Adding a link to a comment or article can be a big advantage for references, showing a picture, or linking to that favorite You Tube video. Please keep in mind there is a time and place for everything and sometimes it is not appropriate for links in comments. That is totally dependant on whose work you are commenting on and the CoH. There are quite a few articles or seeds where links in the comments are encouraged. When in doubt, just ask the owner. For someone that has not done this before, it can be a little confusing so I have created this tutorial to show how it is done.
The popular browsers in use today support "tabs" which allow multiple web pages to be open at the same time. This makes things faster and easier as you will see below. The use of tabs is dependent on how the user has the browser set up. In this tutorial you will see the tabs I have active and it is very easy to switch between them. If you are not set up to use tabs, the browser can be opened a second time to have access to multiple pages at one time.
Below is an image of the comment window and we are going to link to a You Tube video. I already have the video pulled up on another tab.
The comment is started and ready for the link. The text that is turned into a link can be anything including the web address itself. This is totally your discretion.
After switching to the tab that has the video, I have selected the video title and artist and copied it. Notice the open tabs.
Switching tabs back to the comment, I can now paste the text in. Depending on the browsers' security settings you may get a message like the one above, asking if it is alright to share with the webpage. Click allow.
Notice in this image the 2 buttons that are now highlighted. The first chain links button is "Insert/Edit” the link and the 2nd broken chain links button is “Unlink” to remove the link. Now the text has been pasted in, but I notice there was already a link in the title (see the underline) and that has been copied in as well. I don’t want that link so by putting the cursor in the link, and clicking on the Unlink button (broken chain links), in the next image all that is left is the text.
We are good to go so let’s get that address we will link to.
Click on the browser tab for the video and up in the browser’s address bar is the web page address. Place the cursor in the address bar and click once to select (highlight) the address and then copy it.
Use the browser tab to go back to your comment and then select the text (title and artist in this case). Now click on the Insert/Edit link button.
This will open the "Insert/Edit link" window and the cursor will be in the “Link URL” text area. This is where you want to paste the address that you just copied. The “Target” and “Title” information areas are optional, but we will fill them in.
Target is a drop down menu that starts as Not Set. The 2 choices are to “Open the link in the same window” or “Open the link in a new window”. I prefer to choose the open in a new window option which does not take the viewer away from the current page, but opens a new one.
Title is an area that any text may be entered and will show up when the viewer moves the mouse over the link, most of the time it would be the title of the linked page if that information was not already stated.
Note:
If you plan on putting the web address in the "Title" text box, you will need to delete this part "http://" because of a bug in NV scripting that will cause your link to display improperly. If you want to display the address try it like this "www.example.newsvine.com"
The last step with this window is to click the “Insert” button.
That brings us back to our comment and there is our link ready to go. Add more text or additional links if needed and finally click on Post Comment to finish. This will seem much easier with time. Trust me it takes longer to explain than to do.
Once the comment is posted try out your new link. Did it do what you expected and if not, you may have time to correct it during the edit time period of the post. If not, don’t let that stop you, try again, my favorite excuse is blaming it on fat fingers. Now go and have some fun and let’s see what you got.
