In response to Pegsguy's request for a direct link to PM someone directly from a post, here is a writeup (by Gerry_D of the HandyMan Club forums) of how to add a "Send me a PM!" link to your signature that shows up below each of your posts. This will tide us over until we are able to place a "Message" button under a person's avatar on the left side of their posts. In an effort to maintain the great instructions that Gerry wrote up, I have only changed the club language (from HandyMan to Fishing). If anybody has any questions or wants me to help them add a link to their signature, send me a PM through the link in my signature.
Putting
a Private Message link in your signature line.
Some talk and instructions have been given on how to use the
signature line in the Fishing Club forum. Upon
writing this I had not intended it as a overall tutorial on the signature line,
but in order explain how to put a link to the area that someone can send you a
PM, (private Message), I have to rehash some of the basics.
The signature line is normally a brief piece of text that
one had set-up to automatically be added to the end of one’s post in the forum.
By just typing something in the box provided in your individual profile you can
get a plain and simple little signature.
But it doesn’t stop there! You can use some basic HTML to
make it a bit fancier! You can make your signature or parts of it BOLD,
have it in ITALLICS, have it UNDERLINED and even make some parts
or the whole thing in a different COLOR.
You can even put in a link to your homepage! But remember,
links to other commercial sites, is not only against the TOS,
(Terms Of Service), on here but in pretty bad taste.
The basics;
HTML code words or phrases must be bracketed by a less-than
sign “ < “ and a greater-than sign “ > “. This is to instruct your browser or in this case the forum software that it is CODE and not common text. Some code words, once turned on must be turned off, this is done with a slash symbol before the code word and after the less-than sign. . HTML code can be upper case or lower case, (for most of this I will attempt to keep it in upper case to make it easier to notice).
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HTML Code
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Turn Off
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What it does
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< B >
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< /B >
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This makes text BOLD
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< I >
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< /I >
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This makes text in ITALLICS
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< U >
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< /U >
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This UNDERLINES text
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< BR >
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(not needed)
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This ends the text line and starts a new line
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< P >
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< /P >
(not required)
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This ends a text line and starts a new one with an extra
space, like two < BR > codes.
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Take my “old” signature line for example…
< B >This community is the sum of the knowledge
of all.< BR >
Only we must communicate that knowledge to each other via
this forum.< BR >
Participate, Teach and Learn.< P >
< I >Cordially,< /I >< BR >
Gerry_D< /B >
This will look like:
This community is the sum of the knowledge of all.
Only we must communicate that knowledge to each other via
this forum.
Participate, Teach and Learn.
Cordially,
Gerry_D
To explain it line by line;
First I want it to be in bold so I start off with the < B >
code then I type my first line. To end this line and start a new line I use the
< BR > code.
The second line does not need a < B > code
because I turned it on and have not yet turned it off. Then I put in my text
and to start a new line, again I need to put in the < BR > code.
Again, bold is still turned on, so I put in my next bit of
text followed by a < P > to end the line and move the next text down
by an extra blank line.
This part I want in italics do I turn it on with the < I >
code, type in the text and turn the italics off with the < /I >
code, then a < BR > code to end that line and move to the next line.
This final line is just my screen name and is in bold. I now
turn off the bold with a < /B > code.
Sounds hard, but is really just about the simplest in HTML
code you can get!
In HTML code there is a way to put a link to another whole
web page or web site, that’s what the whole web is about. So here I’ll try to
explain a link, which will be the basis of linking to the Private Message area.
Links are structured items; they must be typed in correctly
to work correctly.
Example:
< A HREF="http://www.fishingclub.com/forums/private-messages/pmtype/compose/sendto/81421"
target="_blank" >
< B >< I >Send me a PM!< /I >< /B >< /A >
Looks pretty complicated, but let me explain…
The first line starts with < A HREF= This is code for
the start of the link. Next is;
http://www.fishingclub.com/forums/private-messages/pmtype/compose/sendto/81421
This is where you want to link to. The important part is the
last set of numbers, that part identifies who the form software will send a PM
to. I’ll explain how to get that number later. Then a space and target="_blank" >
This part of the link instructs a browser to open a new
window or tab for the previous link.
The next line: < B >< I >Send me a PM!< /I >< /B >< /A >
we pretty much covered, but to review, turn on bold with the < B >
code, turn on italics with the < I > code and the text is
instructional for the person viewing the link. Then we must turn off the codes
in the reverse order in which we turned them on, turn off the italics with a < /I >
code, turn off the bold with a < /B > code. Now since we started a
link in the previous line, we have to turn off the link with a < /A > code.
This will look very simple;
Send me a PM!
Let’s put this much together and explain how to get that set
of numbers…
< B >This community is the sum of the knowledge
of all.< BR >
Only we must communicate that knowledge to each other via this
forum.< BR >
Participate, Teach and Learn.< P >
< I >Cordially,< /I >< BR >
Gerry_D< /B >
< BR >
< A HREF="http://www.fishingclub.com/forums/private-messages/pmtype/compose/sendto/81421"
target="_blank" >
< B >< I >Send me a PM!< /I >< /B >< /A >
Will look like:
This community is the sum of the knowledge of all.
Only we must communicate that knowledge to each other via
this forum.
Participate, Teach and Learn.
Cordially,
Gerry_D
Send me a PM!
I just added the two previously discussed sections together
and between them put in a < BR > to skip down after my name to the
next line.
To find out that number, you must do a little trick. This
trick is necessary because the forum software allows us to have both a screen
name and a log-in name that CAN be different! This gets confusing for someone
wanting to send you a PM and sometimes they don’t have a clue as to what your
log in name is. So to be polite you should look it up just once and provide it
in the link.
You know your log-in name, if it is different from your
screen-name in the forum this is the key!
- Bring
up the Private Message area after you logged in.
- Click
on COMPOSE MESSAGE
- Type
in your log-in name exactly as you do to log-in and click on the magnifier
to the right.
- Select
YOUR screen name from the displayed table and click on the "message" button.
- At the
top of the next screen, in the URL or address bar of your browser you will
see a long URL. The end of that URL has some numbers. Jot them down on a
piece of paper because you will need it when you enter your code in the
signature line.
An alternate method, very reliable and easier is; be logged
in, and open up a forum area you have made a post to. Then move your mouse over
your screen name, don’t click on it, just move your mouse pointer over it and
at the very bottom of your browser window, (tested with Firefox, Netscape and
Internet Explorer), in the browser frame will appear the link that clicking
will take you to. So you can write down the last group of numbers from there.
Now when you type in the code for your link to a private message you will use
that number so the forum software can identify whom to correctly send PMs to.
That, boys and girls, sums up how to put a link in your
signature line to the exact page on the Fishing Club
website so people can send you a PM with style!
If the interest is there, I will show how to insert a small picture or
icon in one’s signature and have it act as a “button” to link to the “send me a
PM” page…. Gerry_D
***Just FYI, if you want the HTML code in this writeup to work, you have to take out the spaces between the < and > brackets. You have to put spaces in order to show the raw code because, if you don't, the forum software will interpret them as actual HTML code and format the text accordingly. ***