How to Make a Link Stand Out

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Can you see the WrongPlanethttp://www.wrongplanet.nethomepage link in this sentence?

It's the space immediately after the word "WrongPlanet". Not very helpful, is it?

Let's make it more visible.

Can you see the WrongPlanet homepage link in this sentence?

It's in bold, it's blue, and it's underlined. Here's how to do it:

<url=http://www.wrongplanet.net><b><color=blue><u>WrongPlanet</u></color></b></url>

In the line above, just replace every "<" with "[", and every ">" with "]". If you place quotes between the "u" and "color" commands, you'll get: "WrongPlanet" - only the word "WrongPlanet" is underlined, but the quotes are still part of the link.

Sometimes, posted links are not obvious - you have to mouse over the entire post just to see if a link is included, especially if the poster has not even mentioned a link.

Just trying to help.

-Fnord-

Or just use "code" tags to show exactly what needs to be written:

Thanks, CF!

The real problem is that links aren't highlighted by default. This should not be the user's responsibility.

A few days ago, I tried the [color=red] but it didn't work. What colors do work?

I have been using the following notation, Wrong Planet <click>

but yours is also a great suggestion.

Actually, I'd rather have it this way. Stealthy links can be made non-stealthy (I usually just bold them or write "(link)" but if the server forces them to stand out they can't be re-stealthed, so I'd lose some freedom there.

The UX nazi says: you shouldn't have the freedom to post stealthy links. (what's the benefit of a stealthy link?)

Because... uh... THOSE WHO WOULD SACRIFICE FREEDOM FOR CONVENIENCE DESERVE NEITHER

I just don't like how blue color looks in my posts . And in some jokes I make in the social parts of the forum they benefit from being stealthy. It's not much, if the greater part of the forum wishes them to stand out automatically then so be it, but there should be a way to make them stealthy again.

Here's a list of the available colors and how they look on a green background:

Black
Brown
Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Violet
Gray
White

I made the characters bold to bring out the colors more.

Here's the same list on a blue background:

Black
Brown
Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Violet
Gray
White

Questions?

That defeats the point of offering a link in the first place. If you don't want others to use a link, then there is no reason to post it - stealthy or not.

See here, in the WP FAQ: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp640321.html#640321
Basically, "any colour you want".

As regards link visibility - sure, the forum software should make a better job of it but that's not about to change any time soon because this version is old and no longer under active development. It's one of many annoying little quirks and bugs, unfortunately.
My personal preference is just posting the link in plaintext, as-is.
It's undisguised, automatically underlined, the mouse cursor changes when over it, and it's clickable (see above).
Also, there's less typing.

I think the word LINK works well.

I've been bolding links since day one.

Like this one.

But don't click that one! It goes to Goatse.

Indeed! And the really silly thing is: links are show in blue by default! So it's not like the coders of WP had to do some extra work to show them. No, they actually had to do some extra work to hide them (using CSS) - and they did. I don't know what the reasons for it were, but if you wish to see all hyperlinks in blue/purple (ie. "as normal") you can use the Stylish browser extension to override WP's style - see my sig link.