Link to a particular post?

LisaAlissa

I don't know how to reliably post a link to a particularly useful post on these forums.

If I'm posting a link to another site, I have no difficulty: (type whatever words I want to be the link, highlight them, click the "insert/edit link" button above the edit window, put the target url in the "Link/url" text box, then click "Insert"). Done.

However this doesn't seem to work when I want to link to a particular post in the forum.  When I try the same procedure, it seems to work, but when you try to use the link, it produces an error message.  "Page not found" etc.  

So.  How do I do it?

Thanks,

LisaAlissa 

LisaAlissa

Hi Judith, et al.

I had reviewed the Instructions under "How do I add a link to another website in my message," but didn't see any details about how to link to a particular post in the forums there.  That is, in my new post, I wish to include a link to someone else's post, also on the forums here.  (BTW, the link above seems to work, but perhaps it's only links to forum posts that are difficult?)

When the tech team reviews, could you also ask them how I should get the url for the particular post I want to link to?  I know that I can link to the page, but is there something in particular that a post's url is attached to?  

Thanks!

LisaAlissa 

Moderators

Hi again, LisaAlissa:

I've been experimenting, and although it requires a couple of steps, this looks like a way to find the URL for a particular post. For an example, I'll use a post by Timtam in the Lymphedema category and a forum called "Instruction on how to wrap your hand and arm."

The URL at the top of the page displays this: http://community.breastcancer.org/forum/64/topic/707625?page=1 but not the actual post number. However, try it with these steps:

1. Go to Search (near the top right of any page) and use a couple of words that appear together in the post as keywords - "wasn't compatible" in this case, including the quotes. 
2. Use the pull-down menu to select the Category the post is in (in this case, Lymphedema).
3. Select a time period, if that helps to narrow the search results.
4. Click the Search button.

From the search results, click the title of the one that matches the post you were looking for. Now the URL at the top of the browser page is: http://community.breastcancer.org/forum/64/topic/707625?page=1#post_963056 with the post number attached at the end.

One hint: when you're selecting the words to use as your keyword/s, pick sequential words, and ones that are relatively unusual so they won't show up in results as often.

Judith and the Mods

otter

This is a test. This is only a test.

The following link should take the reader back to LisaAlissa's post just upstream from here in this same thread:  LINK

This has only been a test.  If this had been a real post, it would have contained something useful.

otter  (now we'll see if it works...)

ETA:  Yippee!!! It works!  I have never been able to insert a working link to a post on the BCO discussion boards, until now.  Turns out, the Mods are correct:  the key is to include the post number in the link/address.  That does make things more complicated, because we can't just include the address in the window at the top of the browser screen at the time we're reading a post.  We actually have to do a "search" to locate that post in the system, so the post number will be revealed.  But... it works!

LisaAlissa

Has this procedure become any easier over the years since I first asked this question in 2011? For example, is there something on a particular post (not just the page) that we can click to get the post number for the post we want to link to?

Thanks!

LisaAlissa

Moderators

Hi Lisa,

Unfortunately not. Sorry for any inconvenience!

--The Mods

LisaAlissa

It's been a couple of years since we looked at this.

Other forums identify the particular post # of a reply in the thread, and allow you to easily "grab" a link to that particular post. (For example, in "Stitcher's Guild" (a sewing forum that runs on SMF software) it's easy to get the link to a particular post like this, by right-clicking on the subject line of the particular post and then choosing "copy link address" (or whatever your browser calls it). However there's nothing comparable to that here. While you're looking at the Stitcher's Guild post, you'll notice that it tells you that the reply the link goes to is "reply #22." There's also nothing comparable to that here.

BUT, I've noticed that if you count down the replies from the top on the page you're on (not including the original post, and not counting from page to page) you can create your own link to the particular post you're interested in.

Start on the page that has the post you want, and copy the url from your browser bar. Using thing topic, it'll look something like this:

"https: //community.breastcancer.org/forum/93/topics/776273?page=1#idx_6

format=[board's url]/forum/[board number]/topics/[thread number]

all of which you can get from the url you copied from your browser. The things you need to change are the page # and the number at the end.

For instance, if I want to link to the third post (after my OP, counting down from the top--the second moderator's reply to me, from Judith & the mods in 2011), I'll change that number at the end to "3". I don't need to change the page #, since this thread only has 1 page. If it had two pages and I wanted the 3rd reply on the 2nd page, I'd change both the page # and the "reply number" at the end. Note that I don't have to count replies from the beginning of the thread, only down from the top on the particular page.

https: //community.breastcancer.org/forum/93/topics/776273?page=1#idx_3

[Note I've added spaces after the https in the examples above: so that the link won't be active and the abbreviate itself, and you can see the code.] However "this" is what the link can look like using the insert link utility (the chain icon above the editing window).

So if we're willing to check the page number, and count down to the post we'd like to link to, we can create a direct link to it (for instance when we want to point someone to a reply on another thread that we think will be particularly helpful. All without trying to run a search (as Judith explained above) to get a particular reply link.

I note that it would still be nice to be able to right-click and get the link we need as we can on other forums (or even just number posts with the page # and reply on that page we need), but this is a fairly easy to use work-around even if we have to do the counting.

Hope others will find this useful too,

LisaAlissa

Luckynumber47

I do it a little differently. If I want to link to a post, say, LisaAlissa's post above, I scroll up and click on her name. That takes me to her profile and a list of all her posts. I click on the one I want and it takes me right to that post. Then I go up to the top of the page in the address bar. All that's visible to me is: community.breastcancer.org but if I copy it I can paste it into my new post and it has the full address to her particular post

Like this: https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/93/topics/776273?page=1#post_4960402

LisaAlissa

Hi Lucky Number,

Your method (and Judith's--see her message above) rely on being able to find the post in a search. Some of our members have thousands of posts and sometimes the post we want to find doesn't have a unique text string to make it easy to find the particular post we want. If we could specify the date, that would help, but we don't have an advanced search capability.

So. When it's not easy to find in a search, and you already have the post you want on-screen...that's when the method I describe is useful.

At least I hope this helps others (besides me...it definitely helps me. ;-) )

LisaAlissa

Moderators

HI all -- just a heads up we have submitted a request to our tech team for an easier way to grab a post url to copy and paste -- we'll keep you posted with the progress!

--The Mods

LisaAlissa

Dear Mods,

Thank you!

I'll be looking forward to your directions on how to do this. ;-)

LisaAlissa