[opencms-dev] External Links

[Brian Stanfield]

Hello.

Could someone give me a quick explanation on how to use External Links?
I tried using them and researched how to do it, but nothing seems to 
work as intended.

At the moment, there is a OpenCmsString Element with a LinkGallery 
Layout in the xsd schema to select the link.
Usage within the site comes in two forms:

1.) A redirect using <c:redirect url="${redirectto}" /> with 
${redirectto} being a <cms:link>pathtofile</cms:link> element (doing the 
cms:link within the redirect url led to some issues so I had to sidestep 
that...)
2.) A simple link such as <a href="<cms:link>pathtofile</cms:link>">
(Which brings me to a side question of how I can display the name of the 
External Link file in a page)

Both methods just send me to something along the lines of 
/opencms/_external_links/www.opencms.com
or, should I not use the <cms:link> to /_external_links/filename

What am I doing wrong or what am I overlooking?

Thanks:
  - Brian Stanfield