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11. LINKS WITHIN DOCUMENTS

(Move the cursor... how do you like the neat "fade-away cursor trail"? Visit www.dynamicdrive.com to get this fun script, and lots of others!)

When you link to a page with the

<A HREF="URL"> clickable area </A> construction, the browser displays the top of the page. This is annoying if the item you want is a long ways down. Today's lesson tells you how to go to a particular place within a document.

INDEX CARD #11:

LINKS WITHIN DOCUMENTS (11a)

If you want to go to a particular place in a document, then you must do two things:

FIND THE PLACE you want to go to, and give it a NAME. (This is called "naming a fragment." The "fragment" is the place you want to go to; you assign this fragment a name.)
Give the instructions: "Go the place that I've named." (This is called "linking to the fragment.")

How do you accomplish step #1? That is, how do you NAME A FRAGMENT?
Use the NAME attribute inside the anchor tag, as follows:

<A NAME="NAME_OF_FRAGMENT"> FRAGMENT_BEING_NAMED </A>

Try to keep your NAME_OF_FRAGMENT fairly simple. Here's an example:

<A NAME="idiom_bird_worm"> The early bird catches the worm. </A>

Anchors that use the NAME attribute are called NAMED ANCHORS.

LINKING TO A FRAGMENT (11b)

How do you accomplish step #2? That is, how do you LINK TO THE FRAGMENT? Use the familiar anchor construction, with a little twist: you now need to give the name of the fragment you want to go to within the document. Do this by putting the hash symbol (#) after the Uniform Resource Locator, followed by the name of your fragment, like this:

<A HREF="URL#NAME_OF_FRAGMENT"> clickable area </A>

If you're linking to a place in the same document, then you don't need the Uniform Resource Locator. All you need is the #NAME_OF_FRAGMENT part:

<A HREF="#NAME_OF_FRAGMENT"> clickable area </A>

Printable version of Index Card 11a

Printable version of Index Card 11b

WORKSHEET #11:

(W11.1) Continue with the tutorial located at: http://www.cwru.edu/help/introHTML/toc.html (link is no longer valid) Please finish Chapter 6 (ANCHORS): start at the "NAME" section, and go to the end. Be sure to do all the end-of-chapter exercises.

ASSIGNMENT #11:

(A11.1) Read pages 134–135 (from "Linking Within a Document" up to "Affecting the Appearance of Links") in the Weasel Book.
(A11.2) Use named anchors to set up a TABLE OF CONTENTS for your homepage. Assign names to each section. Put a Table of Contents at the top that sends you to each of these named sections. You'll update your Table of Contents as you modify your sections throughout the year. Also, put a link at the bottom of your homepage that sends you back to the Table of Contents.