A <BASE> question

Grzesiek Staniak (GSTANIAK@golem.umcs.lublin.pl)
Mon, 17 Oct 1994 15:33:24 +0100


These are going to be beginner's questions - I read messages from
this list hoping to learn something, but for now I'm just a computer
user that accidentaly is producing HTML scripts for a university.

Could anybody please explain to me briefly and like
I don't know anything about HTML in what way the <BASE> element works?

I know it allows the browser to resolve relative URLs within a document,
but I still don't feel secure using it. I've been forced to do it in
order to avoid keeping hundreds of GIFs and HTML documents in one
directory. However, in a document where I put:

<BASE HREF="www.blah.blah"> - the place where my "index.html" is kept
....
<A HREF="index.html">...</a> - a link back to Home Page

my Mosaic browser returned an error: "failed to locate the host
index.html". Why? Do I need to specify addresses in full form even though
the <BASE> is used?

Another problem, this time related to the new Mosaic Corporation browser,
Netscape: when I use a <BASE> element like above and anchors within one
document, like:

<A HREF="#section">
....
<A NAME="section">

after clicking on the link it starts looking for a host
"http://www.blah.blah#section"! This doesn't make any sense to me. Why
should it treat a reference like #section exactly like a relative path?
Is it due to Mosaic Corporations' implementation of HTML (I gather
Mozilla is its name)? The old Mosaic browser has no problems with jumping
to sections of a document.

And, finally - since I can't help thinking it may be the case that I'm
simply a long time behind - could you direct me to the freshest HTML and
HTTP specs?

Thanks for help.

.....................................
Grzesiek Staniak
e-mail: gstaniak@golem.umcs.lublin.pl