Web Design for Beginner Web design tutorial Html Part-011
HTML Text Links
A webpage can contain various links that take you directly to other pages and
even specific parts of a given page. These links are known as hyperlinks.
Hyperlinks allow visitors to navigate between Web sites by clicking on words,
phrases, and images. Thus you can create hyperlinks using text or images
available on a webpage.
Note: I recommend to go through a short tutorial on Understanding URL
Linking Documents
A link is specified using HTML tag <a>. This tag is called anchor tag and
anything between the opening <a> tag and the closing </a> tag becomes part
of the link and a user can click that part to reach to the linked document.
Following is the simple syntax to use <a> tag.
Example
Let's try following example which links http://www.tutorialspoint.com at your
page:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Hyperlink Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Click following link</p>
<a href="http://www.tutorialspoint.com" target="_self">Tutorials Point</a>
</body>
</html>
This will produce following result, where you can click on the link generated
Tutorials Point to reach to the home page of Tutorials Point.
The target Attribute
We have used target attribute in our previous example. This attribute is used
to give a complete URL for every link. You can get rid of it if you use <base> tag
in your HTML document header. This tag is used to give a base path for all
the links. So your browser will concatenate given relative path to this base
path and will make a complete URL.
Example
Following example makes use of <base> tag to specify base URL and later we
can use relative path to all the links instead of giving complete URL for every
link.
This will produce following result, where you can click on the link
generated HTML Tutorial to reach to the HTML tutorial.
Now given URL <a href="/html/index.htm" is being considered as <a
href="http://www.toneysoft09.com/html/index.htm".
You can create a link to a particular section of a given webpage by using name
attribute. This is a two-step process.
First create a link to the place where you want to reach within a webpage and
name it using <a...> tag as follows:
you want to reach:
This will produce following link, where you can click on the link generated Go
to the Top to reach to the top of the HTML Text Link tutorial.
The target Attribute
We have used target attribute in our previous example. This attribute is used
Previous Web Design Tutorial Web Design for Beginner Web design tutorial Html Part-010
Use of Base Path
When you link HTML documents related to the same website, it is not requiredto give a complete URL for every link. You can get rid of it if you use <base> tag
in your HTML document header. This tag is used to give a base path for all
the links. So your browser will concatenate given relative path to this base
path and will make a complete URL.
Example
Following example makes use of <base> tag to specify base URL and later we
can use relative path to all the links instead of giving complete URL for every
link.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Hyperlink Example</title>
<base href="http://www.tutorialspoint.com/">
</head>
<body>
<p>Click following link</p>
<a href="/html/index.htm" target="_blank">HTML Tutorial</a>
</body>
</html>
This will produce following result, where you can click on the link
generated HTML Tutorial to reach to the HTML tutorial.
Now given URL <a href="/html/index.htm" is being considered as <a
href="http://www.toneysoft09.com/html/index.htm".
Linking to a Page Section
You can create a link to a particular section of a given webpage by using name
attribute. This is a two-step process.
First create a link to the place where you want to reach within a webpage and
name it using <a...> tag as follows:
<h1>HTML Text Links <a name="top"></a></h1>Second step is to create a hyperlink to link the document and place where
you want to reach:
<a href="/html/html_text_links.htm#top">Go to the Top</a>
This will produce following link, where you can click on the link generated Go
to the Top to reach to the top of the HTML Text Link tutorial.
Setting Link Colors
You can set colors of your links, active links and visited linksusing link, alink and vlink attributes of <body> tag.
Example
Save the following in test.htm and open it in any web browser to see how link,
alink and vlink attributes work.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Hyperlink Example</title>
<base href="http://www.tutorialspoint.com/">
</head>
<body alink="#54A250" link="#040404" vlink="#F40633">
<p>Click following link</p>
<a href="/html/index.htm" target="_blank" >HTML Tutorial</a>
</body>
</html>
This will produce following result. Just check color of the link before clicking
on it, next check its color when you activate it and when the link has been
Download Links
You can create text link to make your PDF, or DOC or ZIP files downloadable.This is very simple, you just need to give complete URL of the downloadable
file as follows:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Hyperlink Example</title>
</head>
<a href="http://www.tutorialspoint.com/page.pdf">Download PDF File</a>
</body>
</html>
This will produce following link and will be used to download a file.
File Download Dialog Box
Sometimes it is desired that you want to give an option where a user will clicka link and it will pop up a "File Download" box to the user instead of displaying
actual content. This is very easy and can be achieved using an HTTP header
in your HTTP response.
For example, if you want make a FileName file downloadable from a given
link then its syntax will be as follows.
#!/usr/bin/perl# Addtional HTTP Headerprint "Content-Type:application/octet-stream; name=\"FileName\"\r\n";print "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"FileName\"\r\n\n";# Open the target file and list down its content as followsopen( FILE, "<FileName" );while(read(FILE, $buffer, 100)){print("$buffer");}
Note: For more detail on PERL CGI programs, go through tutorial PERL and
CGI.
