Thanks to Dave M, we have an enhancement to our Glossary page that allows you to take the reader directly to an entry in the glossary you refer to. You do this by adding #glossaryentry (N.B all the tags are lower case) to the link to the page, e.g.
-
- https://timesforthetimes.co.uk/glossary#mer for MER (Minor Eyebrow Raise)
- https://timesforthetimes.co.uk/glossary#neutrino for neutrino
The two exceptions to using just the entry title for using the term directly is
Best practice is to hide the link rather than show it in full in the blog and direct the browser to open a new tab, as shown in the second example of each. You can do this in the blog editor by typing the entry title, highlighting it and clicking the link icon or typing Ctrl-K then clicking the cog wheel to get the options for displaying the link. Type Glossary into the search existing content box and select the page. You then just need to add the #word to the URL, click the Open link in a new tab check box and click the Add link button.
Thanks, Dave!
Wonderful, thank you Dave and John! This will be helpful.
I look forward to experimenting. I think the new function may get more use in response to queries raised in comments than in the blog itself, and I hope we shall all become experts in hiding the links (if not already) rather than having the full link addresses displayed on the screen.
Also note that Breezeblock is now added to the glossary (though that link doesn’t seem to quite work!)
I’ve added the “id” tag needed, but you need to use lower case for the link to work – I’ve add a note to that effect to the post.
This prompted me to look at the Glossary, which is excellent and could almost act as a useful guide for new solvers. Somewhere I noticed a trivial typo but can’t find it now (perhaps there was none and I would just have had ‘who’ instead of ‘that’ in the entry for Theme, a change I regularly make on another site). The entry for Ximenes puzzled me: it says that there are many ways in which a clue can be made fair and I’m not sure what that means.
Thank you for the compliment. Keep looking for the typo, do!
I was all set to alter the theme entry from that to who, as it makes little difference to my eyes, but I had a peep at Fowler and he disagrees. He says “who suits particular persons, and that suits generic persons. So I left it, not being one to disregard Fowler.
So far as Ximenes is concerned, the meaning is that one or more of Ximenes’ principles can be ignored or disregarded, without necessarily rendering a clue unfair. As the Guardian demonstrates pretty regularly.
His rules are “For the guidance of wise men, and the observance of fools.”
I’m not sure if I’ve contradicted Fowler: it seems to me that my (home-made?) policy, of using ‘who’ for people and ‘that’ for things, is I think vaguely close to what he seems to say.
Great. Up till now I’ve been reluctant to use the lingo, but this will make it much more comfortable!
Good work… as a small suggestion, do you think it would be better for all such links to open in a new tab, as standard, rather than replacing the page you were looking at? You can enforce this in blog entries by altering the setting, but not in comments so far as I can see. Am I right in thinking that the new capability also doesn’t work in comments, only in blog entries?
On your last point, tbh I’m not entirely sure how we go about using this even when writing blogs. I looked on the test site expecting to find examples but was unable to do so. A users guide for dummies would be appreciated, at least by this one!
Thanks, Jerry, for adding Breezeblock to the lexicon.
When you are writing a blog, you can highlight a word and then click on the icon in the dashboard above that looks like a chain link. This brings up a little box into which you paste a url. Then enter, and lo and behold, there is now a hyperlink.. the little box also has a settings icon, click on that and it allows you to tell the link to open in a new tab, alongside and not replacing your blog.
Some sites (The Times itself, for example) allow you to do this within comments as well.
Thanks, Jerry. Yes, I can do that no problem, but what I was wondering is how one can get the link to the Glossary into the box easily without typing the whole thing in. I experimented and managed to achieve it (apart from the #word) in a test but it was a bit of fag. Perhaps there’s an easier way.
You can do that by typing Glossary in the link to existing content search box and selecting the page – the URL will then display and you just need to add the #word tag.
Many thanks to you and Jerry for clarifying this and I have now experimented and am satisfied I know how to do it in a blog. I shall experiment adding links to comments during the coming week as and when the need arises.
One thing I would mention that may be a browser issue for me and not the experience of others. When I click on a link it opens with the top of the target entry just out of sight at the top of the page so that I have to scroll up a little to identify it and begin reading. The one exception in the examples I’ve tried is your link above to &lit, but I assume that’s because it’s the very first item on the list and the page can’t display any higher.
On further investigation I tried reducing the Chrome browser zoom from 100% to 90% and that works fine. None of this is a big deal for me, but it’s something to be aware of if it’s going to be the general experience for others. I wondered if any adjustment could be made to accommodate 100% as the default?
I’ve added text to the post and Blogger Tips page to address your first point. My examples in the post do this. It works in comments too, e.g. breezeblock but you have to write the HTML anchor tag yourself, as I did here, using the form shown in the post, but dropping the “https://timesforthetimes.co.uk/” to leave just ‘href = “glossary#breezeblock”. and with the addition of “target =_blank” after the “href = ” bit to get it to open in another tab.
i.e. <a href=”glossary#breezeblock target=_blank”>breezeblock</a>
One snag I just ran into: my browser (Firefox on iPhone) "helpfully" converted the straight double-quotes I typed in the href= tag (") into curly ones (“ and ”). But that’s not valid HTML, so the link ended up not working: pointed to "/glossary“", which doesn’t exist. 🙁
Is there a way to link to “Semi &lit”?
Yes. Use #semi-lit. Blog post updated.