A question about URL links

[Freedda]

This is a question and not a problem. I added some web page links to my makah whaling thread in Exploring Divination, and the forum software created a link that looks like this:

​

However, I added some web page links in my post in the Line Amplitude thread in Yi Academy and my links - different links - look like this (even with the same coding):

​

Why?

 

[Trojina]

I don't know, I'll try it myself there

 

[Freedda]

I don't know, I'll try it myself there

To clarify: I am not saying the links don't work. I'm saying that how they appear is different. In the first example the forum software created an image that goes along with the link (see first example, above); but in the second example, I tried to copy the same code and I only get a link with the web address spelled out ex. http://www.happyforumYi.com

Both work however; it's just that I can't figure out why they are different when I'm using the same code (as far as I know.)

 

[Trojina]

I know perfectly well the links work ! - I know they appear differently ! One is a hyperlink and one isn't.

I posted there in CC to show it is possible to post a hyperlink there...


I give up it's just total misunderstanding all the way. Now you imagine I think the link doesn't work, I never said that.

 

[Freedda]

I know perfectly well the links don't work ! - I know they appear differently ! One is a hyperlink and one isn't. I posted there in CC to show it is possible to post a hyperlink there...

Okay, to clarify, what I'm saying - or at least trying to say - is that in this post

https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/fri...-about-makah-whale-hunting.29122/#post-279591

- the software created two links and they each include a small photo and a quote from the web page and the web site (all as a hyperlinked graphic/image file).

I tried to recreate this same thing in the thread in Yi Academy and could not recreate this 'type' of link. Instead my links just shows the actual URL (web address), as it does in this post - even though I copied the same code I used for the two links I talk about, above - but they all work just fine.

I'm talking about how the links appear, not that the do or don't work. It's fine if you don't understand, but I do hope Hilary or someone in the know does understand.

D.

 

[Trojina]

I'm talking about how the links appear, not that the do or don't work. It's fine if you don't understand, but I do hope Hilary or someone in the know does understand.

As I have said twice now I know this is not about whether the links work or not.

What you quoted was typo, I meant I KNOW THE LINKS WORK

 

[Freedda]

Trojina, I feel like you're being argumentative and I'm not sure why? You're typo confused me (and you admit it was wrong) and it made me confused about the rest of what you wrote - because they didn't seem to match. I'm not a mind reader so I can't know which part of your post is correct and which is a typo.

In response, I simply clarified what I meant, to make sure I wasn't being confusing, nothing more.

D.

 

[Liselle]

Maybe here's one little piece of it?

Say I want to link to the Wikipedia article about bluebirds, in keeping with today's wildlife visitations . There are a couple ways to do that. One is just to copy the link, with ctrl-c, from the address bar in Wikipedia, and simply paste it with ctrl-v into the post edit box, like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluebird

You get the fancy link, that way:

Bluebird - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Another way is to use the "Insert link" button in the edit box toolbar:


Doing that gives you only a link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluebird

I have absolutely no idea why those work differently, but it's nice to have the options. (Edited: maybe providing options is the reason.)

As for why sometimes the fancy link doesn't appear even when the [URL unfurl="true"] stuff is in the link code, as you said about your links in the amplitude/loudness thread... a wild guess (and only a guess) is maybe it doesn't work within Clarity, only from external domains?

 

[Liselle]

Then again, the fancy link stuff does work from Hilary's blog. Paste this with ctrl-v:

https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/answers/2019/11/19/hexagram-64-not-yet-across/

And you get this:

Hexagram 64: Not Yet Across

Its name and natureAt the very end of the Yijing comes the hexagram called Not Yet Across - the embodiment of incompletion and imperfection, an ellipsis in hexagram form. It's a very large-scale, oracle-sized joke about our expectations of tidiness and order.The Chinese name has two characte

www.onlineclarity.co.uk

It's all still "onlineclarity.co.uk," but I think the blog-type areas are different behind the scenes from the forums, maybe that's why. I think (?) it's Wordpress over there, and the fancy link stuff is a Xenforo feature...or something...

 

[Trojina]

Trojina, I feel like you're being argumentative and I'm not sure why? You're typo confused me (and you admit it was wrong) and it made me confused about the rest of what you wrote - because they didn't seem to match. I'm not a mind reader so I can't know which part of your post is correct and which is a typo.

In response, I simply clarified what I meant, to make sure I wasn't being confusing, nothing more.

D.

Sorry David, it was childish frustration more than trying to be argumentative. I'd said over on the thread I knew the link worked, and you didn't seem to get what I was talking about even though I'd linked from this one.....and you were asking me why I'd made the link, well it was to show I could make the link in a different format.


Anyway I was trying to say what Liselle is saying in this thread. Apologies again I should not have been at the computer.

 

[Freedda]

Then again, the fancy link stuff does work from Hilary's blog. Paste this with ctrl-v:

https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/answers/2019/11/19/hexagram-64-not-yet-across/

And you get this:

Hexagram 64: Not Yet Across

Its name and natureAt the very end of the Yijing comes the hexagram called Not Yet Across - the embodiment of incompletion and imperfection, an ellipsis in hexagram form. It's a very large-scale, oracle-sized joke about our expectations of tidiness and order.The Chinese name has two characte

www.onlineclarity.co.uk

It's all still "onlineclarity.co.uk," but I think the blog-type areas are different behind the scenes from the forums, maybe that's why. I think (?) it's Wordpress over there, and the fancy link stuff is a Xenforo feature...or something...

Thanks for info. I find sometimes I can get the fancy stuff to work and other times I can not. And not sure why, but no matter. Best, D.

 

[Liselle]

I find sometimes I can get the fancy stuff to work and other times I can not.

Oh. Well...if sometimes it doesn't work the way I said, then I have no idea.

The next time you catch it working inconsistently, would you mind stopping and re-creating the oddness over here? Like, "here's a link I posted, and I used the toolbar button, and it came out the fancy way." Write down exactly what you did.

 

[hilary]

I have no clue, sorry. Liselle is far ahead of me.

Can you get different results when linking to the same page? (Otherwise it's probably just a question of what is available on the original page. Though I don't know why

Hexagram 64: Not Yet Across

Its name and natureAt the very end of the Yijing comes the hexagram called Not Yet Across - the embodiment of incompletion and imperfection, an ellipsis in hexagram form. It's a very large-scale, oracle-sized joke about our expectations of tidiness and order.The Chinese name has two characte

www.onlineclarity.co.uk

should appear without an image.)

(Edit: because I didn't have 'Open Graph' tags on my posts. Now I have. Aha - fox!)

 

[Liselle]

Pasting the plain link:

Hexagram 64: Not Yet Across

Its name and natureAt the very end of the Yijing comes the hexagram called Not Yet Across - the embodiment of incompletion and imperfection, an ellipsis in hexagram form. It's a very large-scale, oracle-sized joke about our expectations of tidiness and order.The Chinese name has two characte

www.onlineclarity.co.uk

Using the toolbar:
https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/answers/2019/11/19/hexagram-64-not-yet-across/


Okay, that worked as expected.

Hilary, what do you mean by, "Can you get different results when linking to the same page?"

 

[hilary]

Hilary, what do you mean by, "Can you get different results when linking to the same page?"

Exactly that - I got the impression, maybe wrongly, that David was reporting different effects from the same generated code but with links to different pages. That could be down to differences in the link target and nothing to do with the forums.

But that seems to have been a red herring, so not to worry.

 

[hilary]

I'm very glad of this thread, by the way, because it got me looking into why my links were image-less, and that's led to this Open Graph thing, which may finally mean that my links show up reliably with the right image when shared to Facebook. That would be nice!

 

[Freedda]

I just added two web links by simply cutting and pasting in the HTML for the sites (and not using the 'link generator'), and it created links with an image and title/text from the pages - in other words, the more 'fancy' kind of link I was first talking about above.

See: https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/fri...-patterns-change-operators.29177/#post-280184

However, I tried the same with another link HERE and it just added the HTML code as is.

So, it seems that how this site creates links is not consistent, and my sense of that - based on very little web coding experience - is that this site's 'link generator' maybe be using 'metadata' (info/data imbedded in the code of the web page) from the linked website to create the more fancy link; but if that data is not there, then it just falls back on a text link. (awful fancy talk for a non-geek!)

Best, David.

 

[Liselle]

If it has to do with metadata and the innards of HTML, I know less about that than you do.


I'm not sure what you mean by cutting and pasting HTML.

I just added two web links by simply cutting and pasting in the HTML for the sites

Do you mean you selected an area on the page with your mouse? (Which I suppose probably copies the underlying HTML?)

When I do that and paste it here, this happens, which isn't what you got:

READING ROOMS



Yijing Papers: The Foundation

Myth & Th​

That's different from copying (ctrl-c) the url from the address bar and pasting it (ctrl-v) directly into a post - that is what will give you a fancy link - but that isn't what you said you did.

(This: )


For the second one

(Oh, and Liselle, if you read this, just know I tried using the 'code thingee' (URL creator?) to create a link here, but it just added the link as the url text.)

Do you mean you used the button in the post editor toolbar? This: ?

That doesn't give me a fancy link, either, just a clickable url, same as you got.

 

[Freedda]

I'm not sure what you mean by cutting and pasting HTML.

I mean going into my browser and from the top copying the web address which usually looks like 'http://www.davidfreed.com' and then pasting that into the page. And I did this with Cntl+V and Cntl+P and it worked.

Do you mean you used the button in the post editor toolbar?

Yes, the technical term is a 'link thingee'! But I found that I could create the more 'fancy' links without it too - as I did above - just with cutting and pasting in the HTTP ... address.

I hope that makes more sense, but I don't think I need to belabor this too much more at this point.

 

[Liselle]

First of all, I didn't know you have a website! (If I should have known, I missed it, sorry.) Will definitely look at that this evening.

Yes, the technical term is a 'link thingee'!

But I found that I could create the more 'fancy' links without it too - as I did above - just with cutting and pasting in the HTTP ... address.

Well...I might be proven wrong sometime with evidence to the contrary, but I don't think "could create the more 'fancy' links without it too" is right.

As far as I can tell this minute, the rules are -

1. pasting the HTTP address creates fancy links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitten

edited - hmhm, except when it doesn't

The difference there was that instead of copying the link from the address bar, I right-clicked on a link and selected "Copy link address."

Trying this again.
Copy from the address bar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitten

Right-click: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitten

Nope.

Okay, what if those things are... on lines of their own?

Copy from address bar:

Kitten - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Right-click:

Kitten - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Aha! (Er...for now, anyway.)

New rules:

1. Pasting the HTTP address creates fancy links if the address is pasted on a separate line.

2. using the link thingee, a.k.a. toolbar button, creates clickable urls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppy, or clickable words in a sentence, and not fancy links.

 

[Liselle]

I appreciate having the option of either a fancy link or a plain clickable url, but to be honest I think part of the confusion might be that their assignment of what goes with what is backwards. I think it would be more intuitive if the fancy toolbar button would create the fancy link, and merely copying/pasting plain url text would create the plain clickable link. But it's the opposite.

Intuitive maybe in a sense, but wrong. See below.

 

[Freedda]

To just know that there's some variables that are not in our control, and which may be why I was getting varied results is all I need to know at this point. If I can create a link, great. And if it can be a fancy one, so much the better. I don't really need any other improvements at this point.

Best, D

 

[Liselle]

This might make matters worse instead of helping us understand, but it just occurred to me why the decisions are as they are, because of link display text.

If you want to link to, say, Hilary's home page in the middle of a sentence, and display the link as words from the sentence rather than in url form, the only way that can be done is via a method which provides a way to specify other words - the toolbar button.

The fancy display -

I Ching with Clarity

For some 3,000 years, people have turned to the I Ching, the Book of Changes, to help them uncover the meaning of their experience, to bring their actions into harmony with their underlying purpose, and above all to build a foundation of confident awareness for their choices. Down the millennia, as

www.onlineclarity.co.uk

- can't be made part of a sentence anyway, so there's no need for user input and a button to allow it.

 

[Liselle]

Current version of "rules," subject to change:

1. Pasting the HTTP address creates fancy links if the address is pasted on a separate line. If the address is pasted on the same line as typed text, it creates clickable urls.

Separate line:

Old World sparrow - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Same line as text: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_World_sparrow

2. Using the link thingee, a.k.a. toolbar button, creates clickable urls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppy, or clickable words in a sentence, and not fancy links.



to anyone still reading this.

 

[Liselle]

It can tell the difference, and then it adjusts the tag accordingly:

 

[Liselle]

I like your website! Especially the murals - how interesting. Are there more pictures of that elsewhere?

 

[hilary]

And if you want your own website to make fancier fancy links - with excerpt and image - you need something called OpenGraph metadata in the header.

 

[Liselle]

And if you want your own website to make fancier fancy links - with excerpt and image - you need something called OpenGraph metadata in the header.

Oh wait. @hilary are you saying it has nothing to do with Revised Rules One and Two, that it's because of this OpenGraph thing?

Which site is it that needs OpenGraph? The site containing the link (e.g. Clarity in the examples in this thread) or the site being linked to (e.g. Wikipedia)? (Added - or both? vBulletin never made fancy links, and if fancy links are possible now with Wikipedia, it was probably also possible a mere few months ago.)

And does same line/separate line actually make a difference, then. I tried it twice, and it seemed to...

 

[hilary]

No, no, all your rules are entirely correct; this is just a footnote. When you create a fancy link, how fancy it is depends on whether the site you're linking to has this metadata.

 

[Freedda]

.... When you create a fancy link, how fancy it is depends on whether the site you're linking to has this metadata.

And not to belabor nor belabour this ... but as a real-world example, see my post at

https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/index.php?threads/revelation-about-12.29235/#post-280722

... here I added two URL links, both in the same way: the first created a 'fancy' link, while the second only gave us the URL address spelled out. This is fine for me - and it doesn't need to be changed at all (ha-ha, not wanting something to change when it's about the Yi) - but an example all the same.

Best, David