Tip, April 2001
Live Hypertext Links in DB/TextWorks® or CS/TextWorks
You can link directly from a DB/TextWorks or CS/TextWorks Report or Display screen to a URL, email address or network file. You need to do two things to enable this feature, as follows.
1. Set the relevant option on your computer
Open TextWorks and click Tools>Options>Display.
Tick the box labelled Detect URLs, EMail links, etc. and convert to hypertext links.
When you tick this box (which is unticked by default), the following items in Report or Display windows will automatically be converted to hypertext links:
- URLs (www.inmagic.com or http://support.inmagic.com)
- Email links (mailto:inmagic@inmagic.com)
- File links (file://c:\data\library.doc)
2. Add the relevant characters to the link
If you want a string to appear as a link, you need to add the characters that force Windows to recognise the string as a link. The required strings are:
| Email links | mailto: |
| File links | file:// |
| URLs | No extra characters needed As long as a string starts with http:// or www, Windows will recognise it as a URL link |
If your textbase contains fields for email addresses or file names, the recommended method for converting these fields into links is to add mailto: or file:// as Beginning Text in the form designer. That way, when you create a textbase record you only need to include the actual file name and path or the actual email address as the entry in the record; the form design will make the linking itself work.
If the link is not an entire entry in a field, but rather is surrounded by other text, you will need to include the mailto: or file:// string in the field entry rather than as part of the form design. For example, if you have an Abstract or Summary field that contains a substantial number of words, and an email link is included amongst those words, you will need to include the mailto: string as part of the field entry.
Notes
Note 1: This option is ignored in the Edit window – that is, it only functions in Report and Display windows.
Note 2: The information above pertains to DB/TextWorks and CS/TextWorks only. WebPublisher PRO uses HTML conventions and hence treats links in a different manner.
Note 3: If any of your file links contain file names or folder names with spaces in them, you will need to include angle braces – that is, your Beginning Text should be <file:// and your Ending Text should be >, as illustrated in this screen shot:
This tip was created in April 2001 and amended in October 2004.
Maxus Australia Pty Ltd - Contact us for any further information or other hints.