edu/project/contents.html">
   <A HREF="http://www.server.edu/people/conrad/conrad.html">

or the partial (or relative) tags:

   <A HREF="contents.html">
   <A HREF="/people/conrad/conrad.html">

Note that the External File and Select Document commands under the HREF popUp menu will automatically attach the proper relative path to the URL if the server location has been defined (on the Preferences card) and the document's path/location is within or below the server's directory (folder).

Fragment-ID (optional)
The fragment-id is a reference to a named anchor within the target document, allowing browsers to scroll directly to the specific location within the document. The fragment-id is appended to the document name following a pound "#" sign, as in

   <A HREF="contents.html#whatsNew">

Include NAME= (required for Named Anchors; optional otherwise)
The name attribute is used to define a named anchor, to specify the target of a hypertext link within the body of a document, as in

   <A NAME="whatsNew">

Note 
For compatibility with other systems, avoid using spaces or special characters in either your folder or document names.

Back to Anchor menu, on to Heading menu, or return to Contents.