If you cut and paste the following code into the bottom of your story, it will make a link to the Comics Retcon Universe that looks exactly like this:

Here's the code:

<!-- The Code Below Points to the Comics Retcon Universe -->

<hr width="50%" />
<div align="center"><a href="/topshelf/book/20577/comics-retcon-universe">[[ Comics Retcon Universe ]]</a></div>

If the code is at the very bottom of your edit box -- with no text below it -- it will blend in fairly nicely with the other navigation elements at the bottom of the page. Note that the line that includes the text The Code Below Points to the Comics Retcon Universe will not print, because it's "escaped" as a "comment," but will help remind you of what it is when you see it in your text.

You can use the same format to hide little notes to yourself in the text, which can be very handy at times. I use it all the time to make temporary edits, so I can play with a story without making any permanent change.

Cheers,

Puddin'

A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style

Name: Carlotta Xavier
Codename: Lacrymosa
Age: 70 regressed to 48
Height: 5'11
Stats: Unknown
Power: Projecting Empath,
Limited to 45 seconds, overwhelms subject with profound insight and remorse, leading on occasion to transformed emotional and moral perspective.

Talent: Director School for Gifted Mutants
Ph.D. in genetics, biophysics, and psychology
First Appearance: TBA

Formerly Charles Francis Xavier, Carlotta is a transitory being; only occasionally assuming corporeal form to assist other mutants, but most of the time an ethereal being without physical substance. She assumes the physical form of her former lover, Moira Kinross McTaggert, with who she still shares a psychic bond that transcends Moira's death. Her former psychic powers are no longer in effect as the result of years of physical and psychic trauma.

If you can't join em, give em away, aye? See if anyone wants to run with this?

This one duplicates a regular navigation block, but contains fields which need to be filled in with whatever structure is desired. It's a little complicated, but once you've filled in the blanks a couple of times, it all starts to become clearer. It uses double Guillemets (French quote marks) instead of single ones, so it's clear that it's not the system-generated navigation element, but you could use any symbol at all if that doesn't suit.

To use it, you have to go to the location you want to be the "previous" location and copy it down from the address field, together with what it is.

Then go to the location you want to be the "next" location and copy it down as above, together with what it is.

You'll have two locations, something like this:

http​://www.bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/67890/blahblah - Fred's Blahblah

http​://www.bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/12345/duhduh - Edna's Duhduh

Then you should trim away the web prefix from each address, which looks like this:

http://www.bigclosetr.us

from both locations. You'll be left with two locations which start with: /topshelf/book/ and so on. You're doing this because you don't want to make the link go back out to the web to link to the page, which increases the cost of the transaction slightly. You want the link to be local, which is less expensive for everyone and takes less time.

As an example, let's choose Lynceus' Books of Magic and Lillith Langtree's Terra: Between a Rock.

We'll create a navigation block with three links, a previous location, the Retcon page in the middle, and a next location, almost exactly like the normal navigation block at the bottom of linked stories.

I trimmed a little from the full title of the Terra story, because long titles can make the navigation elements fold up and look awkward.

The code for this navigation block looks like this:

<div class="book-navigation"><div class="page-links clear-block"><a href="/topshelf/book/21362/books-magik" class="page-previous" title="Go to previous page">&#171;&#160;Lynceus: Books of Magic</a><a href="/topshelf/book/20577/comics-retcon-universe" class="page-up" title="Go to parent page">Retcon</a><a href="/topshelf/fiction/20576/terra-between-rock-and-another-rock" class="page-next" title="Go to next page">Lilith Langtree: Terra&#160;&#187;</a></div></div>

Here's a generic equivalent:

<div class="book-navigation"><div class="page-links clear-block"><a href="XXXAuthor-Link-1XXX" class="page-previous" title="Go to previous page">&#171;&#160;XXXAuthor1XXX</a><a href="/topshelf/book/20577/comics-retcon-universe" class="page-up" title="Go to parent page">Retcon</a><a href="YYYAuthor-Link-2YYY" class="page-next" title="Go to next page">YYYAuthor2YYY&#160;&#187;</a></div></div>

All those class="watchamacallit" things, which I know will look confusing, make sure that the backwards and forwards links migrate to the far left and right respectively, and the link in the middle sits politely in the middle without trying to insert non-breaking spaces or anything like them. The little trick uses a technique called "Cascading Stylesheets," CSS for short, but pay no attention to that wizard behind the curtain.

The bits that need to be replaced are surrounded by XXX and YYY respectively, to make them easy to notice and select. The link to the Comics Retcon page in the middle doesn't have to be replaced unless you want to do something else entirely. One might, for example, have the center link point to the author page of the author of the current story, but this is left as an exercise for the reader.

The three links can go anywhere, of course, and if you want more than three options just drop in another block.

Cheers,

Puddin'

A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style