CiviMail URL Display

[emilyf]

I am watching this issue http://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-2031 and am wondering if someone can explain it to me a bit more, as I'm having trouble understanding.

I believe I am experiencing the same issue. I guess I don't understand why it's doing this behavior only on some of my links. Most of my links in my mailings look right and go to the right places. Then every once in awhile they get completely wrong. Here is an example. When I created my mailing and saved it in html format, here is what this line said:

See NYT article at <a href="http://tinyurl.com/2653mk">http://tinyurl.com/2653mk</a>

With my other links as they are rendered for email, they still said what they should even though they get redirected through the site and back out as described in the issue. however, the one above, when I receive the email went out, ends up looking like this:

See NYT article at <a href="http://mydomain.org/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=37&qid=37">http://mydomain.org/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=37&qid=37</a>

Why would it actually change the text of the link for just this one link, where as all the other links read properly to the eye? I am just having a hard time understanding how it's explained in the bug report. Thanks.

[Dave Greenberg]

Emily,
As you suspected, CRM-2031 is the issue you're experiencing with your example. The problem occurs when Click-through Tracking is turned on in CiviMail. CiviMail "wants" to replace all URLs that it finds in your mailings with special links that allow it to track the click-throughs. However, it doesn't distinguish URLs that occur within an HTML <a href=...> tag, from those that you enter between the tags - as link text.

In your example, it "thinks" both instances of http://tinyurl.com/2653mk should be replaced - which messes things up.

The work-around is NOT to use URLs as your link text.

Code: [Select]


// Replace this
See NYT article at <a href="http://tinyurl.com/2653mk">http://tinyurl.com/2653mk</a>

// with something like this
See <a href="http://tinyurl.com/2653mk">NYT article here</a>



[emilyf]

Thanks, Dave. This seems much clearer. Will give it a try.