Closed circuit to cajonsummit

[Murphy Siding]

     Dear Mr. cajonsummit, or is it Mr. SPBed?  How ' bout you consolidate your videos and links to just one thread, and keep freshening it up?  Honestly, you could just change the name on the tread every time you added a new video or news link. (use the edit feature, lower left hand corner, looks like a stubby, yellow pencil).  I think you might be pleased with the results if you did it that way.  You'd probably see more views in general, and perhaps some comments beyond folks saying "I activated the link for you".

      I don't know how to activate a link, but I bet someone on here could show you how.

     Also, about the links to news stories.  People tend to not open them, if there isn't some commentary from the person posting it.  Reason is, I would never know if it was a real link, or a link to some spam infested website.  

[chad s thomas]

A big +1

[SALfan]

Hear! Hear!

[Rader Sidetrack]

Murphy Siding

        I don't know how to activate a link, but I bet someone on here could show you how.
 

There are two options that I am aware of.  One option is the "Insert/Edit Link" button (looks like 3 links of a chain) on the compose message toolbar.      I don't particularly like the way that button works, so I just type the code that activates a link, which is a form of BBCode tags  that look like this:

[ URL]  link [ /URL]

The example above has a space after the left bracket to disable the code function so it can be displayed.  When using it normally, don't include a space.  For instance, the unactivated link to the "Nowhere Video" thread looks like this:

http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/232059.aspx

When you surround the link with BBCode tags, it looks like this:

[ URL]http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/232059.aspx[ /URL]

Note the example above still has spaces immediately after the 2 left brackets "[" so the BBCode remains visible.   Once I remove the space from within the [ URL] and [ /URL] tags and post the message, it looks like this after it is posted, and will be an active link:

http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/232059.aspx

Of course, normally I don't put in those spaces in the BBCode tags in the first place - I just type the correct tags to begin with.

[Euclid]

Put cursor at end of link and hit return. 

[tree68]

Rader Sidetrack

There are two options that I am aware of.

There is a third way to do it!

Instead of closing the URL tag immediately, put in an equal sign then insert the target URL:

{url=http://www.website.com} (used curly brackets vs the required square brackets for illustration purposes)

Then enter some text: Click Here

Followed by the closing tag {/url}

So the following entry:

If you want to see it, {url=http://www.website.com} Click Here {/url}.

Results in:

If you want to see it, Click Here.

This can be useful if the URL is particularly long.  All the reader sees is the hyperlink, not the entire URL.  Again, note that I used curly brackets for illustration purposes.

So, without putting in a bunch of real links, an illustration.

I went to Podunk to check out the rail action.  The first train through was led by the UP CNW unit.  

A couple of unit coal trains later, a "baretable" train roared through westbound, led by NS locomotives, something not often seen on this line.

The highlight of the day, though was an eastbound oil train led by a locomotive consist made up completely of leasers.

None of these links are actually hot.  I just colored the text.

Note that the use of this format makes reading the post much easier, and the viewer can simply click on the highlighted items to see the links (which in this case would likely be pictures taken by the poster).

[BaltACD]

The software of this forum is the only one that I have experienced that has such difficulties in activating links entered by posters.

Most of the other forum I participate in  - you just paste the link to you post - when the post is added to the forum it is activated - without the poster taking ANY other measures.

[tree68]

BaltACD

Most of the other forum I participate in  - you just paste the link to you post - when the post is added to the forum it is activated - without the poster taking ANY other measures.

This one did that for a while - I found it to be a real pain in you-know-where, especially if I wanted to put in a hyperlink such as I just described.  I would have to drop out to HTML mode to straighten it out.

Fortunately, I'm conversant in HTML.

[Semper Vaporo]

I agree with the use of the substitution text for long URL's and such, but on some computers the hot-link text is not so easily detected when embedded in a paragraph that way.

Your example shows blue text and the link in red, but on some computers the text is black and the link is dark blue and it is only by accident that one might roll the mouse over the text to see that the cursor changes from the insertion bar to a pointing hand (or the text might become underlined).  I know I have missed many an embedded link because of the above.

[Semper Vaporo]

Euclid

Put cursor at end of link and hit return. 

I have to put the cursor at the end of the link and type a "Space" and then hit "Enter/Return".

 

[tree68]

Semper Vaporo

Your example shows blue text and the link in red, but on some computers the text is black and the link is dark blue...

Actually, many browsers will show a hyperlink in one of two colors (dependent on the browser and individual settings).  One color will indicate that the viewer has not visited the link, the other that they have.

I simply picked blue and red for the illustration.  They otherwise have no basis in fact, except by coincidence.

[blue streak 1]

windows 8.1 either type link or paste it.  If activating another by reply copy link the go to front of link space bar once then arrow back one space  Link will change colors denoting active.  Same thing to a paste.  If typing link start on new line space bar once then type link.

[Semper Vaporo]

tree68

Semper Vaporo

Your example shows blue text and the link in red, but on some computers the text is black and the link is dark blue...

Actually, many browsers will show a hyperlink in one of two colors (dependent on the browser and individual settings).  One color will indicate that the viewer has not visited the link, the other that they have.

I simply picked blue and red for the illustration.  They otherwise have no basis in fact, except by coincidence.

 

Sorry, I didn't make my point well... yes, I realize you picked those colors for illustration, but my point is that sometimes, regardless of which browser I am using, I will see a posting that looks something like this:

 

"I found an interesting photo of a Steam Locomotive on the web."

 

And my first thought is: "Well, that's nice, thanks a lot!  But couldn't you at least provide a link to it?"

 

Then, if (and only IF!) the subject is intriguing enough to me (like a photo of a Steam Locomotive!), I look harder at the posting to see if there is some indication that there is a link embedded in it.  It is sometimes very subtle, (and not very consistent from one post to another, even on the same forum using the same browser), depending on who posted it and what modifications they might have made to the default colors and font used.

 

Sometimes the font is italicized, or underlined, or of a slightly (VERY SLIGHTLY) different color, and worse yet, sometimes that indication only happens if I move the mouse over the portion of the text that is the link.  And sometimes the whole sentence is the "substitution" text and so there is nothing in the whole posting to indicate that it is a link in and of itself.

 

I agree that the substitution text is a good idea for those links that are a couple of lines long, but when the substitution text is used, it needs to be set aside in a manner (by wording or by position) to make it very unique and obvious that it is a link and not just part of a sentence where the end user might not see it exists.

 

Then there are people that will alter the color, font, bold, italic or underline status of a single word for emphasis and not because it is a link and people go nuts trying to click on it to see where the assumed "link" takes them... and since I am one of those people that do that sometimes, I have been chastised for doing so.

 

 

P.S.  I probably should have said this earlier... I have not attempted to embed any example links in this posting, so there is no need to go sweeping the mouse over it looking for them.

 

 

[Anonymous]

The forum is harder to manipulate if you are using Internet Explorer 11.

If you do choose to use IE 11, you need to ensure that you have the site in compatibility setting.  To do that go up to the top right of your screen...select the "gear" icon...then select "Compatibility View Settings" and then place trains.com into the add box.

It is actually easier to use the trains.com site if you are using FireFox.

[wanswheel]

tree68

There is a third way to do it!

Instead of closing the URL tag immediately, put in an equal sign then insert the target URL:

{url=http://www.website.com} (used curly brackets vs the required square brackets for illustration purposes)

Then enter some text: Click Here

Followed by the closing tag {/url}

Seems to work. Thanks a lot!   Click Here

[Geared Steam]

chad s thomas

A big +1

A bigger +2

[chad s thomas]