LESSON 7: More Misc. Links

This short lesson will teach you how to make more miscellaneous links like e-mail addresses and newsgroups. This is incredibly easy (I hope!).

E-mail Addresses

You will most likely want a link on your page that the viewers can click on to send you an e-mail (such as the one on the bottom of this page). This is the exact same as linking to another file, except the value is a little different. The tag and parameter are EXACTLY the same.

The tag: <A>
The parameter: HREF
The value: "mailto:your_email"
The linked text: any text you want
The closing tag: </A>
Put together: <A HREF="mailto:your_email">any text you want</A>

Pretty simple, eh? Just change the value to say mailto:your_email (where your_email is your full e-mail address) and your done. If I was making a link to my e-mail, I would (and do) type EXACTLY this:

<A HREF="mailto:woodchuck@5150.com">E-mail Me</A> There is only one known variation on the value, but it only works in Netscape and more recent versions of Internet Explorer. By adding ?subject=any subject right after your e-mail address and right before the ending "> you can automatically set the subject of the e-mail message. Make sure you remember the ? (question mark). For example, the following link:

<A HREF="mailto:woodchuck@5150.com?subject=HTML Tutorial">E-mail Me</A>

would open a new e-mail message addressed to me, with the subject of HTML Tutorial. Want to test it out? (Don't send this message unless it's useful) E-mail Me


Newsgroups

Newsgroups are kind of like discussion forums, where people send an e-mail to the newsgroup on a certain topic, and anybody that reads the newsgroup will see your message, and they can respond to it (either to you personally or to the newsgroup).

Linking to a newsgroup is the same as to another file or an e-mail message, except for the value.

The tag: <A>
The parameter: HREF
The value: "news:newsgroup_address"
The linked text: any text you want
The closing tag: </A>
Put together: <A HREF="news:newsgroup_address">any text you want</A>

Change newsgroup_address to a valid newsgroup address and you're all set! There are no known variations on this.

If I wanted to link to the HTML authoring newsgroup, I would type in EXACTLY this:

<A HREF="news:comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html">HTML Authoring Newsgroup</A>

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E-mail me.