Tip: How to get a precise URL for a forum message

[Richard Buckle]

Notice the tiny page icon ( or ) sitting humbly in every message header. Besides indicating read/unread status, it houses a permanent, precise, bookmark-able link to itself. You can copy or bookmark its URL using the usual commands for your particular web browser (as a rule, you right-click or ctrl-click it).

You can then paste this URL into a forum message that you're composing. This is a good way to cite a message precisely, and removes the need to give approximate directions, such as: "Look in topic 'blah' for a message from 'wossisname' with subject 'fnugle'. I'm sure you'll find it."

For those who are curious, the URL is of the form <http://www.iview-multimedia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1231#1231>. 1231 is the unique ID of the message. The "p=1231" instructs phpBB to load up the topic containing that message, and the "#1231" refers to an anchor that makes the browser scroll down to the start of the message.

Hope this is useful,
Richard.