TIP 246: Adding a Tell a Friend Link

Name: Tell a Friend

Developer: Rasmussens Design

Source: www.rasmussens.dk/action

Cost: $10 US

GoLive users ask us all the time how to put a link on their Web sites that functions as a "tell a friend" feature. The aptly named Tell a Friend action from Rasmussens Design does exactly that, without the complexity of server-side scripting or difficult configurations, and it splits up the email address into bits, which the email harvesters can't pick up.

You can now choose this action in one of two flavors: a text or image version. It launches most email clients and automatically puts the window title in the email subject line and the URL of the page in the email body. All the visitor has to do is click the link text, enter the recipient email address, and send the message. You can also have text before and after the actual link text, so it's completely customizable.

To use the Tell a Friend action, follow these steps:

1.	Drop a body action from the Smart section of the Objects palette into the body of a Web page.
2.	With the action placeholder still selected, choose the Tell a Friend or Tell a Friend Image action in the Actions section of the Rollovers & Actions palette.
3.	Customize all the action parameters in the Actions palette (Figure 246). Make sure you resize the palette to be very tall so you can see all the options. Figure 246. Experiment with the settings for the Tell a Friend action and test the results by previewing in a Web browser.

Use It Over and Over

Configure the action once and then drag and drop it into the Snippets tab of the Library palette so you can use it over and over again on other pages and other sites.