mailto links not working properly?

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12/1/2008 9:33:32 AM
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mailto links not working properly?

Hi Joe,

When I add an e-mail address link it looks like the javascript may not be working properly. I can see that the address has somehow been encoded, presumably to prevent harvesting of addresses?, but when you hover over the address you see a jumble of numbers in the menu bar at the bottom of the screen and you can't right-click / copy email address, which is what you have to do if you're not using Outlook or similar.

Pls can you advise?

Thks,

Leah

12/2/2008 4:50:24 AM
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Re: mailto links not working properly?

Hi Leah,

The Links module was not designed for email links. If your using the html module, when you click the link toolbar item in the FCKeditor they have a dropdown there to chose link type and you must choose email.

Hope it helps,

Joe

12/2/2008 5:12:57 AM
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Re: mailto links not working properly?

Hi Joe,

That's where it is happening - when I am in the HTML module and choose the "mailto" link type. Haven't used the links module..

Thks,

Leah

 

12/2/2008 5:20:59 AM
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Re: mailto links not working properly?

Oh, I see what you mean. Its because FCKeditor is adding javascript to populate the subject and body, and its trying to protect the email address from being scraped by spam bots by encoding it some way. You can always drop to source view and manually add a link with mailto, but then you will get a lot more spam at that email address. There really are not a lot of great solutions to showing email addresses and not getting more spam. I usually use no link at all and just put joe dot audett at gmail dotcom or some variant that people can read but spam bots hopefully can't.

Hope it helps,

Joe

12/2/2008 5:28:33 AM
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Re: mailto links not working properly?

I figured - but I understood this is normally done so that the e-mail address still appears as normal when you hover over it, rather than as gobblydigook (english phrase). I stumbled across something called ROT13 encryption that seems to do this, http://techblog.tilllate.com/2008/07/20/ten-methods-to-obfuscate-e-mail-addresses-compared/ and the e-mail address remains legible.

To show you what I mean happens in mojoportal at the moment I'll add a dummy email link:

e-mail me

12/2/2008 5:39:06 AM
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Total Posts 18439

Re: mailto links not working properly?

Well, for now we have to live with what FCKeditor provides unless someone makes a plugin for FCKeditor that does it better. The thing about it is, its a moving target, as soon as any obfuscation technique becomes widely used the spam bots find a way to crack it and it becomes less effective. ROT13 look promising, but just like captchas, eventually someone will break it and then someone will come up with another technique.

From source view, you can use whatever technique you wish.

Best,

Joe

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