Time for footnotes

[ElMiko]

Originally Posted by Hitch

aqua chapter headers.

What's this??

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by ElMiko

What's this??

@ElMiko: Aqua. It's a COLOR. LOL! (Pretty much like what you see there. Gave me the yips for months).

Hitch

[Man Eating Duck]

Originally Posted by Hitch

LOL, I hear that! We did an 1800-page (in print) medical textbook this past year--took nearly 4 months, with all the proofing and the back and forth with the client, and MOMMA, talk about footnotes! Footnotes and charts, with--wait for it--aqua chapter headers. I was sweatin' that one for a while. Came out great, but...man.

@ElMiko: Amen!

Hitch

I believe that I got you beat in the number-of-links department

Last year I produced a french grammar reference, at a total of 200k words, with 1123 sections and subsections, 5600 real-life examples, and more than 4100 cross-references (which of course needed to be links in the epub). I wrote some Javascript to do most of the heavy lifting with generating links in Indesign, but that was some file. The end result was very usable, though, and it's probably the one epub I've made that I'm most proud of.

[ElMiko]

Incidentally, today i ran into a single footnote, and gave the hyperlink and anchor buttons a whirl. meme's post seems to imply that right now it isn't working as it should, but it seemed fine to me. In fact, it seemed super fine... easy, peasy, racial slur. What am I missing?

[kiwidude]

@ElMiko - it's mostly fine in that beta as you found, it just had a few quirks that needed some polishing. This is the comments from the related source code commit meme did for the next release:

Update Insert ID and Insert Hyperlink so that if you select text and apply it
does not delete the other attributes, so that the selection is restored after
inserting to allow you to easily insert the other attribute or change it, to
have even selected text update the enclosing anchor tag attributes instead of
inserting another pair.

[GraciousMe]

Ok, I have decided to turn my head to traditional footnotes and include my auxiliary text in the main text, [within brackets and with smaller type]. Don´t try to convince me to go back now .-)

I tried to make a class like this:

.foot {
font-size: 0.9em;
}

Example: <div class="foot">Smaller text</div>

But this gives me a new line for the smaller text, while I want it to continue on the same line.

What should I add to the CSS?

(Is <font size=-1> out of the question...?)

[dicknskip]

Try a span and not a div.

[DiapDealer]

Seriously... why the insistence on including auxiliary/ancillary text in the main flow?

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Seriously... why the insistence on including auxiliary/ancillary text in the main flow?

try tapping a numeric superscript link on a Sony reader - without reaching for the stylus thingie - & you'll soon see why!

it's just about impossible to activate the link & not the dictionary definition of the nearby word.

making the link numbers larger would be unsightly.

I doubt the problem is unique to sony. The average human fingertip is a severe mismatch with the optimum sized footnote link superscript

I've even tried replacing all the superscript classes with normal sized numbers & they are still a pain to tap.

NB also that many current touch screen readers don't have a stylus holder / don't bother to supply a stylus.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Seriously... why the insistence on including auxiliary/ancillary text in the main flow?

LOL, diap!

When you find out, let me know. We have a client right now that is just apoplectic about wanting us to "redo the entire book" (doesn't understand the technology at all) because she's insistent that the 'footnoes' have to stay with specific letters (I mean written instruments, not alphabetical characters) inside the book. No amount of explaining that there's no pages in ebooks has been successful. We finally gave up and are putting them beneath each letter, all of which are multiple "screens" long (even in iBooks, I'd guess), which means people will have to click to and back from them in any event. Very very frustrating.

Hitch ;-)

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by cybmole

try tapping a numeric superscript link on a Sony reader - without reaching for the stylus thingie - & you'll soon see why!

Which is why I never do anything silly like limiting the clickable/tappable area of the hyperlink to a single, tiny superscripted digit. I use brackets around the number and the brackets are part of the link. You can also include the previous word in the link (or the spaces preceding and following) if you don't like brackets. There are many solutions for making the link area more "fingertip-friendly" without having to resort to making the font-size of the footnote-number any larger (let alone trying to force the reader to experience the ancillary data at the precise moment you perceive the optimum time/place to experience it to be).

I think the real reason is that some authors/creators just have a need to try and micromanage every potential reader's experience of their "baby." They just can't stand the thought of someone skipping over portions of their hard work.

[ElMiko]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Which is why I never do anything silly like limiting the clickable/tappable area of the hyperlink to a single, tiny superscripted digit. I use brackets around the number and the brackets are part of the link. You can also include the previous word in the link (or the spaces preceding and following) if you don't like brackets. There are many solutions for making the link area more fingertip-friendly without having to resort to making the font-size of the footnote-number any larger.

I think the real reason is that some authors/creators just have a need to try and micromanage every potential reader's experience of their "baby." They just can't stand the thought of someone skipping over portions of their hard work.

re: the bolded text— ...THANK YOU. That's a great idea, and one which i'm totally stealing. Kindles handle itsy-bitsy hyperlinks really well, but giving each endnote a little extra character width is just what the doctor ordered. I'm ebarrassed I didn't think of it myself; it's as if i've never read a wikipedia article in my entire life!

[GraciousMe]

Originally Posted by dicknskip

Try a span and not a div.

That did the trick. Thanks.

[Oldpilot]

Originally Posted by GraciousMe

Hi folks

2) Rewriting the text so the footnote either goes into the regular text (in a parenthesis maybe), or simply goes away altogether (delete).

Definitely the best solution. I even do this with book captions in some e-books, writing the caption into the paragraph preceding the image.

In the book I'm now working on, the notes in both the print and digital editions will simply be grouped at the back of the book by chapter. Like others, I LOVE foot/endnotes, and I try to make them rewarding reading by putting in all sorts of extraneous speculations and anecdotes. (When I read a well-cited book, I keep a Post-It note in the back, which I advance as I read the text. Sometimes, if the notes are really good, I keep my right index finger there so I can flip back and forth.) I won't have any links, except on at the end of each chapter, so the interested reader (one reader, in all likelihood) can reward himself by reading my brilliant and wry citations.

[Oldpilot]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I use brackets around the number and the brackets are part of the link.

Yes!

The great thing about brackets, as opposed to superscript, is that they don't mess up the line spacing.