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Adding Links


1. External Link
  1. Ensure you are in the Contents screen.
  2. Click on the page where you wish to add the link.
  3. Click on new version if the page has previously been published.
  4. Select the text which will become the link.NB Avoid using URLs as links as these are harder to read and by, instead, having meaningful text as a link it helps search indexing by making the page containing the link more relevant for the linked item.
  5. Expand the link tab on the left, if necessary.
  6. Paste / Type the full URL of the web page you want to link to.
  7. From the link target drop-down menu, choose new window, if the site is not part of UCL.
  8. Click on add link.
  9. Save, publish and test the link.


2. Internal Link
  1. Ensure you are in the Contents screen.
  2. Click on the page where you wish to add the link.
  3. Click on new version if the page has previously been published.
  4. Select the text which will become the link.
  5. Expand the link tab on the left, if necessary.
  6. Click on the green get link reference... button to open the Lookup window screen.
  7. Click on the relevant Folder to the far left, in contents, to see the page(s) inside the folder and tick the relevant page or if you can already see the page, tick the relevant page.
  8. The link will automatically be added.
  9. Click on update.
  10. Save, publish and test the link.


3. Editing a link

  1. Place the cursor within the link text.
  2. The Link box to the left will open up. NB This option only appears when the cursor is on an existing link in your Silva document.
  3. Type in the new path or web address into the space below get link reference...(or use the get link reference... button if the link is within your Silva site)
  4. Click on update link.
  5. Click on Save, publish and test the link.


4. Email link


When adding email links it is useful to keep in mind that many people use the Web for their email e.g. googlemail, hotmail etc. rather than an email client, like Outlook or Thunderbird and do not like direct links to emails that open up an email software.

In other words, you may NOT want to make direct links, but instead show the address for people to copy and paste.

  • joebloggs@ucl.ac.uk

Avoid writing, for example, email the department as this doesn't show the email address so doesn't help people using Webmail (see above).

How to create an email link

  1. Type the email address e.g. joebloggs@ucl.ac.uk
  2. Expand the link tab to the left (if necessary)
  3. Type mailto:joebloggs@ucl.ac.uk

    NB     mailto is one word, followed immediately by a colon, followed by the exact email address with NO spaces
  4. Save, publish and test the link.



5. Home link

For each website, it is necessary to create a home-link, to enable users to return to the homepage from anywhere on the site. You only have to this once.

All Silva sites come with a home-link already, but in case you want to make one:

1.    Ensure you are in the Contents screen.
2.    Click on the drop-down menu, to the left of  new…
3.    Choose Silva Link.
4.    For id*, type home_link or home-link.
5.    For title*, type Home. Make sure it has a capital H, as it will eventually appear in the navigation bar left-hand menu.
6.    For url*, copy and paste the address from the address bar e.g. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/pppp

When you paste, MAKE SURE IT SAYS: 
http:// and NOT  https:// i.e. delete the 's' if there is one.

7.    Absolute is ticked by default. Leave this.
8.    Click on save.
9.    Put a tick next to home_link or home-link and click on publish now.

The Home link should now appear in the navigation bar to the left.

Helpful hint:
If you create the Home link at a later stage, it will appear at the bottom of the list of files in the Contents screen. You need to move it to the top of the list, to ensure the link appears at the top of the navigation menu.

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Page last modified on 26 apr 13 09:53