Links are no more than an address to a page somewhere on the internet. Each page on the internet has it's own unique address. It's that simple. You can link to pages on your site, or to other web sites. It's all the same. You create a link to an internet address.
Root directory
Your RootsWeb site has a root directory that was assigned to you when you received your account. You can put all your files there if you like. If you have a lot of data you may want to add sub directories. Those are covered later. All items in red text in the following examples are items you have to add and are explained below.
Area is the section of
freepages you will be publishing to, i.e. genealogy.
User name is the user
name given to you by RootsWeb.
File name is the name
of the file you want to link to.
(You have to upload the file to the RootsWeb server before you
can link to it.)
Text for link: Type the
text you want for your link. You can call it anything you want.
To link to a page in your root directory using html
use the following code:
<a href="http://freepages.area.rootsweb.com/~user
name/file name.html">text
for link</a>
Now an example. This will link to the surnames page
on my site.
<a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~bieber/surnames.html">Surnames</a>
This code produced the result seen below. You can
also code in different fonts, etc. I don't do html, so I will leave that
up to you. I did code this and it does work.
For those of you using a WYSIWYG* program, highlight
the text you want for your link, and type in: http://freepages.area.rootsweb.com/~user
name/file name.html
in the area provided by your software for adding links.
That's all there is too it. Don't forget the .html after the file name. That's the most common mistake I have seen.
Index page
You have one special page on RootsWeb. It is the "index" page. In order to get your first page up you had to create it and name it index.html on the server. The title of the page can be anything you want and that is different from the .html name you uploaded. This page is most often refered to as your home page. Linking to it does not require some of the above code.
To link to your home, or index page, leave the file
name.html off the end of your link. Here is an example:
http://freepages.area.rootsweb.com/~user
name/
Add the html code above to this if that is the method
you use.
Sub directories
Linking to sub directories on your site requires a
little more code. You have to include the sub directory in the link before
the file name. Here is an example:
http://freepages.area.rootsweb.com/~user
name/sub directory name/file name.html
Add the html code above to this if that is the method
you use.
I have several sub directories on my site. One is scans.
To link to it I use the following code:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~bieber/scans/file
name.html
Again the file name is the name of the file you want
to link to.
Linking to other sites
Often you will want to link to other web sites. The
first step is to go to the site you want to link to and copy the URL. That
is the address of their site. It should show up in your browser window
at the top. Use the above instructions to create the link using the URL
you copied. Most will start with http://www, but there are many variations.
* WYSIWYG stands for What you see is what you get. Programs such as
Netscape composer and Microsoft Frontpage are exapmles of this type of
program.
Created by Jeffrey G. Allen
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