ZCrew Online Help :: Creating Links in Messages

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Creating Links in Messages

You can add links to your messages that members can click on to navigate to web pages or to specific messages in the forum. When members click on the links, the corresponding pages open in a separate browser window so that the members don't lose their place in the forum.

To create a link in your message:

1)	Open the message creation form. How?
2)	In the message authoring text box of the message creation form, place your cursor in the spot where you want the link to appear and type or paste the URL there.
	!!! Warning: If you want to add a very long URL to a message, you must substitute a text link for the URL or use TinyURL to keep the link short, so that the link will not stretch the column on the page where your message is displayed. For more information and for instructions, see Shortening URL Links.
	Tips:
	You can type http://www.address.com or www.address.com. Either way, it appears as a "live" link.
	To copy the URL to a specific message in the forum, click on the tiny page icon at the bottom-right of the message (it precedes the Posted date and time, as shown below). The corresponding URL appears in your browser's address text box.
	If the post is 'unread', i.e., it is a new post that you're reading for the first time, then it will look like this:
3)	If you want to format the URL in BBCode, select it and click the URL button in the formatting toolbar above the authoring text box.
	Open and closing URL tags surround the selected text, [url] and [/url].
	Note: There is no need to format the URL in BBCode unless you want to apply bold formatting to it. If you use the BBCode bold tag to format a link (How?), the link won't work unless you surround it with URL tags, too.
4)	If the URL you are linking to is really long or if you prefer to display it as a text link instead, see Shortening URL Links for instructions.
5)	Click the Preview button in the message creation form.
6)	In the preview, click the link to make sure that you linked to the web page or forum message that you had in mind.