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Link to Header within a page - will it work on Live Site
I seem to have a problem with linking to a Header in a page. This is the format I'm using [[Biodiesel_Additional_Resources#Biodiesel_Case_Studies]] I tried it in preview mode from Firefox and was delighted that it worked fine. But then tried in Internet Explorer, and it links below the section I'm aiming for. See the links at the bottom of this page for example: http://cop.extension.org/wiki/Introdu....
This was going to be my solution for how to link to specific types or topic areas of "Additional Resources" on most content pages. I don't want to have to separate into another million pages if I can help it! What happens in other browsers? Is there some other way I can successfully code in to link to a section of a page? Do I need a whole different solution?
I'm looking forward to knowledge and other ideas.
Thanks - Sue
This was going to be my solution for how to link to specific types or topic areas of "Additional Resources" on most content pages. I don't want to have to separate into another million pages if I can help it! What happens in other browsers? Is there some other way I can successfully code in to link to a section of a page? Do I need a whole different solution?
I'm looking forward to knowledge and other ideas.
Thanks - Sue
I’m suspended between hopeful and worried
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Inappropriate?Hi Sue,
Offhand, I can't think of any reason why IE wouldn't handle the link as expected - linking to anchors is pretty fundamental to the web and has been around since the beginning.
I just tested in IE7 and it worked as expected. If it's still not working for you, please include some specific browser info, and we'll see if we can reproduce it. thanks!
Ben
I’m unable to figure this out without more information.
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Inappropriate?Thanks Ben
I too have IE7(7.0.5730.13).
After playing it over several times, what seems to be happening is that it links as ut should to the correct header BUT then IE "shrinks" the Table of Contents down which scrolls the whole page so that the header now and however many lines below it don't show.
Sue
I’m getting more hopeful
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Inappropriate?Ben or others with thoughts-
When I noted problem above, I said it was issue in Preview, but then gave the wiki URL. Here is the correct URL for the preview page that is example for how links to header within a page are not working right in IE.
http://preview.extension.org/pages/In...
See last comment for what it's doing.
Is fine in Firefox.
Some way around this so I can use the function in pages to be published?
I’m still wondering
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This answers the question
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thanks - I can reproduce the problem now. It looks like it's a javascript issue specific to IE. We'll see if we can figure out a solution. -
Inappropriate?Sue, after looking into this, I don't think there's going to be a quick fix. What's happening is that IE is drawing the whole page, calculating the position for the anchor tag and then performing the js transformation that collapses the table of contents. FF does the transformation first, then calculates the position. The only way to fix this right now would be to hide the table of contents in the wiki. But that means that users wouldn't get the benefit of the ToC on the page. I"m sorry that there's not a better solution right now.
I’m sorry
1 person says
this answers the question
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Inappropriate?Thanks Ben, I appreciate you're looking into it, even if I don't like the answer! Maybe we could just ban IE. Any idea what % of people use which browsers? I assume IE is dominant. What others are there in addition to IE and FF?
I’m annoyed at IE for foiling my linking plans
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Inappropriate?Hi Sue,
Internet Explorer is still dominant -over the last month it looks like this:
And then of course, every browser has multiple versions, which in the case of Internet Explorer - might have drastically different capabilities and quirks.
Firefox is a bit better across version, but has its share also:
I'm not sure we could ban IE, banning IE version 6.0 would bring great joy and happiness to everyone that has ever been a web developer, web designer, or web user, however.
I’m enjoying the fact that the realization that Internet Explorer is garbage is spreading beyond developer ranks.
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Inappropriate?Thanks Jason
OK all, so back to my original wondering now that I know there isn't a real solution...
What do you think of linking from one page to a header in another, while knowing that IE will bring one to that header, then collapsing the table of contents, and so showing the wrong spot in the page.
Hmmm - doesn't sound so great does it? I assume users would find fault with eXtension pages because of that... or at least be confused.
Perhaps better approach for me would be to note what user would find on page, without header referenced in link. Then they would be able to click on table of contents to get themselves to the right spot...
Some situations might make that quasi-acceptable, some not. -
Inappropriate?I don't really know. I'm not sure there is a 'right' answer here, and you'll likely get varied opinions on what might be best.
I think that the principle that you want to work against is to "keep it simple" and "not introduce unexpected behavior" - the latter being the problem for any IE users that land on that page, and do click the links at the bottom to explore more information.
You can try turning the table of contents off entirely and then linking to the anchors, or as you mentioned, not linking to the anchors at all.
You might also reconsider the additional resources page entirely, and pull those links back in within a contextual way back into the article - or additional articles as needed, linking within the body to those resources as they provide supporting or additional information on the point being made. I'm not sure that the page full of links is going to give you a return on the investment that it took to compile (and the ongoing investment of managing those links). I doubt it's going to come up in search results, and I'm not sure that it will be clicked on much from the other articles. It's hard to say for sure though (and having just a handful of people learn more by exploration may be worth the investment, I don't know. Every time I do one of those kinds of things in other contexts, the links are quickly out of date, or superseded by better resources) -
Inappropriate?As Jason points out, there's not a "right answer". I would probably give "turning the table of contents off entirely and then linking to the anchors" a try and see how that feels.
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Inappropriate?Many issues - I know!
Am trying to keep them all in mind as we develop our system.
Since Case Studies, Research Summaries, and Decision Tools are going to be a cornerstone of our content, we want to be able to make a link from each article.
For instance, we want someone to be able to link to all case studies or topical case studies, depending on how specific or general the article is that they are reading.
Any reference that is particularly relevant will be linked directly.
Having all our references on one page makes them much easier for us to manage and keep updated (or so I think). For a number of reasons, I wasn't crazy about extra pages for each of these types of resources, but that may be the way we go... stay tuned.
Anyway - I think I have all the issues clear and can do some internal wrestling.
Thanks Ben and Jason for your feedback!
Over and out - Sue
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