How to link to a specific post

Hey folks,

Here's a neat little trick that may come in handy.

We all know how to link to a specific thread or page in a thread. But what if you want to link to a specific post that's three-quarters of the way down the page? It's a little tricky, but once you get the hang of it it's a piece of cake.

The basic format for any post-specific link is this:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

XXXXXX is where you place the thread id.

Y is where you place the page number.

ZZZZZZZ is where you place the post id.



I'll take as example this thread:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Notice the thread id (thread) is 129257 and the page number (pg) is 5

Clicking the link will take you to the top of page 5 in the thread. Two-thirds of the way down is a post I want to link to by UM_Gazz. At the top of UM_Gazz's post (and every other post on ATS) is some info like this:

"posted on 2005/3/30 at 08:00 Post Number: 1281514 (post id: 1303407)"


Substituting the thread id 129257, page number 5, and post id 1303407 we get this:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Click the new link and it will open the page directly at UM_Gazz's post. Gazz has quite a few posts on that page, so let's see if I got it right. Here is the post you should see:

Well, it works for me, hope it works for you.


You can also link to a single post and display it isolated from all the other posts in the thread. Here's the basic format:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Again, substitute the thread id for XXXXXX and the post id for ZZZZZZZ. Don't worry about the page number:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Click the link and see what you get.

You can copy the basic link formats to a text file for future use.
Have fun.

Invaluable in cross referencing prior discussions, complaining, etc.

I bookmarked this wecomeinpeace.

Saw it done before but forgot where. Been trying to figure out how to do it for ages. Certainly beats the old "9th post down, just under the post by whatshisname with the ufo avatar" method.

Nice job wecomeinpeace. I’m sure this will be a handy reference for many members. Thanks for taking the time to put it together.

wecomeinpeace Great stuff!

A really neat thing for you to do, Im sure this will come in Very handy

Thanks

Great work!

This will be an asset!

You know it's funny, just yesterday I was wondering how to create such links.

Thanks a load!

PS: asala thinks it's great too!

INVALUABLE! I hope people use it more often now because of this.

great stuff...

this is something that SO doesn't want us to have

now, we can all be kool...

I think it's a conspiracy.

I did the very same thing

Isn't it nice to get great tips like this from other ATS's?

Awesome trick wecomeinpeace.......bookmarked......thanks.....

Howdy. I am trying to post a link to an article, but when I post it, an ampersand and the characters 'sect' are replaced by a section symbol. Here is the link:

____this_is_the_error___________________________________VVVV
www.zmag.org...§ionID=11

I can't figure out why this is happening. The 'section' symbol you see (§) is actually supposed to be an ampersand followed by the word 'section'. When I paste it, the system replaces the ampersand and the first four letters, 'sect'.

I know this is off topic but I didn't want to waste a post for this small problem and a U2U to a mod would not have allowed me to preview my message for formatting.

What's up with this?


[edit on 31-3-2005 by smallpeeps]

Theres also the Printable Version of threads that you can use when you wanna print out a thread. It saves ink and paper!

Just add &action=printable at the end of a thread URL. Like so:


www.abovetopsecret.com...

XXX being the Thread number.

It also works with the Clean URL format...
www.abovetopsecret.com...&action=printable

Example:
www.abovetopsecret.com...&action=printable


[edit on 3-31-2005 by dreamlandmafia]

Works fine for me.
www.zmag.org...

Are you copying and pasting from Microsoft Word? Might have something to do with that. Copy from a text document instead (Notepad or Wordpad) and see how you go, or type the URL manually in your compose post screen, or right click and copy the location of the link that I posted.

Also might be something to do with HTML coding and the way your browser is set up, since the "&" symbol is used to denote character entities in HTML, but I dunno, just guessing here.

Well I hate to be the one to ask a stupid question, but I don't know how to link to a specific thread. Is it done in a similar manner? Would someone be so kind as to fill me in?

You can simply open the thread you wish to direct people to and copy the entire url in your browser's address bar.

Thank you for that information, it should come in handy.

Bumping this valuable information.
I've had it bookmarked for sometime now .

/bump again. Some great info here. Please ignore my other post. I'll just go crawl under my desk . . .