One way you could put a hyperlink in a post would be to copy it from the Monthly SIG Letter. Another way would be to copy it from a previous post, such as the one made by FlybyKnite in post 3 of this thread (Mar08 Disputed Pairs).

But if you want to make a custom hyperlink yourself, it's just a matter of understanding the "language" of vBulletin, and the "structure" of VIPS.

First, to insert a Hyperlink, you can use the "Create Link" button provided by vBulletin when you're composing a post: When you hover your mouse over the button, it displays a label "Insert Link". When you click on the button, you'll be presented with a dialogue box that prompts you for the Link Type, and for the URL (Uniform Resource Locator, or the "address") that you want to link to. VIPS pages are secure, so you would select "https:" as the type. Unless you've got a good memory, or you wrote down the url of the VIPS page you want to link and you don't mind typing, the best way to supply the URL is to use the COPY and PASTE functions of your computer.

Let's say you want to create a Hyperlink to 727 Pairing 146 on the 28th of March, 2008. Navigate to that Trip Display in VIPS, and notice what is displayed in the Navigation Bar:

https://pilot.fedex.com/vips-bin/vipscgi?webtr?146?MEM?27?28MAR08

If you will point to that line with your mouse, and then right-click it, it will be highlighted, and a drop-down menu will allow you to Copy it. Come back to the post you're composing, and use the Paste function to drop it in the Hyperlink dialogue box.

When you click on the OK button, vBulletin will insert a hyperlink that looks like this:

https://pilot.fedex.com/vips-bin/vip...MEM?27?28MAR08

Notice, the name isn't too sexy.

ALTERNATIVELY, you can create the same Hyperlink by copying the same url, and then pasting it directly into the post. As long as you have the "Automatically parse links in text" option checked under "Miscellaneous Options" (look under the Message box while you're composing), you'll get the same result as using the "Insert Link" dialogue. (The "Automatically ..." Option defaults, to checked, so it's most likely it's already selected for you.)


Better still, you can type the correct "tags" in the correct order to produce a custom Link with a Title of your choice. Knowing and using the tags is also especially useful if you want to create lots of links, as you can copy one many times and make small changes to each one to create many links to many places.

The sequence of tags and text will look like this:

[url=ADDRESS]TEXT[/url]

where:

ADDRESS is the URL of the page you want to hyperlink, and

TEXT is the Title you want to display


In the above examples, the address copied from the VIPS page is https://pilot.fedex.com/vips-bin/vipscgi?webtr?146?MEM?27?28MAR08.

I'll use as a title the text that appears on the second line of that page (First line is "Trip Recap".) It's sufficiently descriptive to be exclusive (can't be confused with any other pairing), yet brief enough so as not to be too lengthy. If you're handy with the Copy/Paste functions, it's also a quick way to create an accurate title without having to type.

Trip 146 MEM 27 28MAR08

Using this address and this title, we get:

[url=https://pilot.fedex.com/vips-bin/vipscgi?webtr?146?MEM?27?28MAR08]Trip 146 MEM 27 28MAR08[/url]

When you click "Submit Reply" or "Preview Post", the above will appear as Trip 146 MEM 27 28MAR08


If you want to get fancy, you can also change the appearance of the title. The default for a Hyperlink is blue regular text, underlined. You can select the Title text and change it to Bold, Italic, and Red by clicking the Bold button (B), the Italic button (I), and by clicking on the Colors button (A) and selecting the red square from the dropdown menu. You'd finish with this:

[url=https://pilot.fedex.com/vips-bin/vipscgi?webtr?146?MEM?27?28MAR08]Trip 146 MEM 27 28MAR08[/url]

which would in turn wind up looking like this: Trip 146 MEM 27 28MAR08


Bold, italics, underlines, and colors can also be accomplished using their respective tags. By placing the respective tags around the desired text, you change the appearance in the post you create.

[b]Bold Text[/b] makes Bold Text

[i]Italic Text[/i] makes Italic Text

[color=red]Red Text[/color] makes Red Text

Using all of the above, you could use this:

[url=https://pilot.fedex.com/vips-bin/vipscgi?webtr?146?MEM?27?28MAR08]Trip 146 MEM 27 28MAR08[/url]

to create: Trip 146 MEM 27 28MAR08


For more information about these tags, or "vB code", you can visit the


Airpline Pilot Central Forums - vB Code List page. There's a hyperlink to it in the lower, left-hand corner of each page that looks like this:

vB code is On




Now, for the anatomy of the VIPS address:

If you'll recall from above, the URL of the page we looked at was https://pilot.fedex.com/vips-bin/vipscgi?webtr?146?MEM?27?28MAR08

and the "title" was Trip 146 MEM 27 28MAR08

Careful inspection reveals that the same elements appear in both the URL and the title, and they appear in the same order. The trip Number, the Domicile, the airplane, and the Start Date of the pairing appear in the same order, and in the same format.

What follows https://pilot.fedex.com/vips-bin/vipscgi?webtr? is what selects the specific pairing. If, for instance, Pairing 146 is flown 3 times and you want to Hyperlink each occurrance, you can make 3 copies, and change the date in two.

[url=https://pilot.fedex.com/vips-bin/vipscgi?webtr?146?MEM?27?14MAR08]Trip 146 MEM 27 14MAR08[/url]
[url=https://pilot.fedex.com/vips-bin/vipscgi?webtr?146?MEM?27?21MAR08]Trip 146 MEM 27 21MAR08[/url]
[url=https://pilot.fedex.com/vips-bin/vipscgi?webtr?146?MEM?27?28MAR08]Trip 146 MEM 27 28MAR08[/url]

then becomes (don't forget to change the date in the URL and in the Title)

Trip 146 MEM 27 14MAR08
Trip 146 MEM 27 21MAR08
Trip 146 MEM 27 28MAR08


Or, maybe there are three pairings of interest on the same day.

[url=https://pilot.fedex.com/vips-bin/vipscgi?webtr?113?ANC?11?4APR08]Trip 113 ANC 11 4APR08[/url]
[url=https://pilot.fedex.com/vips-bin/vipscgi?webtr?2088?ANC?11?4APR08]Trip 2088 ANC 11 4APR08[/url]
[url=https://pilot.fedex.com/vips-bin/vipscgi?webtr?2089?ANC?11?4APR08]Trip 2089 ANC 11 4APR08[/url]

becomes

Trip 113 ANC 11 4APR08
Trip 2088 ANC 11 4APR08
Trip 2089 ANC 11 4APR08




Now, are you sure you wanted to know all that?






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