Story formatting help - a href tag

[EarlyMorningLight]

Hey all, I'm sure there's an answer for this somewhere, but I've done a few searches here and looked through all of the FAQs and can't see anything.
I'm trying to link to the profile pages of my beta readers, but when I go to preview, the links turn into:

https://www.literotica.com/my/"https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?...

Do I have to do something special with URLs within the site?

Thanks, and sorry if this has been asked a million times. I swear I looked!

 

[NotWise]

The site mangles URLs in several ways, but I haven't seen that before.

The beginning of the URL you listed above (https://www.literotica.com/my/..." would be the beginning of the URL for your own home pages. The quoted part (https://literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?...) is the beginning of the URL for someone's public profile.

I think you just want the URL for someone's public profile, that would be the part you have in quotes, plus uid=xxxxxxx&page=bio, where xxxxxxx is their user id number. You should be able to navigate to their bio then copy and paste the URL. If you don't want to link to their bio, then it could be "submissions" or "favorites".

It might be better to just not put the link in your story.

 

[EarlyMorningLight]

The site mangles URLs in several ways, but I haven't seen that before.

The beginning of the URL you listed above (https://www.literotica.com/my/..." would be the beginning of the URL for your own home pages. The quoted part (https://literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?...) is the beginning of the URL for someone's public profile.

I think you just want the URL for someone's public profile, that would be the part you have in quotes, plus uid=xxxxxxx&page=bio, where xxxxxxx is their user id number. You should be able to navigate to their bio then copy and paste the URL. If you don't want to link to their bio, then it could be "submissions" or "favorites".

It might be better to just not put the link in your story.

Yeah, I pasted the full url to their story page within the a href tag, but when I clicked on the link in preview, it had added that first section ending in /my/ in front of the url I had used.

I’ve submitted without the links for now. I can always resubmit if I figure it out.

 

[gunhilltrain]

It should look like this. I was linking to another one of my own stories that seemed relevant.

<a href="https://classic.literotica.com/s/the-past-is-a-foreign-country">The Past is a Foreign Country.</a>

The URL will be at the top of the page for the story, and you can just copy and paste that. The name of the story will be highlighted (in blue, I think) showing that it is an active link. You should be able to check that the link is working while the story is still in drafts mode.

PS: I noted that in this forum post the URL is highlighted. None of that HMTL coding or the URL will appear in the drafts mode or the published story. The highlighting will be on the title within the brackets.

 

[PennameWombat]

For those coming by this thread, if you want to put links in your story and you submit it as a Word document (.doc), then I've had no troubles creating a hyperlink (ctrl-k) in Word (well, Google Docs and Libre Office). In my forewords, where appropriate, I've put links to prequels (if a sequel), and in my afterwords, I've put links to 'related' stories. As hints .

The conversion from .doc to the website handles these just fine.

If you're hacking HTML directly, gunhilltrain's advice looks correct, to me.

 

[EarlyMorningLight]

It should look like this. I was linking to another one of my own stories that seemed relevant.

<a href="https://classic.literotica.com/s/the-past-is-a-foreign-country">The Past is a Foreign Country.</a>

The URL will be at the top of the page for the story, and you can just copy and paste that. The name of the story will be highlighted (in blue, I think) showing that it is an active link. You should be able to check that the link is working while the story is still in drafts mode.

PS: I noted that in this forum post the URL is highlighted. None of that HMTL coding or the URL will appear in the drafts mode or the published story. The highlighting will be on the title within the brackets.

This is how I was formatting the links. The problem didn’t show up until I was on the preview page — suddenly the urls had the extra part in front with the quotation marks still around my original url.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

They usually don't allow links within a story. And they don't allow but a few html tags and <a href> isn't one of them.

 

[gunhilltrain]

They usually don't allow links within a story. And they don't allow but a few html tags and <a href> isn't one of them.

They definitely allow links to other parts of the site, which is usually to another of one's stories or sometimes someone else's story. You can also link, say, to the site's FAQ page or even a subsection of it - I know I've done that. Thus, I've used the <a href> tag many times, as shown above.

You can't link outside the site in a story, but we certainly can do that in the forum, which we're demonstrated many times.

I've experimented with HTML tags, and there are some that will work but probably have little use for us.

 

[8letters]

In my last story, you'll see at the end:

And thanks to my beta-readers mycuriousnature, Harold1621T, Old Uncle Al and Fuzzy_Kbear

I did that with the following text:
And thanks to my beta-readers mycuriousnature, Harold1621T, Old Uncle Al and <a href=https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=4118749&page=submissions>Fuzzy_Kbear</a>

 

[gunhilltrain]

This is how I was formatting the links. The problem didn’t show up until I was on the preview page — suddenly the urls had the extra part in front with the quotation marks still around my original url.

I'm trying to troubleshoot what you've been doing. Actually, preview mode has two "modes" within it. The first is "editing," with the word editing in the URL and also, most visibly, it will say "Editing" next to the story title. You can open up the pages more completely by using the little double arrows at the top right corner (I think that was a feature that was added maybe two years ago?)

Anyway, while editing the complete HTML tags will appear, URLs and all. You thus have the option of changing the tags as well as anything else: the text, the category, the title, etc.

Then there is the true preview mode which shows what the story will look like. You can look at the story but you can't make changes to it with this feature. It's pretty accurate although it might not be exactly what the story will appear as - like line breaks may be a little different, I'd have to check. One common thing that will show up is that half the story may be in italics, say. You have to go back into editing mode and find where there was an HTML tag that wasn't closed properly. That may take a bit of looking, but it becomes routine after a while.

In this stage, the HTML tags won't be visible but their effects - italics, links - will be there.

Am I explaining this clearly? Maybe it sounds more complicated than it really is? You can toggle back and forth between editing and preview whenever you wish.

 

[RowanWrites]

I'm trying to troubleshoot what you've been doing. Actually, preview mode has two "modes" within it. The first is "editing," with the word editing in the URL and also, most visibly, it will say "Editing" next to the story title. You can open up the pages more completely by using the little double arrows at the top right corner (I think that was a feature that was added maybe two years ago?)

I don't have these little double arrows at the top right corner to a fuller preview mode. I wonder if that was some beta feature you got flagged for access, but it's not universally available? (I do see the expand arrows to put the editor in full screen mode, but I don't think that is what you mean, as it's still not a preview mode.)

On the other hand, I have been unable to reproduce the OP's experience in the online editor. Links seem to construct just fine and work as expected in preview mode. I tried both absolute and relative urls, and could not reproduce the broken prefix problem. Maybe it's something that's been fixed?

 

[gunhilltrain]

I don't have these little double arrows at the top right corner to a fuller preview mode. I wonder if that was some beta feature you got flagged for access, but it's not universally available? (I do see the expand arrows to put the editor in full screen mode, but I don't think that is what you mean, as it's still not a preview mode.)

On the other hand, I have been unable to reproduce the OP's experience in the online editor. Links seem to construct just fine and work as expected in preview mode. I tried both absolute and relative urls, and could not reproduce the broken prefix problem. Maybe it's something that's been fixed?

Yeah, the arrows that expand and collapse the screen - that was indeed what I meant. They are in the upper right corner of the story, not the page itself. They are blue and on a diagonal. I think the ability to expand the screen to have more room to edit was added sometime after I joined this site.

A quirk is that you have to collapse the screen in order to see the Preview and Publish button. You can still edit in the collapsed screen - that was the way it was when I started here - but it's kind of annoying because you can't see as much.

I don't know what is going on with your links. I used to work in Firefox but now I use Chrome. It doesn't seem to be a browser issue. Are you using a smartphone? Is it possible to work in the Apple operating system on Lit?

I'm a bit vague on the difference between absolute and relative URLs. If I need to link to one of my other stories - which must be 90% of what I do - I just go to that story and copy whatever URL is at the top. It's always worked so far.

Have you tried the Site News and Tech Support Forum? Manu answers the top part of that. Then there is an option called "Lit Tech Support" and any member can answer there.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

They definitely allow links to other parts of the site, which is usually to another of one's stories or sometimes someone else's story. You can also link, say, to the site's FAQ page or even a subsection of it - I know I've done that. Thus, I've used the <a href> tag many times, as shown above.

You can't link outside the site in a story, but we certainly can do that in the forum, which we're demonstrated many times.

I've experimented with HTML tags, and there are some that will work but probably have little use for us.

Yeah, me too and I always got a little not from Laural about what a bad boy I am. So I stick with the basics...

<I><B><U><S><center><blockquote> Everything else is controlled by the CSS or flagged by the bot looking for HTML tags in a story.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Yeah, me too and I always got a little not from Laural about what a bad boy I am. So I stick with the basics...

<I><B><U><S><center><blockquote> Everything else is controlled by the CSS or flagged by the bot looking for HTML tags in a story.

I've been doing that for, I don't know how long, at least two years, and I've never heard from Laurel. Is that specifically forbidden somewhere, like in the site FAQ?

Let me amend that - you're not just talking about links, but other HTML tags too. There are not that many that will even work here, and if they did, they aren't that useful. I see you used <center> with <blockquote.> Blockquote is one I've experimented with but I never got it to work. It's also one that usually I just don't need.

 

[gunhilltrain]

This is how I was formatting the links. The problem didn’t show up until I was on the preview page — suddenly the urls had the extra part in front with the quotation marks still around my original url.

I see I made an error in my explanation above - I mean, in the very first post I did. The HTML, URLs and all, will appear in the editing mode but not the preview mode. The document is at that point is in the drafts folder, and you can toggle between the two modes. You can only make changes in the editing mode, but you can look at the final output in preview. In preview, you will see the highlighting of links in blue - the link itself will be anything you wrote between the brackets.

Does that make sense?

 

[EarlyMorningLight]

I see I made an error in my explanation above - I mean, in the very first post I did. The HTML, URLs and all, will appear in the editing mode but not the preview mode. The document is at that point is in the drafts folder, and you can toggle between the two modes. You can only make changes in the editing mode, but you can look at the final output in preview. In preview, you will see the highlighting of links in blue - the link itself will be anything you wrote between the brackets.

Does that make sense?

It does, thanks. I’ll try again and submit a revision once it’s up.

 

[gunhilltrain]

It does, thanks. I’ll try again and submit a revision once it’s up.

Also, do ask on that Literotica Tech Forum if you continue to have problems.