Is <base href tag necessary?

s_mack:

Some insecurities going on there, or what?

Quite the opposite. If anything I'm over confident. To the point where most people confuse it with arrogance.

Not my problem.

s_mack:

Do you know more about DNS than I do?

I would hope so. Although I closed the service down many years ago (over a decade), I used to run a public freeDNS service (wrote the software myself).

Don't take my word for it though.. search Google for 'vcsweb freedns' - There's still quite a few pages and sites that refer to this long gone service.

s_mack:

Do you know more than I do about SEO? I'm not sure,

Probably not, but I do know that regardless of a lot of the crap in those references you gave, none of them offer any 'proof' of the claims or statements - And the comments I previously made about the Google stored links all being absolute stands as solid as concrete.

s_mack:

but you probably care more than I do.

What I care about are facts. I can't prevent some new aged people trying to convince the world that 2+2=5. What I can do is stand up to them and say '################'.

It is then for other people to determine for themselves who is the biggest ################ter.

s_mack:

But I'll tell you one thing I know more than you: the purpose of a discussion forum. We're not here for the "educator" to espouse his lessons onto use like children.

Don't care. I've dealt with lots of kids, teenages and adults that come can't make up their minds when confronted with opposing information.

I probably used to be the same way when I was younger - never 100% sure about anything and always prepared to give the benefit of any doubts.

These days I'm an old man, Not interested in making friends, and finally realise that life is far to short to try to please everyone, so I don't try. If I see or read BS, and I'll call it as such.

If someone asks a question and I have the answer, I'll answer it. (depending on my available time and interest)

It isn't your job to tell me where and when I should share my knowledge.

s_mack:

I may have valued lhungil's assistance to a greater degree than yours.

And rightly so. lhungil's response was right on the money and covered the base ref scenario in far more detail than I did.

Although more detailed, and summed into a single response, lhungil hasn't contradicted anything I've said or written, and I've not said or written anything to contradict his/her response.

hungil hasn't expressed an opinion about the topic of efficiency, and very cleverly sidestepped the issue of SEO related issues.

s_mack:

So am I.(a developer).. so's the kid next door. .

The kid next door probably hasn't been coding for 30+ years.

I've no idea of your history, but I doubt you have either - If I were to take a punt, I'd say you were a 10-15yearer (developer, not age).

You are going to be making mistakes and errors that I've learned to avoid before you even started.

s_mack:

OBVIOUSLY I meant a developer of zencart..

Actually, there was nothing obvious about this. ZenCart didn't invent the base href so why would only a zencart developer know what it is for or when/why it is used?

s_mack:

Your response seemed... uninformed...

My what a short memory you seem to have. Let me refresh that for you :-)

However for the sake of discussion lets assume that the HTML in question is something to be sent as email - Eg, an order confirmation.

If all of the links in the email are absolute, there is no problem.

If some of the links are relative, and there isn't a base href tag then the email links can't/won't work, because the client software doesn't know what these links are relative to.

In other words, in HTML formatted emails, if relative links are used, then the Base Href must also be used.

When it comes to webpages on a website, then the relative links on the page are relative to the site they are on, No base href needed (except in very specific circumstances), and as a general rule it is best to NOT use them (at least in my personal opinion).

So, quick summary...
HTML formatted Emails. Use relative links and base Href, or absolute links and no base href needed.
HTML Webpages - No base href needed.

This doesn't seem particularly uninformed to me. Can we have a show of hands from those that that agree with you that it is?

Heck, even Kobra, ZenCart Black belt apparently thought that this was informed enough to warrant the question as to whether you actually read it or not'

s_mack:

to the fact the code in question was part of the core distribution. I wanted to hear from them if there was a missing bit of info as to whether or not it had to be there.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and suggest that the reason why none of the team have given an answer to this is either because they don't know, or the reason has been long forgotten. There could be several reasons why they wouldn't know (I've already detailed a couple in a previous reply), but IMO (note how I'm now stating opinion rather than fact) they don't know because they didn't write the code - It is/was carried over from when ZenCart was spit away from its parent code, OsCommerce.

Oh, my. How rude of me - insinuating that the ZenCart Dev team don't even know their own code. We DO I get off with my grandstanding?

s_mack:

Bottom line. CHILLLLL. If you REALLY think that I'm a "troll" then walk away.

Didn't say you were a troll, just that you were coming across as one. A huge difference.

s_mack:

If your pride got a little hurt,

LOL, you really don't know me at all. I have no pride. I'm a 60y/o pensioner that goes to the supermarket in a dressing gown and slippers. I ######## when I fart.

I am proud of many of my achievements over the years, but I have no personal pride as such.

s_mack:

then say so and I could say I'm sorry (cause I really didn't meant anything). If its all just a misunderstanding... well, duck off a water's back (err)

Seriously, no pride or feelings hurt. Nothing for you to apologise for. Just somewhat frustrated at being 'challenged' by someone that I thought was wise enough to know better on several different levels, not the least being 'don't poke the dog'. :-)

Cheers
RodG