You do have a Web site, don't you? Be it personal, be it a fan site, be it a commercial one, you do want your visitors to have a way to contact you, right?
On the internet, to contact somebody you would use probably use email (or instant messaging, but email is still more convenient, and works fine asynchronously).
Feedback via Email
A simple first attempt might be to simply include your email address somewhere as contact information, just like your name and address. This would look like this: "me@example.com". If somebody wanted to send you email they would copy and past the address from the page in their browser to their favorite email program.
This will work, but it is not super-comfortable. The internet person in general is super-lazy, however. Thus, chances are that some (vital?) feedback may never reach you.
When I said that Web surfers are super-lazy this only applies to boring routine tasks, not creative letter writing, of course; it applies to things better done by the computer.
Wouldn't it be nice if all the aspiring email writer had to do was click on the highlighted email address and her email program would come up with a new message, already addressed to you? Here's how to make this wish come true.
Email via Mailto
The magic word is "mailto". Let's begin with an example.
Start up the editor of your heart's choice and type:
<html>
<head>
<title>quod licet Iovi...</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>...non licet <a href="
If you read <a href= and thought "link!", you were right. But this link wont lead to another page on the web, but right to your Inbox. Type on:
mailto:me@example.com
"mailto" is the "protocol" this link uses. It tells the browser that what you want is to create an email message, and that you want it addressed to the email address separated from the "mailto" by a colon.
Now let's make the HTML page complete so we can try it:
">me@example.com</a>.</p>
</body>
</html>
Take a look at the page you just created (save it as quod_licet.html).
The email address "me@example.com" appears in the style of a link and clicking it creates a new message destined to just that address.
Conclusion
What have we learned from this simple example?
To create a link that creates a new message with your email address in the To: field:
- Create a link with a "href" of "mailto:" followed by the email address.
