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Link to a specific message does not work if ...

Posted: 24 Nov 2015, 11:01
by vvp
Link to a specific message/post does not work if all of these are valid:
  • the topic has more than one page,
  • the link was created under different post ordering than the post ordering it is viewed under,
  • the message is not in the middle page of a multiple page topic.
The problem seems to be that the URL points to a wrong topic page under which the post tag cannot be found. I guess this cannot be easily fixed but if yes then it would be cool.

Posted: 24 Nov 2015, 11:40
by Muirium
Right click the little page icon beside the time stamp, and copy the linked URL. Never fails for me.

Might take a while to actually get there in threads with far too many pictures loading, but it will.

Posted: 24 Nov 2015, 14:22
by bhtooefr
What vvp is reporting is that if you change how phpBB does the pagination, it's possible that you get an invalid link. There are ways to construct a link that's guaranteed to work, although I can't remember them. (Basically, they involve telling phpBB to go to that post number explicitly, rather than that page.)

Re: Link to a specific message does not work if ...

Posted: 24 Nov 2015, 15:09
by chzel
I think the method Mu describes give the explicit post number regardless of page, but I'm on Tapatalk now, can't check...

Posted: 24 Nov 2015, 15:16
by bhtooefr
Doing a quick check, looks like that is the case on this forum. (I've seen other phpBB forums where, IIRC, that was not the case, and it just appended the named anchor to the current page URL.)

Posted: 24 Nov 2015, 17:58
by webwit
Can you give me a specific example?

Posted: 24 Nov 2015, 18:34
by vvp
Here is a link to a post with ascending post ordering:
http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/katy ... ml#p241137
Here is a link to the same post with descending post ordering:
http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/katy ... ml#p241137
The links only work when accessed in the same post ordering in which they were created.
Notice that the links have the same post idetifier but they have different web page name.

I would like to know if that can be fixed or if there is a workaround which would make links to some specific post work regardless of post ordering (which can differ for each user). Muirium's advice does not work. The links were created the way he recommended.

Posted: 24 Nov 2015, 18:37
by Muirium
When I try my method just now, I don't get urls like those you gave at all. They are always directly numbered:

http://deskthority.net/post216090.html#p216090

Don't use the address bar of your browser. Copy the linked URL from the date widget. It never lies.

Posted: 24 Nov 2015, 18:44
by vvp
You are right. I followed the link and only later copied it from the address bar.
Thanks.

Posted: 24 Nov 2015, 18:47
by Muirium
You're welcome. It took me a while to discover the meaning of that icon. But I use those direct links all the time now. They aren't exactly human readable so I always embed them behind anchor text using the [url=] syntax. Which makes the whole thing seem like magic, and just as hard to learn!