I must be dumb as a post.
If I want to place a hyperlink in a post here, say to a newspaper article, the URL is about 75 characters long. I know how to reduce it using "tinyurl", but how does everyone just assign a simple name to it?
Like someone saying Go here, when they mean a long URL.

Like This!

Copy the URL, then click on the "Insert Link" icon. After you paste the link in the dialog box and press OK, you will notice that part of the link remains highlighted. At that point, simply type in the text you want to "replace" the URL with.

If you miss that, you can just edit the line starting [URL= - you will notice that URL appears twice - the first time in quotes, ending in "], the second occurrence can be replaced with your new text.

SD

That's interesting, cos I've always done it slightly differently!
More typing, less link-pointing (I think):

Start with the magic bit [url=
Then paste the copied URL (obtained as SD describes)
Then ]
Then the words you want to appear
Then [ /url] (without the space) to close it.

Hence [ url=http://www.gutsy.org.uk]The G-UTSY website[ /url]
with the spaces after the [ removed
produces
The G-UTSY website

Thanks - I knew there'd be an easy way, just didn't see it.

Actually there is a far simpler way!

Type your post
Highlight the word/s you want to use as a link
THEN click on the 'Insert Link' icon and enter the URL in the box.