How do the some of you on AP avoid writing out the full address of a link in posts but manage to put 'here' underlined instead? Is there some tool that does this ?

two ways, one is through writing the actual HTML code (which is what I do out of habit). Probably the easier way is to (using the full reply (blue arrow) and not the quick reply (yellow arrow), click the URL tab (third from the left after "Message:"). This gives you two boxes. Put the actual address in "URL" and what you want the link to say in "Title" then click OK.

Thanks.

I always use the URL in the post box. Keep in mind sometimes the URL link is too long and can distort the page. You can make a new URL that is smaller by going to this site

You should give it a test and see if it works!

Personally, I can't stand the tiny url thing . It relying on the existance of a site to do something less than you can do without it (i.e. you cannot give your link a name).

{a href="http://www.answerpool.com"}Answerpool{/a}
  (replacing { and } with < and > ) gives
Answerpool


or


{URL=http://www.answerpool.com}Answerpool{/URL}
  (replacing { and } with [ and ] ) gives
Answerpool



While tinyurl gives you the uninformative
http://tinyurl.com/6dg8


Too each his/her own, though. I'm mostly partial to the first method because I've always edited web pages I've run by hand and am comfortable with the text coding. Any of the 3 (4 if you count the URL post box) will get you a clickable link that doesn't deform the page.