link format, links for images etc Options

[steve72]

hi i am new to html and trying to teach myself but havent grasped the concept of links.
can anyone advise.when creating link in html say for a background image i have been using something like

<BACKGROUND="c:\CoombeDeanEaglesWeb\homepage.jpg"> so i can view this to check my work, i assume this is incorrect because when i upload to my web host the link doesnt work and dont understand when "absolute" or "relative" links are used.
can anyone advise what the link would be IF uploaded to "htdocs" folder on my web hosts server and can the same code be used for viewing when testing site not uploaded. i.e is the link CHANGED when uploading or is there a consistant code you can used for testing and AFTER uploading.
sorry for the basic question and hope you serious coders dont feel insulted by such a trivial question.

thanks in anticipation
steve

[Christian J]

hi i am new to html and trying to teach myself but havent grasped the concept of links.

See this FAQ entry: http://htmlhelp.com/faq/html/links.html#link-howto

can anyone advise.when creating link in html say for a background image

You can only create links for plain text:

CODE

    <a href="">link text</a>

or HTML elements (like an inline image):

CODE

    <a href=""><img src="dog.jpg" width="100" height="50" alt=""></a>

Since a background image is not an HTML element, it can only be a decoration of an HTML element. But you can use a background image for a link with CSS. Here's a quick example (but I advice against using the STYLE attribute in normal circumstances since it's only practical for demonstration purposes):

CODE

    <a href="" style="background-image: url(dog.jpg);">link text</a>

i have been using something like

<BACKGROUND="c:\CoombeDeanEaglesWeb\homepage.jpg"> so i can view this to check my work, i assume this is incorrect because when i upload to my web host the link doesnt work

"<BACKGROUND..." implies there's a BACKGROUND element, but there is no such element in HTML. "c:\CoombeDeanEaglesWeb\homepage.jpg" is a file path on your local computer, but on the web you must use forward slashes "/" to separate directories, and the file path should point to an image uploaded to your web host account. Also case is important on the web, it becomes easier if you always use lower case names for files and directories.

and dont understand when "absolute" or "relative" links are used.

Parts of this a bit technical: http://htmlhelp.com/faq/html/basics.html#relative-url but as long as the image and HTML document are located in the same directory you can use the simplest relative URL, like "foo.html" here:

CODE

<a href="foo.html">link text</a>

can anyone advise what the link would be IF uploaded to "htdocs" folder on my web hosts server

Why should you upload it there? AFAIK that directory is for server configuration files, and is normally hidden from normal user accounts. Besides that, see above.

and can the same code be used for viewing when testing site not uploaded. i.e is the link CHANGED when uploading or is there a consistant code you can used for testing and AFTER uploading.

If you use relative paths they usually work the same in both cases. Absolute paths will not.