asked on

Adding an active URL Link within Text Editor

Hello,

A developer has created a PHP site which sends an automatically generated email to a nominated user. This email contains a link. I notice that in Gmail this link is active and clickable - however in Yahoo mail, this link is inactive and is just text (confirmed by other users).

Below is the code used:

{P}To login and complete your assessment, please click on this link {A}http://www.mysite.com/here{AEND} and then enter your password {TOKENID}.{PEND}

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Is there a way to edit this code to ensure the url shown is 'active' (clickable) when it hits all email providers?

Thanks

Dan Craciun

Try to see if regular HTML code works:

<p>To login and complete your assessment, please click on this link <a href="http://www.mysite.com/here">http://www.mysite.com/here</a> and then enter your password {TOKENID}.</p>

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If not, we're going to need the code, cause something should replace {A} and {AEND} with html code and apparently it's not doing so.

HTH,
Dan

dabug80

ASKER

Thanks for the suggestion, but it didn't work. I found this discussion on links not working in Yahoo mail. Perhaps it's a Yahoo thing.

Dan Craciun

Gmail and most email clients will take anything that resembles an URL and transform it into a clickable link.
Yahoo decided not to.

Try to see the source of the message as it was received (in gmail, yahoo, does not matter) and see if the URL has standard <a> tags surrounding it.

dabug80

ASKER

I've viewed the Yahoo page source and it's showing:

<\/p>\\n\\nTo login and complete your assessment, please click on this link http:\/\/www.mysite.com\/here and then enter your password

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So it doesn't look like Yahoo likes to code links

Dan Craciun

It's not Yahoo's job to code links, it's yours. Just because gmail helps you when you forget, does not mean Yahoo is forced to do the same.

You need to send standard html code, so review the generator (that at the moment only escapes "/", not adding the <a></a> tags).

dabug80

ASKER

I tried emailing with just the content:

<a>mysite.com</a>

And the link still didn't activate.

Dan Craciun

Of course. That's not valid code. Try this:
<a href="mysite.com">mysite.com</a>

dabug80

ASKER

Ok. I tried

<a href="http://www.mysite.com">mysite.com</a>
and
<a href="mysite.com">mysite.com</a>

Neither worked (that was the only content I had in the email). It just returned text in Yahoo.

Dan Craciun

How did you send the email? From an email client? If so, you have to use the "Insert hyperlink" feature.
Here's what Thunderbird sent when I just pasted <a href="http://www.mysite.com">mysite.com</a> in the message body:

 &lt;a href=3D<a class=3D"moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href=3D"http://www.my=
site.com">"http://www.mysite.com"</a>&gt;mysite.com&lt;/a&gt;

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And here's the result when using "Insert hyperlink":

<a href=3D"http://www.mysite.com">mysite.com</a>

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ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Ray Paseur

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Ray Paseur

Thanks for the points. Looking over some of the broadcast email I receive I'm finding a frequent and sensible design that says, "Click here or copy / paste into your browser." Seems like a good idea.