Can I have a fixed position element that stays in place on every 'page'?

[cow]

I have a glossary at the end of my book. The TOC is enormous and it's a hassle to use that to jump to the glossary.

I'd like to have a floating SVG icon link that stays fixed in place in the top-right corner, to quickly jump down to the glossary no matter where I'm reading.

When I try to add an element with fixed positioning, it renders properly in sigil and stays put when I scroll (as it should), but on my reader (kobo sage), the fixed floating button only renders on the first "page" of the document.

.float-button {
  position: fixed;
  top: 0.5em;
  right: 0.5em;
  padding: 0.25em;
  z-index: 100;
}

Is this kind of thing typically problematic on e-readers?

And a secondary question..

I'd also like to have a "back" button on the glossary page, so that I can jump back to wherever I left off if I tapped the glossary button. Is there a "best practice" for this, or something that should be avoided?

[cow]

I can't edit my post but I wanted to include a screenshot of how it's intended to look (for testing I just have the glossary shortcut on the glossary document... I will move it later)

[KevinH]

I know of no way to do that as "paging" is dynamic in readers. Perhaps someone else knows a way.

Some readers actually load the "epub" via javascript based reading software and iframe tags. So page sizes are unknown until layout. So the best you can do is the top and/or bottom of every file/chapter.

Also some reader TOCs are limited in size (some to less than 100 links) so creating too large a TOC is problematic in and of itself. Perhaps making your glossary a guide or nav landmark (set semantics)may be you best choice as guide/nav landmark links are often a separate menu on readers independent of the ncx/nav menu.

[cow]

Originally Posted by KevinH

I know of no way to do that as "paging" is dynamic in readers. Perhaps someone else knows a way.

Some readers actually load the "epub" via javascript based reading software and iframe tags. So page sizes are unknown until layout. So the best you can do is the top and/or bottom of every file/chapter.

Also some reader TOCs are limited in size (some to less than 100 links) so creating too large a TOC is problematic in and of itself. Perhaps making your glossary a guide or nav landmark (set semantics)may be you best choice as guide/nav landmark links are often a separate menu on readers independent of the ncx/nav menu.

Bummer. I could see some cool uses for fixed page elements

Good to know about the TOC limits, thanks for that. I just reduced my TOC from 1430 items to 83. It was a nightmare to scroll through it anyway, so I'm glad you mentioned that.

Thank you for the information

[KevinH]

One way around the TOC limitation is to limit it to high level items but at the top of file that is the destination of a high level link, create a much richer inline html toc that shows the level of detail you want just for that chapter or section.

That way, a click on the official ToC gets brings you automatically to a new html toc so that a second click gets you any where you want inside that destination chapter/file.

FWIW, Epub3 does support fixed page layout (but Sigil does not) but frankly multi-reader support is poor due to differing screen sizes. A pdf is therefore often a better choice instead of a fixed layout epub3. Fixed layout epub3s are often used to target children's picture books.

Sigil targets the more accessible reflowable epub2 and epub3 formats.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by cow

I have a glossary at the end of my book. The TOC is enormous and it's a hassle to use that to jump to the glossary.

There is a very simple solution. In the ToC put the Glossary entry right after the Cover entry. Then it's easy to find.

[cow]

One way around the TOC limitation is to limit it to high level items but at the top of file that is the destination of a high level link, create a much richer inline html toc that shows the level of detail you want just for that chapter or section.

This is essentially what I ended up doing. I quite like how it came out too.. see attachments.

I originally had every testament/book/chapter as its own TOC item, and all in, that came to 1430 items (combination book of OT, NT, and Apocrypha). So instead I took out the chapters and put those as links on the individual book covers and I think it looks/functions great like this.

I couldn't find a readable digital copy of this translation (font readability+eyesight issues), so I decided to undertake my own massive data scraping operation to pull all the data together and assemble my own epub out of it.

Due to the translation from 14th century Middle English to modern English, there's a pretty massive glossary of terms that I need to reference a lot.. hence I was hoping to give myself some quick links to make it as easy as possible to reference the glossary.

I think I will just add a shortcut to the glossary on each chapter title, as well as on each of the book covers.

There is a very simple solution. In the ToC put the Glossary entry right after the Cover entry. Then it's easy to find.

I thought about doing this too actually and may still do it. On my reader though, it auto-scrolls me down to (focuses) whichever TOC item I'm currently reading, so it really doesn't matter if the link is at the top or the bottom, I have to scroll the TOC either way :\