Hyperlinks, Anchors, and Links
- In web terms, a hyperlink is a reference (an address) to a resource on the web.
Hyperlinks can point to any resource on the web: an HTML page, an image, a sound file, a movie, etc.
An anchor is a term used to define a hyperlink destination inside a document.
The HTML anchor element <a>, is used to define both hyperlinks and anchors .
We will use the term HTML link when the <a> element points to a resource, and the term HTML anchor when the <a> elements defines an address inside a document. .
An HTML Link
Link syntax:
<a href="url">Link text</a>
The start tag contains attributes about the link .
The element content (Link text) defines the part to be displayed .
Note: The element content doesn't have to be text. You can link from an image or any other HTML element .
- The href Attribute
The href attribute defines the link "address" .
This <a> element defines a link to W3Schools:
<a href="http://www.w3schools.com/">Visit W3Schools!</a>
The code above will display like this in a browser:
Visit W3Schools!
- The target Attribute
The target attribute defines where the linked document will be opened .
The code below will open the document in a new browser window:
Example
<a href="http://www.w3schools.com/"
target="_blank">Visit W3Schools!</a>
- The name Attribute
When the name attribute is used, the <a> element defines a named anchor inside a HTML document .
Named anchor are not displayed in any special way. They are invisible to the reader .
- Named anchor syntax:
<a name="label">Any content</a>
The link syntax to a named anchor:
<a href="#label">Any content</a>
The # in the href attribute defines a link to a named anchor .
Example:
A named anchor inside an HTML document:
<a name="tips">Useful Tips Section</a>
A link to the Useful Tips Section from the same document:
<a href="#tips">
A link to the Useful Tips Section from another document:
<a href="http://www.w3schools.com/html_tutorial.htm#tips">
- The Image Tag and the Src Attribute
In HTML, images are defined with the <img> tag.
The <img> tag is empty, which means that it contains attributes only and it has no closing tag.
To display an image on a page, you need to use the src attribute. Src stands for "source". The value of the src attribute is the URL of the image you want to display on your page.
- The syntax of defining an image:
<img src="url" />
The URL points to the location where the image is stored. An image named "boat.gif" located in the directory "images" on "www.w3schools.com" has the URL: http://www.w3schools.com/images/boat.gif.
The browser puts the image where the image tag occurs in the document. If you put an image tag between two paragraphs, the browser shows the first paragraph, then the image, and then the second paragraph.
- The Alt Attribute
The alt attribute is used to define an "alternate text" for an image. The value of the alt attribute is an author-defined text:
<img src="boat.gif" alt="Big Boat" />
The "alt" attribute tells the reader what he or she is missing on a page if the browser can't load images. The browser will then display the alternate text instead of the image. It is a good practice to include the "alt" attribute for each image on a page, to improve the display and usefulness of your document for people who have text-only browsers.
- Basic Notes - Useful Tips
If an HTML file contains ten images - eleven files are required to display the page right. Loading images take time, so my best advice is: Use images carefully.
Image Tags
Tag Description <img> Defines an image <map> Defines an image map <area Defines a clickable area inside an image map
