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Adding Links to a Page

Links provide navigation throughout a Web page. When creating links, keep in mind:

  • No new windows: Current best practices, ADA compliance and our policy advise you to minimize launching new windows for links. The default behavior for a user is to use the back button when navigating a site.
  • Never create links with the text "click here;" ADA compliance requires that links provide clear information about where the link will take the user.
  • Check external links regularly. Sites may expire, change or become irrelevant. There are many tools you can use to scan your site for broken links, such as Xenu.
  • Underlining text should not be used anywhere other than to denote a link.
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Creating an Internal Link

An internal link is a link that is both on Upstate and inside Cascade. Use this to link to pages within your site or other pages within Cascade. Otherwise, create an External Link. Don't link to "dev" or "demo" sites, as the link will be broken until that site is live.
  1. Select the text you wish to become the link.
  2. Click Insert/edit link. linkbutton.gif The Insert/Edit Link window will appear.
    • Select the Internal radio button
    • Click Choose File, Page, or Link to navigate to the page you wish to link.
    • Type in a title to enhance accessibility. The title will show if the user hovers their mouse over the link. Best practice says that if the link takes you away from the current site, tell the user.
      For example in Title type: Link to ... website.

      cms8-links-internal.jpg
  3. Click Insert/Update to add the link.

To edit a link, select the existing hyperlink and click linkbutton.gif. Use unlink icon to remove all or part of the link from text on your page. Make your changes and click Update.

Creating an External LInk

An external link is a link that is not found in Cascade. This includes pages outside Upstate (eg. CNN.com) or pages within Upstate that is not currently in Cascade (eg. events in the Upstate Calendar).
  1. Select the text you wish to become the link.
  2. Click Insert/edit link. linkbutton.gif The Insert/Edit Link window will appear.
    • Click the External radio button and type the full URL in the Link box (e.g., http://www.google.com/). Make sure you include the "http://" otherwise the link will be broken.

      cms8-links-external.jpg
  3. Click Insert/Update to add the link.

To edit a link, select the existing hyperlink and click linkbutton.gif. Make your changes and click Update.

Creating an email link

To create a link to an email address, follow the instructions above for an External Link, but in the "Link" area, type "mailto:[email protected]" (e.g., mailto:[email protected]).

Creating a link to a file

Creating a link to a PDF file, Word document or Excel file, is similar to adding a link to a page.  The only caveat is, you must first upload the file before you can link to it.  Follow the instructions in the previous section Uploading Files for help with that.

  1. To begin, select the text that will become the link
  2. Click Insert/edit link. linkbutton.gif The Insert/Edit Link window will appear.
  3. Select the Internal radio button and then click Choose File, Page, or Link to navigate to the page you wish to link.
  4. Select the file and click Confirm, then add "title" text.  Then click Insert
  5. The link is now in place.  Click Submit at the bottom to save your changes

To create an External Link, begin by selecting Add Content > Create > New External Link.  By default the new link will be placed into the _cascade > links folder.  This can be moved later if the external link is to be shown in a left navigation menu.

There are only a few items that need to be filled in: 

  1. Give the link a system name - like all system names, lowercase and no spaces.
  2. Fill in the display name - the type that will show in the left menu or quicklinks list.
  3. Enter the complete URL - everything including the http://  at the front.

creating it

Click the submit button and the link is created in the links folder.  If you want this to be part of a left menu, now you can move it to the folder where it should be, and then reorder the list if needed.

Quick links, a collection of important links that's often featured beside content on a landing page, are available to create via our content block.

quicklinks block

  1. Class - the choices are either Bullets, Buttons, Menu, and No Bullets. Examples are below.
  2. Title of the box - This is optional, but often preferred. We tend to use all-caps, ala "QUICK LINKS" or "RESOURCES."
  3. + and - - Use this to add, remove, and rearrange links.
  4. Link Text - This is the text that will appear for the link.
  5. Page, file, or external link - Pick out in cascade asset you want to send users to.
  6. Icon - If the link is a PDF, external link, Word Document, or Intra link, please click the correct button.

When complete, you can add the block into the right column of your site.

Remember, blocks cannot be published. After completing your changes, don't forget to publish every page that has this quicklink box (in many cases this means publishing the entire site) to see your changes on the live site.

Use: highlight a link on a page, often on main pages or for very important links.

Permissions: ask the Web Team to create one for your page.

How: to make a button, create an <a> tag and add any of these classes to it:

button-bordered

Emergency Services

button-bordered block

Emergency Services

button-bordered block hide-link-icon

Emergency Services

button-blue

Emergency Services

button-blue block

Emergency Services

button-blue block hide-link-icon

Emergency Services

button-bg3 block

Emergency Services

Example

<a class="button-bordered" href="https://www.example.com/">Emergency Services</a>
    

Block look in 3 column'd wysiwyg

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