I'll take you there!

March 11, 2009 1:18 PM

Is there a way to link to a particular spot on a webpage if that webpage doesn't have built in anchors?

I want to link to a particular item in a very long list on a page of html (ENGL 288-03 on this page of course listings). Is there a way to create a link that will take someone directly there?

posted by ocherdraco to computers & internet (13 comments total)

no
posted by bitdamaged at 1:31 PM on March 11 [1 favorite has favorites]

Darn. It seems like this ought to be possible. (If browsers had uniform search functions, maybe it would exist.) Guess I'll have to use a search link.
posted by ocherdraco at 1:37 PM on March 11

It wouldn't hurt to drop the webmaster a line and gently suggest that this isn't the best way to present this information. At the very least they should offer a "search this page" box for a page this long (but I'd argue for an information restructuring.

/usability specialist for similar higher ed stuff, who has fought against long pages for years
posted by coolguymichael at 2:00 PM on March 11

Guess I'll have to use a search link.

Guess you did.
posted by dersins at 2:03 PM on March 11

It doesn't seem to work as well as it once did, but in a pinch I'll use PurpleSlurple, which makes a granularly linked copy of a page.
posted by Kylio at 2:07 PM on March 11 [1 favorite has favorites]

Yup, dersins. I did.

Purple Slurple seems interesting. (Also: Purple Slurple?!)
posted by ocherdraco at 2:12 PM on March 11

Ah! That code! My eyes! My beautiful eyes!

Ahem. It's unfortunate that they've only used id's twice in the code of the page - once at the very top, for "Spring 2009 Undergraduate Courses", and once at the "Drama and Politics" section. If the latter was your area of interest, ocherdraco, you can link to the id value of that section:

<a href="http://www.vanderbilt.edu/english/undergraduate/courses#1223568273374S">Drama and Politics</a>
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 2:25 PM on March 11

The AwesomeHighlighter will allow you to highlight a section of a webpage and then get a TinyURL type link that send the person to the page with your highlights visible.

Then the person just has to scroll and look for yellow highlighted text.
posted by ijoyner at 6:34 PM on March 11

You could take a screenshot of the relevant portion and share it via Evernote's public notebook feature. Then include a link to the real deal and tell your readers to use the search feature of their web browser to find it (an incredibly useful and underutilized feature, that).
posted by wheat at 6:38 AM on March 12

As it's just a couple of paragraphs of text, what's so wonderful about seeing it in context on that ugly page?

Just wondering why you can't just copy and paste.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 3:41 PM on March 12

He was looking for a way to link directly to it for this FPP, AmbroseChapel.
posted by dersins at 3:49 PM on March 12

Not that it matters, dersins, but I'm a woman.
posted by ocherdraco at 7:16 PM on March 12

Sorry. My bad. I'm usually better about that kid of assumption.
posted by dersins at 10:42 AM on March 13