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In Praise of Hypertext [] [Imagemap] Though it's often overlooked and underappreciated, hypertext is the coolest thing about the Web; it's the glue that holds everything together. But it's nothing new. In fact, the theories behind hypertext have been around longer than most of the employees of HotWired have been alive. And, to be perfectly honest, today's Web browsers do a lousy job of it.

Think of hypertext as a science that combines two disciplines: editorial and technology. I'll not get into the art of writing for hypertext here. Though if you're interested, there's a ton of useful academic research available online. But the technology of hypertext ¯ the way browsers handle the links between chunks of information ¯ now that's something that could be better.

Today's browsers [Browser Kit] indicate a text link by underlining the words in the link, and changing their color. Is this really the best way to do it? Before Netscape extended HTML and before stylesheets were introduced, page designers had no control over how a link was expressed. Every link to any content ¯ no matter how shallow or deep ¯ had to be displayed as blue text with an underline. While designers in the print world spent hours developing the look of a paragraph, using font face, size, color, and leading, HTML authors had to settle for gray blobs of text with harsh blue scars.

The other problem was that links gave virtually no information about what was behind them. When encountering a link, readers would have to stop where they were, move the cursor over a word, and then read the address information that was displayed somewhere else in the interface. And the address ¯ in the form of a URL ¯ was generally meaningless to anyone who wasn't familiar with the workings of the Internet.

What we need are ways in which Is anyone authors can experiment with innovating alternative hypertext methods. with Right now, when you pass your cursor hypertext? over a link, the pointer turns into Threads a hand (signifying the ability to click). But why have just one alternative? Why doesn't the cursor turn into a projector when the link goes to a video file, or a camera when the link points at a picture? Couldn't the pointer turn a different shape if the link left the current Web site?

Netscape's JavaScript has given designers the ability to add text where the URL normally shows up in the status window (last week's Geek Talk shows how to do this). That's a good start for adding context to links. But why not have the equivalent of an alt attribute ¯ like the one for the img tag? Authors could add a description of where the link will take readers, and that text could show up as a Tooltip, like in Windows 95, or Balloon Help, like on the Mac. If the link went to a movie, the author could give the size and approximate download time. The possibilities are endless.

I know there's work being done in this area, and I'm anxious to see these features creep into the next generation of browsers. If you know of a browser (or even a proprietary hypertext system) that includes interesting linking capabilities [Archive] today, drop me a line.

Jeffrey Veen is HotWired's interface director. He could quit this job and become a bike messenger any time he wanted.

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