How do I embed a link in a post?

There doesn’t seem to be a button in the “post reply” window for embedding a link, but a lot of dopers apparently know how to do it. I need to know:

  1. How to embed a link to an Internet site. Usually I just type out the whole URL, which the program recognizes as a URL (so long as it starts with www.) and automatically embeds. But a lot of dopers post such links without the URL.

  2. How to embed a link to another post or thread within the SDMB.

[Link Text](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=184026&#093Link Text[/url&#093.

Which would render as:

[url=http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=184026).

Replace the URL after the url= with the address you want to use. The HTTP:// button in the reply window will prompt you for the information and generate the embedded link automatically.

Huh. If you quote my previous post you’ll what I wrote. For some reason it left out the first half of it when it displays, but I have no idea why. Anyway, this is the first part it missed:

[url=http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=184026&#093Link Text[/url&#093

The HTTP:// button might work if I’m using a known URL – but how do I link to another SDMB post or thread?

Try here: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=103503

Near the bottom are instructions on how to link to a post within a page.

To link to a thread, you visit the thread first, then cut and paste what’s in the browser window. For example, for this thread it would be http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=184026