anchor refs are added absolute path

Posted on 21/09/2010 22:41:13

Hi,

When creating an anchor in an a tag like this href="#gotohere" in an template it seems like the absolute path is added ahead of the anchor - so the a tag presented in the browsers is like this: href="www.mycoolwebsite.com/default.aspx#gotohere"...

Is there some kind of checkbox so I can get rid of this pretty anoying "feature"?

/Regin Madsen

Replies

Nicolai Høeg Pedersen

Posted on 22/09/2010 08:51:55

Hi Regin

Can you provide an example url - think it has to do with base href when using custom urls.

Posted on 22/09/2010 15:59:08

Hi,

Sure, you can have a look at this url:
http://nitodan.net.dynamicweb.dk/Danmark---test.aspx?Purge=True

I have seen this on 3 different sites however, where at least two are using different url "types"

One using Sidenavn og ID (/Sidenavn-Side ID.aspx) and one using Placering og sidenavn (/Sti/.../Sidenavn.aspx)

/Regin

Nicolai Høeg Pedersen

Posted on 23/09/2010 14:05:39

I've just tested it - it does not get the absolute path in source code...

But when pointing at it the browser shows the entire URI - because of the base href I gues... But it works like a charm here.

Posted on 23/09/2010 14:50:34

Im sorry, I was not precisely enough.

Its not absolute paths I mean, actually its relative paths.

But the problem is:

<a href="/Danmark---test.aspx#gotothis">a test</a>

The above is what is in the source on the pageview...

This is what is entered in the template:

<a href="#gotothis">a test</a>

Seems like DW is adding the pagename to the href, which is not what is wanted...

Nicolai Høeg Pedersen

Posted on 23/09/2010 15:41:23

This is due to the base href of the SEO friendly urls.

if a base href to www.domain.dk exists and a anchor of name "#some" on a page called /Welcome.aspx it will do like www.domain.dk/#some because of the base href. That would not work then.

What is the problem with the /pagename.aspx#anchorname approach?

Posted on 24/09/2010 08:49:10

OK...why?

If I want a pagename to be included in my href I can do it myself with a tag.

My problem is that I have a number of sites using vairous JS scripts (eg. fancybox) where an anchor is used as the href to open a popup.

Furthermore if I simply want to go to an anchor on the page the page needs to be refreshed when you add this in front.

So again - why? Why do Dynamicweb CMS happens to know better than myself what URI I want ;-) ?

/Regin Madsen

Nicolai Høeg Pedersen

Posted on 24/09/2010 09:04:38

Giving I'm on this URL: http://engage.dynamicweb-cms.com/Something/else.aspx

Consider this code:

<html>
<head>
<base href="http://engage.dynamicweb-cms.com/" />
</head>

<a name="someanchor"></a>
Read all about it...
</html>

Clicking the #someanchor(Go) link would send you to http://engage.dynamicweb-cms.com/#someanchor - the frontpage which is incorrect.

That is why the relative url is added. To support what anchors are created to be.

I'll be happy to give you a check box to remove it - it will break normal usage of anchors when running some sorts of SEO urls though.

BR Nicolai

Posted on 24/09/2010 09:34:05

I do not agree

First of all I still think youre missing the point. DW should not add ANYTHING to my urls unless I tell it to. Again why do it? If I want the "address" to be part of my URL Ill add it myself using one of the tags giving me the current url.

Secondly I dont think W3C agree with you that "its the way its supposed to be".

Taken from W3C

HTML Links - The name Attribute

The name attribute specifies the name of an anchor.

The name attribute is used to create a bookmark inside an HTML document.

Bookmarks are not displayed in any special way. They are invisible to the reader.

Example

A named anchor inside an HTML document:

<a name="tips">Useful Tips Section</a>

Create a link to the "Useful Tips Section" inside the same document:

<a href="#tips">Visit the Useful Tips Section</a>

Or, create a link to the "Useful Tips Section" from another page:

<a href="http://www.w3schools.com/html_links.htm#tips">
Visit the Useful Tips Section</a>

The link is here... http://www.w3schools.com/HTML/html_links.asp

So URLS should only be added to anchors when going to an external url.

To be honest I really really cant see why you have added this feature, and most of all It seems like another "clippy" (from MS Word) thing you have thrown in.

But yes, if you do want to continuesly have this new feature which is added on a wrong basis, then please ad another checkbox to the "checkbox CMS"

Nicolai Høeg Pedersen

Posted on 24/09/2010 10:32:40

It has been there since SEO friendly URLs where introduced and removing it will break every use of anchors to navigate within a page on SEO url enabled sites - which is quite a lot.

That is why I'll give you a checkbox. So you can do fancy stuff and the editor can't do anchors.

W3C agrees with me...
- If you use the anchor with a base href tag, you also need to specify the relative path. Otherwise it FAILS. Taking a look at w3c:
W3C document on links: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/links.html
RFC describing relative link calculation: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1808.txt
So it is NOT wrong. It might be f..... anoying when you try to do fancy stuff, but it surdenly is w3c compliant.

- Fancybox as you tell it uses the name attribute to hold a URL - not exactly w3c compliant.

So it is not there to pis you or others off. It is there to make anchors work like they should.

Other things:
If the link does not start with # it does not get parsed - so you can do like:
<a href="whatever"> or <a href="%whatever"> and it will not get parsed.

But - discussing does not solve your problem. I'll have the checkbox added to the checkbox CMS right away so you'll have it with a service release pretty darn soon.

Anyways - thanks for the input. Hope you do not get the impression we do not care - because we do. There are places where DW can improve - so just keep it coming.

BR and have a nice weekend, Nicolai

Posted on 24/09/2010 11:52:43

Ahh yes, the base href, didnt take taht into account...

Iwe found a solution for my problem, So if you want to keep low on the checkboxes thats fine by me.

Posted on 30/09/2010 15:29:51

Hi,

Could you please provide the solution. I have the same problem trying to implement inline content with "prettyPhoto".

I also need the <a href="#inlinecontent">Link</a> to stay that way.

After DW parses it, its changed to <a href="/Default.aspx?ID=25&#inlinecontent">Link</a>

Thanks in advance.

Regards / Aki

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