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John Hawkinson
John Hawkinson
Inspiring
November 14, 2011
Question

Copied HTML links become broken relative links?

  • November 14, 2011
  • 4 replies
  • 2709 views

In late October, after the forum software change, I started having an occasional (I think!) problem pasting links.

My typical practice would be to cut-and-paste a FAQ link from the InDesign General Overview page, and sometimes the link would end up with pieces missing in my post. The URL looked right, but if you clicked it, you got taken to an invalid page.

I think I've tracked down the source -- the link gets interpreted as a relative link when copied, and the anchor point to which the link is relative changes, so the link becomes busted.

To make this concrete, I start on http://forums.adobe.com/community/indesign/indesign_general?view=overview (the InDesign General overview page), and in the "InDesign Troubleshooting 101: The most common advice when things don't work" section at the top, I select the entire line "Trash, Replace, Reset, or Restore the application Preferences: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990".

Looks like the right thing as I type this in the normal editor. But if I click the HTML editor, I see:

<a class="jive-link-thread-small active_link" href="../../thread/526990">http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990"</a>

And of course, the "../.." in the href seems bound to cause problems.

But not always. I tried a test in the the testing forum on Oct. 30: http://forums.adobe.com/message/3998418#3998418 and it worked just fine.

Anyhow, this is kind of annoying, but I perhaps it can make it into Jive's bug report queue...

Workaround seems to be to click HTML and inspect the link carefully.

This topic has been closed for replies.

4 replies

nealeh
nealeh
Inspiring
November 19, 2011

John Hawkinson wrote:

My typical practice would be to cut-and-paste a FAQ link

----

Anyhow, this is kind of annoying, but I perhaps it can make it into Jive's bug report queue...

Workaround seems to be to click HTML and inspect the link carefully.

I'm having the same problem (using FireFox 3.6). It has always been my practice to drag and drop a topic header from a FAQ entry into a discussion. This used to be perfect - you got the text heading of the FAQ entry and a functioning link. Much better (IMO) than just a web address or a 'see here' post.

But now clicking the links goes to an 'oops page'.

Hoping you can fix this soon.

Cheers,
--
Neale
Insanity is hereditary, you get it from your children

pwillener
pwillener
Legend
November 15, 2011

John Hawkinson wrote:

And of course, the "../.." in the href seems bound to cause problems.

Why is this "bound to cause problems"; this way of relative linking is used billions of times all over the Internet.

Anyway, I always use the Insert Link button on the forum editor; this always creates a straight link: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/909550

<a href="http://forums.adobe.com/thread/909550">http://forums.adobe.com/thread/909550</a>

John Hawkinson
John HawkinsonAuthor
Inspiring
November 15, 2011

pwillener:

Why is this "bound to cause problems"; this way of relative linking is used billions of times all over the Internet.

It causes problems when the page that uses such a relative link is not two levels up from /thread. Because that makes the relative link wrong.

It is not that relative links are wrong. It is that relative links should not appear in copied links in the Jive HTML editor.

Just as if you cut and paste a link from this web site into, say, an e-mail message, a relative link would be a bad thing.

My point is that being able to copy the entire linked text and paste it in the editor is a convenience, and quite a handy one. Using the link button is at best a workaround and probably less convnient than the HTML editor at that.  Ideallly none of these options should be necessary.

Noel:

What browser are you using, and exactly how are you copying the link?

I wonder if what you're seeing could be browser-specific behavior, possibly influenced by OS platform...

I am sure it relates to browsers, almost everything that is a subtle problem involving Javascript is.

In my case, Firefox, ranging from FF7 through FF9 on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

I doubt repeating the test 20 times tells you much. As I noted, it often doesn't seem to happen, but I think the relative links are the simplest explanation (Occam's Razor) for the problem.

Noel Carboni
Noel Carboni
Legend
November 15, 2011

But exactly how are you copying the links?  Dragging a highlight across the text then copying it?  Right-clicking and choosing Copy Link Location?

I can't fathom how it could work most of the time, on the very same links, but there's no question the Jive programmers are a talented bunch for wringing near biological performance out of a web browser. 

And what's FF9?  A beta?  Seems to me as of about yesterday the latest release was 8.0, last week it was 7.0, and last month it was 6.0.  What's with all the major version changes?  Are they trying to catch up to IE?

-Noel

Noel Carboni
Noel Carboni
Legend
November 14, 2011

What browser are you using, and exactly how are you copying the link?

I wonder if what you're seeing could be browser-specific behavior, possibly influenced by OS platform...

On Windows 7 I right-clicked the link you noted in IE9 and chose Copy Shortcut, then pasted it here...  I repeated the process 10 times, alternating between the two links listed there.  The URL seems to be all there in every case...

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526991

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526991

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526991

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526991

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526991

I did the same thing using Safari 5.1 and right-click + Copy Link...

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526991

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526991

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526991

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526991

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526991

Firefox 8.0 - right-click and Copy Link Location...

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526991

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526991

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526991

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526991

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526991

-Noel

Phillip M Jones
Phillip M Jones
Inspiring
November 14, 2011

I always copy the link in the go to box (see: http://www.screencast.com/t/h08kVoZl)

Then copy to the forum then highlight and click on link to so it ends up:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4024079#4024079

So the link always works.

John Hawkinson
John HawkinsonAuthor
Inspiring
November 14, 2011

That should not and did not used to be necessary. It is error-prone when one wants the content prior to and following the link, which is explanatory text explaining the purpose of the link.

But also, the problem seems not to be consistently reproducible, and in fact I may misdiagnose it (no evidence). I did not correct the above link (../../thread/526990), yet it rendered properly above. So YMMV.

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