Ampersands (&'s) in URLs

[theflyingbeard]

For some time now I have been trying to optimise the 'To Excite You' site and get the html to validate but I have this recurring problem.

Html will not validate with a '&' used in the links

e.g.

/cgi-bin/ss000002.pl?SECTIONID=bare%5fwith%5fme%2eshtml&NOLOGIN=1

apparently the correct usage would be ...shtml&NOLOGIN=1

But as Actinic builds the links when it compiles the pages I am at a loss as to how I can correct this.

Has anyone else come across this problem?
I have tried searching the forums but cannot find any reference to the use of Ampersands (&'s) in URLs

[NormanRouxel]

I believe that & is how V8 now operates.

[leehack]

Adrian

Its widely accepted that you cannot get Actinic to fully validate, however you can get it very close. You cannot put an ampersand in a URL as these are reserved to be used for specific purposes. Usually to take some settings from the current page you are on, onto the next page.

My own personal experience says as long as you have everything else validating ok, not to worry about this. I have a site that has many of its products in the top 3 of Google, yet it fails validation on items like you have mentioned.

There may be some way to remove this particular failing through coding, however i would say do not worry.

[theflyingbeard]

Thanks for the replys guys.

I dont mind a bit of coding if it is in one of the .pl or .ini files etc. assuming someone knows which one.

Or alternatively is there some way to capture the compiled web pages before they get uploaded so I can batch convert them?

[leehack]

Just an idea, no guaranteed solution. I presume the "NoLogin" attribute appended to the URL has something to do with customer accounts etc.

If it is and you do not use customer accounts, can you remove customer accounts from your site and subsequently this would not be appended?

Or, could you hard code the link into that product instead?

[theflyingbeard]

Yes I think the NOLOGIN is to do with customer accounts and No I dont use them.
But again the question is where do I find the NOLOGIN part that is inserted into the URL on compilation.

I have already removed the references in the templates.

[theflyingbeard]

Fragment Details - Image clickable. another error

While I'm on the subject of validating html another error has come to light.

When adding a fragment to the brochure and making the image clickable by ticking the appropriate box on the link tab, it seems that actinic does not create the correct html code for the link.
The link created is:
<a href = somelink.com target="self"><img src="image.jpg"></a>

which misses a set of quotes:

<a href = "somelink.com" target="self"><img src="image.jpg"></a>

this leads to another validation error stating:

end tag for element "A" which is not open.

Just thought I would mention it.

Dont suppose there is any more chance of doing anything about that than there is for the Amperasnd problem?

[cdicken]

You can find quite a few of the links and '&'s in Design | Text. Any ones that are not in there are generated by the Catalog.exe executable so are probably not editable.

v8 has been designed to use correctly formatted links and &amp; characters.