About Active Links in Article Windows

The term "active link" refers to any piece of plain text within an Article Window's content area which happens to be an Internet address (URL). Most commonly, it is a website or email address. When active links are turned on, double-clicking on this piece of text launches the Internet address.

For example, let's say you import an email message which contains the text "My new website is http://www.example.com". If you double-click on the text "http://www.example.com", your web browser will launch that URL.

If your imported message contains the text "My new email is john@example.com", then double-clicking on "john@example.com" will launch your email client software with that address in the message "To" field.

How Active Links Work

When Active URL Links are turned on, the link icon appears on the Status Bar.

To turn Active URL Links on or off, see the Articles tab of the Preferences Dialog Box (File Menu). When you turn links on, you may choose to use Visible or Invisible links. With invisible links, the link's text uses the existing font formatting used in your article. With visible links, the link's text changes to blue, underlined font formatting. In the latter case, links are easily recognizable, but previous font formatting may be lost.

When the links are active, the link cursor appears whenever the mouse is held over a clickable URL. Double-click on the link to launch it.

When you launch a URL, Personal Knowbase opens whichever Windows application is configured for that type of URL. Most links open your default Web browser and send the URL to it. A mailto: URL opens your email client application.

Links to Files

The preferred method for linking to files from within article text is to use hypertext links. For more information, see About Hypertext Links in Article Windows.

To link to files using active links, use a file:// URL. This prefix indicates a file link and opens the file in whichever Windows application is associated with its file type.

If a file's path name includes spaces, you must enclose the file name in double-quotes to link to it. In that case, clicking on the file:// prefix opens the corresponding file. For example, to link to a file called "my file.txt" in the "My Documents" folder of your C: drive, the link is file://"c:\My Documents\my file.txt".

For information on using active links to files using relative paths, see About File Links and Relative Paths.