What are Links?

Links are objects such as text and/or images that take the visitor from one content area to another. They are also known as hotlinks.

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Absolute, Relative, Mailto, and Anchored Links

There are four kinds of links. They are as follows:

1. Absolute links: These are links to sites that you do not have editing control over. They are the types of links that you use to provide additional resources for the reader. For example, if you wish to give your visitor a link back to the university website you have to hotlink to http://www.tamucc.edu/. This is an absolute link because it carries the entire address to this website. It is also one that you have no editing control over because you do not have access to this account.
2. Relative Links: These are hotlinks to web pages within your website. This is the site for which you have an account thus, it is said that you own this account. These links do not require a full address (one that includes the http://www.mysite.com/) because the addresses are relative to your directory. Please refer to Site Management for further details.
3. Mailto Links: These are email links. They allow the visitor to send you an email directly from the webpage.
4. Anchored Links: Anchored links is really my term. This is actually a two-part process. You first create an anchor and then you link to it. For example the Top link at the bottom of these pages is an anchored link. First I set an anchor up at the top of the page (next to the banner) and then I created a relative link to the Top text so that the visitor could return to the top of the page when they click on the word top.

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Why Should I Let DreamWeaver Site Manage My Links?

Do not worry if all of this doesn't quite make sense to you at this point in time. DreamWeaver's Site Management capabilities will track all the addresses so that there will be few, if any, broken links. This means that it will check to make sure that your relative links, which happen to be the most problematic and the links that are most likely not to work, are correct all the time. It also means that you can update all links sitewide so that you don't have to spend hours editing them page by page. Email links are tracked so that all you have to do is drag and drop them from the Assets Panel when needed. None of these features are available to you if you do not first set up a site. This is why I strongly suggest that you set one up. It will save you alot of time on the back-end.

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Adding Absolute Links

These are links to someone else's site.

1. Find the site that you wish to link to and either copy the address from the browser location bar or write it down. Remember that this type of address will start with the http:// protocol (example: http://www.tamucc.edu/)
2. Single-click on the Common Panel tab which is on the Insert Panel at the top of the window
   1. Single-click on the Hyperlink icon
   2. Type in the text that you wish to link
   3. Type in or paste the address that you copied in step 1
   4. Single-click the OK button

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Adding Relative Links

These are links to other pages or images that are in your account. You own these.

1. Single-click on the Common Panel tab which is on the Insert Panel at the top of the window
   1. Single-click on the Hyperlink icon
   2. Type in the text that you wish to link
   3. Single-click on the folder icon that is to the right of the Link field
   4. Single-click on the page or image that you wish to link to
   5. Single-click the OK button

   [Relative Link]

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Adding Mailto Links

Mailto links are email links. They allow the visitor to send you an email directly from the webpage.

1. Single-click on the Common Panel tab which is on the Insert Panel at the top of the window
   1. Single-click on the Email Link icon
   2. Type in the text that you wish to link
   3. Type in your email address (Example:Mary.Villanueva@mail.tamucc.edu)
   4. Single-click the OK button

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Setting Anchors

Help the visitor navigate long pages by providing links back to anchors. The top link is an example of a link that goes back to an anchor.

1. Place the I-beam in the location where you wish to place an anchor.
2. Single-click on the Common Panel tab which is on the Insert Panel at the top of the window
   1. Single-click on the Named Anchor icon
   2. Type in the anchor name
   3. Single-click the OK button

Linking to Anchors

Once an anchor is set you can create a link to it.

1. Single-click on the Common Panel tab which is on the Insert Panel at the top of the window
   1. Single-click on the Hyperlink icon
   2. Type in the text that will be linked
   3. Type the number sign
      1. Type in the anchor name (example: #top)
   4. Single-click the OK button

[Linking to an Anchor]

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Checking Links Sitewide

There may be times that you will want to check all the links in your site. Do the following to check them:

1. Single-click on the Site Panel tab on the Files Panel
2. Single-click on the down-arrow next to the word Site
3. Single-click on Check Links Sitewide
4. The Results Panel opens below the Properties Panel
5. Single-click the down-arrow next to Show and search for either Broken links or External Links (absolute links). The Results Panel will list the files with the broken or wrong External links.
6. Collapse the Results Panel when finished in order to gain more screen space to work on your document.

[Link Checker Results Panel]

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Changing Links Sitewide

Let us suppose that you created a 50 plus page website each of which contains a link to one page. Now you want to change that link so that visitors go to a different page instead. Can you imagine going into each and every page to update this link? It's an awful thought isn't it? Well, you don't have to do it this way in DreamWeaver. You can update this link in a few simple steps. Here's how you do it:

1. Single-click on the Site Panel tab on the Files Panel
2. Single-click on the down-arrow next to the word Site
3. Single-click on Change Links Sitewide
4. Single-click the down-arrow next to the Change All Links Sitewide and search for the page that the current link is going to.
   1. Single-click on the original file to select it
5. Single-click the down-arrow next to the Into Links To field and search for the page that you want to change to
   1. Single-click on the new file to select it
6. Collapse the Results Panel when finished in order to gain more screen space to work on your document.

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