Solved

Hyperlinks not visible on private messages

  • 23 November 2020
  • 24 replies
  • 278 views

Badge

hi all, 

I can see we can hyperlink text on private messages. However, the hyperlinked text looks exactly the same than the rest so it’s not obvious where to click. See below

 

In this sentence the words “in this thread” are hyperlinked, but you have to guess it. 

 

Any known solutions to this?

Cheers

icon

Best answer by Gabolino 11 December 2020, 13:26

View original

24 replies

Hi @Gabolino

Do you use a BBCode for what you want to hyperlink?

For example: This be bbcode.org! 

This is how you use it: 



See also the next topic. 

 

Badge
'

Hi @Gabolino

Do you use a BBCode for what you want to hyperlink?

For example: This be bbcode.org! 

This is how you use it: 



See also the next topic. 

 

Yep, all done via bbcode. The link works, but the text format doesn''t change which makes it difficult to know where to click. 

'
'

Hi @Gabolino

Do you use a BBCode for what you want to hyperlink?

For example: This be bbcode.org! 

This is how you use it: 



See also the next topic. 

 

Yep, all done via bbcode. The link works, but the text format doesn''t change which makes it difficult to know where to click. 

 

That is odd. It does work in our community. Maybe you can mail support@insided.com to discuss your challenge. Perhaps it is a bug. 

'
Badge

I just did @Moller Toma, it’s quite annoying this but nobody can see those hyperlinks and they are not visiting the posts we send on welcome private message. 

Badge
'

Hi @Gabolino

Do you use a BBCode for what you want to hyperlink?

For example: This be bbcode.org! 

This is how you use it: 



See also the next topic. 

 

Yep, all done via bbcode. The link works, but the text format doesn''t change which makes it difficult to know where to click. 

 

That is odd. It does work in our community. Maybe you can mail support@insided.com to discuss your challenge. Perhaps it is a bug. 

 

Can you try and send me a hyperlinked text via private message? To see how it looks here?

'
Badge

Got it @Moller Toma , extra question if I may, did you have to add the hyperlink via the back end or can you do it from the front end pm editor? 

I added the hyperlink via the front end pm editor by going to your profile and clicking on the email icon. 

Badge

I added the hyperlink via the front end pm editor by going to your profile and clicking on the email icon. 

interesting, via bbcode?

Badge

The problem is styling @Moller Toma , URLs are inhering our brand colour, which is black, so nobody can see them. I need to add some extra bbcode to make them visible, @Yoeri helped with that luckily. 

Userlevel 2
Badge +2

You can insert an HTML URL in the private message and add additional attributes to style the link.

<a href="url" style="text-decoration: underline; color: #ffa000;">Click here</a>

text-decoration: underline; adds an underline to the links
color: #ffa000; adds a color to the URL

I have tested it, but it does not seem to be working. The link remains plain text, and I put a url in it. 

 

 

Userlevel 2
Badge +2

Hi Moller, 

We’re talking particularly about the private message that is sent when a users receives a new rank, that is the one you can additional html attributes too:

 

Okay, I was confused with another question from @Gabolino. It is about sharing links via private messages. 

 

Hi @Yoeri - following up here on your note about putting in hyperlinks for PMs directed at new users for achieving that rank.  We are working on that now. Is there any way to preview or test that that is working by chance?

cc @Dorothyt  @mstruening 

Actually @Yoeri I’ve tried all the supplied code snippets and none of them work - we are NOT having any luck inserting hyper links into PMs (formatted or not) They just don’t link. 
I’m testing this in UAT through both Control and the front end and through Rank emails. 
Has this fix been deprecated? 
 

Userlevel 2
Badge +2

Hi @JKelley @Dorothyt this is the private message we sent (including hyperlink to a topic) when a user gets their initial ranks. Let me know if that works for you:

Hi & welcome to our inSpired community! 

We are happy to have you here. Make sure to check out our <a href="https://community.insided.com/lounge-area-14/new-to-the-inspired-community-everything-you-need-to-know-1271">"getting started"-topic</a> which will equip you with everything you need to know for a good start on our community.

 

Thanks @Yoeri - when we tried to use that same bit of HTML to test in a regular PM, the formatting/hyper link got stripped out.  Is the new user PM different?

Userlevel 2
Badge +3

Yes, at least as far as I know. I use HTML in rank messages and bbcode in regular private messages.

Thanks @Julian - @Dorothyt and I tested a few normal PMs in our UAT using the format Yoeri suggested above but it got stripped out to plain text still.  I’ll take another look. 

It would be great to confirm or troubleshoot - we’re following a recommendation from Shane and Omika to activate this message but the links are important. 

Userlevel 2
Badge +3

I had a quick look on your staging environment and saw that the way you added the hyperlinks could cause the links not to work, due to an extra space at the beginning of the url:

 

I would bet on this to be the cause for the hyperlinks not working - if the platform does not see a valid url (with an extra space it is invalid) the hyperlink will simply not be displayed.

Unfortunately I could not test this myself, but I adjusted it (for the “Bit” rank) and hope that this will work. Please check and let me know if it worked!

 

By the way, I personally would recommend to include general user onboarding information rather in the “Welcome to the community” notification and not send a private message directly after registration (if this is what you were planning to do). The reason is that the user would receive two notifications at the same time (for the private message and for the completed registration). I think it is more elegant to have all general info in that email, and then send any additional / specific information in a rank pm. This depends of course how you have defined your ranks & permissions, happy to help more if there are additional questions.

Thank you @Julian - this is helpful and we’ll test it out.

R.e. 

 I personally would recommend to include general user onboarding information rather in the “Welcome to the community” notification and not send a private message directly after registration (if this is what you were planning to do). The reason is that the user would receive two notifications at the same time (for the private message and for the completed registration). I think it is more elegant to have all general info in that email, and then send any additional / specific information in a rank pm. 

This came up during our EBR with @omika.mali and @Shane1 (that we had this PM to new users feature disabled and it could help).  We do have a thorough welcome email.  We were also wondering if that gets duplicative to have two messages to new users, although the PM could come from our community manager and be somewhat more personalized.

Overall, we are trying to optimize around more new users asking a first question / starting a topic. Our base usage and more advanced usage is quite good.  Thanks and @Dorothyt r.e. HTML tip!

Personally, I’m very much in favour of sending out the automated private message to newly registered members. When someone goes through the registration flow and lands back on the community homepage, that is when the welcome email is sent. So in my opinion most users are not going to go back and check their email before browsing the community first. Many will probably only read that welcome email at a later time after completing their first session on the community.

 

So that’s why the automated private message for new registrants offers a lot of value. As soon as they finish the registration flow they will notice they have a private message in the top right-hand corner which they’re likely to click into right away, which welcomes them to the community can point them to a helpful resource and have a call to action encouraging them to post for the first time.

 @Julian I had actually deleted the space in the URL and its in our UAT under the ‘New User - Bit rank.’  I assigned this rank by 2nd role to attempt to test and can not get this email to even send.

And when I just test it in a PM directly it does not honor the URLs. So I’m still not able to make this URL in PMs work. 
Can you provide some sample text that you know DOES work? 

Userlevel 2
Badge +3

Thanks for the update! I will have a look and add a working example to your staging environment tonight.

Reply