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Old 08-01-2013, 08:46 AM   #31
RbnJrg
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Quote:
Originally Posted by neoveninet View Post
Well, solved in all kindle formats as follows in all your files:

Code:
a:link {
   color: black; /* same color as the surrounding text */
   text-decoration: none !important; /* to remove the underline */
   cursor: text; /* to make the cursor stay as a text cursor, not the hand */
}

a:visited {
   color: black; /* same color as the surrounding text */
   text-decoration: none !important; /* to remove the underline */
   cursor: text; /* to make the cursor stay as a text cursor, not the hand */
}

a:active {
   color: black; /* same color as the surrounding text */
   text-decoration: none !important; /* to remove the underline */
   cursor: text; /* to make the cursor stay as a text cursor, not the hand */
}

a:hover {
   color: black; /* same color as the surrounding text */
   text-decoration: none !important; /* to remove the underline */
   cursor: text; /* to make the cursor stay as a text cursor, not the hand */
} 

a {
   color: black; /* same color as the surrounding text */
   text-decoration: none !important; /* to remove the underline */
   cursor: text; /* to make the cursor stay as a text cursor, not the hand */
   
}
a[href] {
    color: black;
    text-decoration: none !important;
    cursor: text; /* to make the cursor stay as a text cursor, not the hand */
You can simplify the above with:

Code:
a, a:link, a:visited, a:active, a:hover, a[href] {
   color: black; /* same color as the surrounding text */
   text-decoration: none !important; /* to remove the underline */
   cursor: text; /* to make the cursor stay as a text cursor, not the hand */
}
Regards
Rubén
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Old 08-01-2013, 11:43 AM   #32
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I'm curious about this comment:

Code:
cursor: text; /* to make the cursor stay as a text cursor, not the hand */
This seems like a REALLY bad idea to me. If your links are not distinguished by colour, or by underlining, or even by the cursor changing shape (on a PC/Mac), how is the user going to know that it's a link at all?
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Old 08-01-2013, 12:04 PM   #33
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Easter egg? Treasure hunt?
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Old 08-01-2013, 02:46 PM   #34
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jellby View Post
Time to change that, maybe
Jellby:

I respect you immeasurably, as you know; but seriously, if they're not underscored, how will anyone know that a link is a link? We can't all use color, there are scores (ha! punning!) of B&W, e-ink, etc., readers. So...what do you think we should all be using? Particularly for something as teeny as a superscript? Rule out color, and what's left? I'm absolutely open to new ideas, but in the proscribed world of e-readers, what are our options?

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Old 08-01-2013, 03:57 PM   #35
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch View Post
Jellby:

I respect you immeasurably, as you know; but seriously, if they're not underscored, how will anyone know that a link is a link?
What I mean is that readers (the human kind) should be expecting key elements in ebooks to be active (as links or whatever), underlined or not. And, of course, ebook creators should make them active.

If I'm reading an ebook, I certainly expect items in a TOC to be links to their appropriate sections, as well as anything that looks like a footnote, and even mentions to other parts of the book (references to chapters, equations, tables, or, why not, just "later on" and "above"). I will try to "click" on them and will be disappointed if they do nothing.

In my opinion, there's often no need to know where every possible link is. It's just enough if, whenever the users wants a link to be there, it is, and it works.
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Old 08-01-2013, 05:34 PM   #36
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jellby View Post
What I mean is that readers (the human kind) should be expecting key elements in ebooks to be active (as links or whatever), underlined or not. And, of course, ebook creators should make them active.

If I'm reading an ebook, I certainly expect items in a TOC to be links to their appropriate sections, as well as anything that looks like a footnote, and even mentions to other parts of the book (references to chapters, equations, tables, or, why not, just "later on" and "above"). I will try to "click" on them and will be disappointed if they do nothing.

In my opinion, there's often no need to know where every possible link is. It's just enough if, whenever the users wants a link to be there, it is, and it works.
Jellby:

I don't disagree that those of us who "live" in the ebook world--whether we're makers, designers, or just voracious readers--come to expect and look for and use those elements we think "should be" links. But we're not the usual consumers. I mean...I can't tell you the emails I get that don't know that footnotes get linked, or how to use them, or how to get "back" to where they were. Or...seriously, you just don't know. The questions I get, even from authors who have Kindles or Nooks or what-have-you...they don't expect to see or find links anywhere. You're imputing a level of expectation and user-sophistication that's common here, on MR, but not in the consumer world.

I think that, for the time being, not underlining any type of link is an error. I can certainly see not doing it on the TOC, for aesthetic reasons, but anywhere else? Particularly if we're talking about glossary items, etc.? Just my opinion, which is worth what you're paying for it, but a dreadful mistake, until the rest of the world catches up to the level of MR.

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Old 08-02-2013, 01:36 AM   #37
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I agree, Hitch. Links need a visual indication that they are links.
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Old 08-02-2013, 02:15 AM   #38
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Well, I have two comments.
  1. Setting text color to black guarantees returns from Amazon (assuming that the book sells and people read it); both from readers, and, eventually, a nastygram from Amazon saying that they've taken your book down, as it isn't readable in Night Mode, because you set the text color to black, not automatic, so when Night Mode is chosen, absolutely NONE of your links will be visible, at all, and,
  2. I, for one, don't understand how/why on earth anyone would de-underline links meant to go to a glossary, index, or footnotes. While I can understand why some people dislike the underlining on the TOC, removing them from all other links seems utterly counterintuitive. How will your readers know that the word in the body text has a link, to click? By Telepathy? And if you have users who are not expecting links, why would they look for them? Is the expectation that they'll somehow see the pointing hand on the word, through inadvertence? Or as if the cursor reads word-by-word, which it doesn't?

I don't mean to sound snarky, but I had this situation with a client recently, with some 700+ footnotes in his book. He loathed the dreaded "blue" links in his book, which had a color scheme. I said, sure, fine, we can change it to black, as long as you understand that in Night Mode, no one will be able to see them. That was the end of that discussion. We had another client who also wanted some several hundred glossary items linked, from the first occurrence of each word, to the glossary. He then had a cow over the underscores. I asked him: how will your readers know to click the word? What possible clue is provided that the word is a link? That discussion was also over with rather quickly.

FWIW, I have found, over the course of some 2K books, that readers do NOT know that the TOC items are linked when they are NOT underlined. I've seen complaints from readers in reviews about "not linked TOC's," when the old prc (mobipocket) tags were used, and the TOC entries WERE linked...but the readers couldn't tell that they were. People are accustomed to seeing underscores under links.

Lastly, if By 2, in your post, I understand that the idea is that each anchor link has to have inline CSS...thanks, but I think I'll stick with either underscores, or find a different way. That feels as though it's fallback coding for K7, not for K8, and the problem is, if you put it inline, then you're overriding the CSS for the K8 files. Not to mention, I'm a firm believer in not using inline CSS unless there's simply no other alternative. {shrug}

Hitch
Very valid points.

However, I'm of the opinion that glossary-linked items should not be blue, underlined, and otherwise glaring and blatant. They should be differentiated from the rest of the text, but in a way that's easy to handle. If some readers don't get it, then at least we're not ruining the experience for the rest of them.

But still, valid points. Here are some thoughts:
  1. Why not try "color: inherit" (for the newer file types) and see if makes things jive in Night Mode, color swapping and all that?
  2. Instead of coloring the words black so they're indistinguishable from text (and invisible in Night Mode) maybe color them a shade of blue or gray that is visible in both modes, and can be differentiated from the rest of the text? (Obviously blue will only show up on color devices.)
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Old 08-02-2013, 05:14 AM   #39
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch View Post
I think that, for the time being, not underlining any type of link is an error. [...] a dreadful mistake, until the rest of the world catches up to the level of MR.
I understand that. But people got used to underlined links because they saw underlined links in the web... they can only get used to non-underlined links if they see non-underlined links somewhere

My point is that if we want things to change, we must do something actively, we must push somehow.
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Old 08-02-2013, 05:54 AM   #40
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jellby View Post
I understand that. But people got used to underlined links because they saw underlined links in the web... they can only get used to non-underlined links if they see non-underlined links somewhere

My point is that if we want things to change, we must do something actively, we must push somehow.
Jellby:

I don't necessarily disagree. My questions/observations are few and simple:
  1. Seriously, what do you suggest as an alert method, to let a reader know that something's a link? A color? A font? What about readers that are e-ink and don't support embedded fonts?
  2. And, we all know that many of us here on MR have actively lobbied against the abortion that became ePUB3, with almost all the "forward" movement being multi-media crap done strictly for Apple. What did that get us? Not trying to be cranky, BUT...just sayin'. Bear in mind that hundreds of thousands of more books will be made by DIY'ers, using Word files as uploads at Amazon and NookPress and Smashwords, than will ever be made by the likes of us, Jellby--and every single one of those will have bright blue underlined links. As will all the BPH books that are made in Delhi. Just an observation.

@toolbox13:

With regard to the inheritance, you have to ask yourself, inherit from what, if the color is automatic? That's the first thing. The default color for links on a Kindle is blue. Does the inheritance inherit blue? IIRC (and I freely admit, I could be mis-remembering this from the last time I tried to work with this, which was some time ago), the "automatic" color for links defaults to blue. If you set it to black, we're back at square one. But again, I could be not recalling this correctly. If you set the color for links, generally, so that the inheritance works (because I think that the various types of links would inherit the color from the a: setting, not from the text, and cascade thusly) then you have to pick something that will show up on Night mode. Red, etc., won't work with that. Jellby, does that sound right to you?

The second is, how distinguishable do you think those shades of grey will be on the innumerable e-inks, ranging from the K-1s to K2's to K3's to Keyboards to Paperwhites to DX'es? It's spiffy to think about Fires and Fire HD's and all that cool stuff, but there are millions--millions--more e-inks than there are Fires. Is there a shade of grey that will work with Night Mode? I'll defer to those of you with stronger senses of color than I have; my experience is that only "automatic" text, which becomes white-on-black, works for Night Mode, but a light grey might (which, in turn, mayn't be readable on an e-ink in Day mode). Just my $.02 on this.

Not opposed to outside-the-box ideas...just wondering, what can be done that a) works on all platforms and b) is intuitive to the reader, who, after all, is our end-product-consumer.

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Old 08-02-2013, 06:05 AM   #41
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch View Post
Seriously, what do you suggest as an alert method, to let a reader know that something's a link? A color? A font? What about readers that are e-ink and don't support embedded fonts?
Well, underlining is maybe the best method, sure... but then, sometimes you want to underline other thing that are not links... If I can wish for a better world, maybe the reader could have an option to highlight (underline, frame, color...) links, then you wouldn't need to add anything yourself.
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Old 08-02-2013, 02:23 PM   #42
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch View Post
Well, I have two comments.
  1. Setting text color to black guarantees returns from Amazon (assuming that the book sells and people read it); both from readers, and, eventually, a nastygram from Amazon saying that they've taken your book down, as it isn't readable in Night Mode, because you set the text color to black, not automatic, so when Night Mode is chosen, absolutely NONE of your links will be visible, at all, and,
  2. I, for one, don't understand how/why on earth anyone would de-underline links meant to go to a glossary, index, or footnotes. While I can understand why some people dislike the underlining on the TOC, removing them from all other links seems utterly counterintuitive. How will your readers know that the word in the body text has a link, to click? By Telepathy? And if you have users who are not expecting links, why would they look for them? Is the expectation that they'll somehow see the pointing hand on the word, through inadvertence? Or as if the cursor reads word-by-word, which it doesn't?

I don't mean to sound snarky, but I had this situation with a client recently, with some 700+ footnotes in his book. He loathed the dreaded "blue" links in his book, which had a color scheme. I said, sure, fine, we can change it to black, as long as you understand that in Night Mode, no one will be able to see them. That was the end of that discussion. We had another client who also wanted some several hundred glossary items linked, from the first occurrence of each word, to the glossary. He then had a cow over the underscores. I asked him: how will your readers know to click the word? What possible clue is provided that the word is a link? That discussion was also over with rather quickly.

FWIW, I have found, over the course of some 2K books, that readers do NOT know that the TOC items are linked when they are NOT underlined. I've seen complaints from readers in reviews about "not linked TOC's," when the old prc (mobipocket) tags were used, and the TOC entries WERE linked...but the readers couldn't tell that they were. People are accustomed to seeing underscores under links.

Lastly, if By 2, in your post, I understand that the idea is that each anchor link has to have inline CSS...thanks, but I think I'll stick with either underscores, or find a different way. That feels as though it's fallback coding for K7, not for K8, and the problem is, if you put it inline, then you're overriding the CSS for the K8 files. Not to mention, I'm a firm believer in not using inline CSS unless there's simply no other alternative. {shrug}

Hitch
..it seems that I've mismatched something , but anyway my point was personal, I'm not a publisher or something , adjust it to whatever your needs are!
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Old 08-02-2013, 04:45 PM   #43
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..it seems that I've mismatched something , but anyway my point was personal, I'm not a publisher or something , adjust it to whatever your needs are!
Neoveninent:

My points were for the OP, who was discussing putting his book on Amazon, not to you. About what happens when the book is published, given the limitations of the devices and the users. Don't take it the wrong way. I make books professionally, so that's my frame of reference--"what happens when it gets uploaded at X?"

@Jellby:

Jellby, Jellby, Jellby, mon sweet:

Yes, we can all hope for that better world. I agree, sometimes, we want to use actual underlines. It's kind of why we've been stuck with the color+underline. ;-)

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