Link Blink

[Daveb]

Hi Guys.
Can somebody tell me if there is a way to make the link:

"Link To Pantone Rebate Program"

at

http://www.baypressservices.com/acat..._Metallic.html

BLINK (Flash on and off) to make it POP and catch attention.

Thanks
Dave

[Duncan Rounding]

You could change the text link to an image link and then create an animated gif for the image.

[Duncan Rounding]

There is a BLINK html tag but is rarely used and I expect deprecated but may should still work in most browsers.

<BLINK><span>........ existing link here.........</span></BLINK>

[IanSaunders]

I think it's considered inaccessible because the text is invisible for some portion of time, but don't quote me on that. The same applies to the <marquee> tag

to be honest, it's not a good idea, but this page covers the 'new' way to do it:

http://www.domedia.org/oveklykken/css-blinking-text.php

You might be better off finding some other way to highlight the link.

[leehack]

Making something blink so it catches your attention, is a common misconception, all it does is annoy a lot of people and is really unnecessary most of the time. Using a nice graphic and/or a different colour font is more than ample. Positioning and colour are infinitely more important than blinking.

[Mark H]

A lot of people consider blinking / animated text to be irritating, and it's not something you see a lot of these days. I would simply make the text a bit bigger and, more impportantly, change the text to something like:

"Click here to access the Pantone Rebate Program"

What you have is correct - it is a link, but this is web designer speak and isn't a call to action that the average visitor would recognise.

[NormanRouxel]

The hideous <blink>Annoying text here</blink> works in Firefox but doesn't work in IE.

You can re-enable this hideous behaviour in IE via a bit of JavaScript. I.e. http://wonko.com/post/blink_tag_compatibility_script

[leehack]

Chalk up the first giggle of the day to Norman, that did make me smile .

[NormanRouxel]

Assuming that you'll only have one of these on the page, here's some complete inline code.

This is <a id="annoy" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk">the blinking news</a> from the BBC.
<script type="text/javascript">
var annoy=document.getElementById('annoy').style;
setInterval(function(){annoy.visibility=annoy.visibility=='hidden'?'visible':'hidden';},1000);
</script>

[leehack]

Chalk up the second at the ID name .

[IanSaunders]

make the link background contrast with or otherwise stand out from the rest of your page.

A yellow background is a common highlight method.

[Daveb]

Thanks for the input guys.

I was just remembering the thread with the discussion of Lings site:

http://www.lingscars.com/

She had a few things blinking there.

But you are probably right, no blinks.

Thanks
Dave

[leehack]

Indeed Dave, but blinking awful is not what you are after lol .

[pinbrook]

just been to ling's site.... i love the blinking animation shes got in the middle of the page

scrappage scheme for women,
scrap your husband, better than alisatair darling scheme,
in association with divorce online,
i thought avout it for 10 secs and traded in my husband for a audi TT
etc etc

ling's got class, but she is still trying to gain mileage from dragon's den, she should have put that to bed by now

[LINGsCARS.com]

just been to ling's site.... i love the blinking animation shes got in the middle of the page

scrappage scheme for women,
scrap your husband, better than alisatair darling scheme,
in association with divorce online,
i thought avout it for 10 secs and traded in my husband for a audi TT
etc etc

ling's got class, but she is still trying to gain mileage from dragon's den, she should have put that to bed by now

Wah!

I am classy? My God!

Every week when Dragon's Den comes on I get a surge and most searches with Dragons' Den in them get me. Buying new cars is a very long cycle and there are many people who saw DD 2-years ago and still haven't changed cars yet.

They might forget my name, but if one of the 2 million people who saw that episode (plus millions of repeat/blog/article viewers) type "Dragons' Den Car Leasing" they can easily find me. So I don't put it to bed as it gives me LOADS of visitors.

Of course flashing things catch you attention! People notice flashing police car lights, those orange ones at zebra crossings, your indicators on your car, strobe lights on aircraft, your seatbelt warning in your car etc etc. Even the cursor in a text box flashes to alert you to where it is.

So, flashing is good, boring is bad.

Next time you are in a plane at night, why not ask them to turn off the flashing strobes on the wings, because they just annoy people and no one takes any notice anyway?

Tell the AA to stop annoying you on the motorway hard shoulder with their flashing orange lights.

Stop the green man flashing at pedestrian crossings. It doesn't alert you to hurry up and just annoys people crossing the road.

Shame Microsoft make your taskbar item buttons flash when they need attention.

I agree when everything flashes, it's annoying, HOWEVER, I do have a non-flashing gif on my header:



Anyway, seriously, the web is often sooooooooo boring, nothing wrong with a bit of spice For example on my index page I have some live bait Google Spider food:

for the Google spider who is alive, because he is tapping his foot:


Seriously, in the need to differentiate there are thousands of small things people can, but rarely, do. No harm in giving a visitor migraine or epilepsy, and just for a laugh I had an email today from someone at RNIB (true) asking me to make my site DDA WCAG level 1 compliant. I pointed out that no one has been prosecuted and anyway, sight-impaired people cannot drive or lease my cars. If only the complainant knew what he was missing on my site. Most people who have perfect vision complain about my strobe effects and web-blindness from my colours. I cannot win!

Honestly, the amount of annoying interferers you get, these days! Tsk!

Ling