As of August 1st, 2008, the Edutech web site will no longer be updated. Edutech was funded by the Swiss Virtual Campus programme, which ended on July 31st, 2008. Some activities will be taken over by the e-Learning Services group at the SWITCH foundation.
Linking to Files and Tools in Vista
Introduction
This page provides you with a step by step instruction to create html links pointing to files or to tools in Vista. Further information can be found in Part 4, Chapter 17, Sect: "File Manager", Designers and Instructors Reference, Vista 4 p. 325 (pdf, 2.3 MB) . Get UN & PW at edutech Vista Support.
Table of Content
- Relative Hyperlinks among Files in File Manager
- Absolute Hyperlinks to Tools in Vista
- Absolute Hyperlinks to Files in Vista
- Outside Access to Files in the File Manager without authentification
Relative Hyperlinks among Files in File Manager
If you are an experienced creator of HTML pages, you know that you can link pages among themselves using relative paths. These links will also work inside a Vista course, if the relative path between the files has not been changed. You would also know that relative links to files in the same folder only require to use the file names. However, when linking to a file in another folder, there are two key navigational commands to remember: / and ../. The / command navigates to the parent folder of the current folder.
It is recommended, that you only use relative links between your files, since this will guaranty you that these links will also work inside Vista. Even more so, since that will also allow you to use these files in courses derived from templates. If you normally use absolute links between files on a server among files on that server, these links will no longer work when you upload the corresponding files into Vista.
Using relative links also allows you to create HTML content using your own HTML editor on your computer and then upload the files to File Manager. You can select any uploaded file as a content file and as long as you create the same folder structure in the template.
If with your link you plan to use the target attribute (for example, target="_blank"), or if you want to create this link from a Vista text field, you will have to create the relative links with reference to the root folder. The root folder for relative links in Vista's File Manager for template designers is the template folder and for Section Designers is the Section Content folder. For those links in Vista it is required that you type RelativeResourceManager/Template/ before the file name.
<a href="RelativeResourceManager/Template/HTML_File.html">Link to HTML File in the template or Section Content folder</a>.
Example: In a content file, if you want to link to an HTML file in the template or Section Content folder and specify that the file will open in a new window, you would use a tag similar to the following:
<a href="RelativeResourceManager/Template/HTML_File.html" target="_blank">Link to HTML File in the template or Section Content folder</a>.
Example: In a mail message, if you want to link to an image file in a subfolder of the template or Section Content folder, such as a folder named Images, you would use a tag similar to the following:
<a href="RelativeResourceManager/Template/Images/Image_File.gif">Link to Image File in the Images subfolder in the template or Section Content folder</a>.
Note: If you create this relative link using Vista's HTML creator, "RelativeResourceManager" will automatically be added to the path.
 "Click image to see animation")
Absolute Hyperlinks to Tools in Vista
All Vista tools possess absolute addresses. Designer can find these absolute addresses in clicking with the right mouse button onto the icon of the target tool. The link address will be indicated in the Properties-menu. You can than use this URL to create a HTML-Link in a HTML-page or a text field inside the section.
Absolute Hyperlinks to Files in Vista
All files in Vista possess absolute addresses. Designer can find these absolute addresses in clicking - in the File Manager - with the right mouse button onto the link of the target file
- Go to the File Manager of the target section.
- Open the target file in a new browser, with a right click on the file name and the context menu. The new windows address field is showing the absolute URL of this file.
- Copy this URL for further use.
Note: To use such an absolute file address for access from outside Vista, please consult the paragraph below.
Outside Access to Files in Vista without authentification
An Institution (and Group) Administrator can make files in the File Manager accessible to the Internet if she or he possesses the editing rights for the target file. In that case the Institution (and Group) Administrator changes the settings of the target file to "system public".
- Go to the File Manager.
- From the action menus to the right side select the settings menu (see the little blue round icon) of the target file.
- Open the file - with a right click on the file name and the context menu - in a new browser. The new windows address field is showing the absolute URL of this file.
- Copy this URL and use it in a mail or in a HTML-page.