Citing Websites

[Notjohn]

I often have occasion to cite websites, which in an ebook causes great stumbles in justification. Can I head this off by going something like this:

www.something/­something/­something.htm

So www.something/something/something.htm would break after any blackslash (or full stop, for that matter)?

I suppose I could do much the same by calling for ragged-right in bibliographies, but that wouldn't handle the occasional very long url.

Thanks!

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

I often have occasion to cite websites, which in an ebook causes great stumbles in justification. Can I head this off by going something like this:

www.something/*something/*something.htm

So www.something/something/something.htm would break after any blackslash (or full stop, for that matter)?

I suppose I could do much the same by calling for ragged-right in bibliographies, but that wouldn't handle the occasional very long url.

Thanks!

There are no backslashes in your example, only slashes. I am not sure what you are trying to accomplish. Are you wanting to show the user the URL or are you wanting to be able to follow the URL. You can always place it on a line by itself and then reference it to avoid inadvertent wraps.

Dale

[Notjohn]

No, many of my cited urls are too long to fit on a normal ebook line.

The message board software, alas, seems to have translated & s h y ; literally. I'm suggesting putting a soft hyphen at logical intervals so the url will break where it needs to break, whether that be a slash, backslash, or dot.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

No, many of my cited urls are too long to fit on a normal ebook line.

Make the font size smaller?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Make the font size smaller?

Wolfie:

No, that won't work. Lots of URLs, in research material, are hundreds of characters long; you'd have to make the pt. size 1, equivalently, to get them to "fit" on a line, so to speak.

NJ, just give it up. Seriously, you can't get there from here with URLs, not unless you use a link shortener, but make sure that you choose one like goo.gl, so that it will be around for the duration of the book. ;-)

(I will say that most people don't seem to understand URLs, like Amazon URLs, and include all kinds of cruft that aren't needed for the actual link. You might double-check your URLs, make sure that they are as natively short as they can be, path-wise.)

Hitch

[JSWolf]

Why not the full URL? You just have put the URL in the <a and use plain text to describe it and that text would be the link.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Hitch

(I will say that most people don't seem to understand URLs, like Amazon URLs, and include all kinds of cruft that aren't needed for the actual link. You might double-check your URLs, make sure that they are as natively short as they can be, path-wise.)

You wouldn't believe how much superfluous crap there is much of the time. Especially with Google/Youtube/Amazon links, these people leave in all the extra cruft (which browser you used, what your original search terms were, how you arrived at the page, [...]).

For example, I just tested a simple "test" in Google:

95 Characters: https://www.google.com/search?q=test...hrome&ie=UTF-8
36 Characters: https://www.google.com/search?q=test

Originally Posted by Hitch

NJ, just give it up.

Best to just leave the linebreaking up to the device.

Originally Posted by Hitch

Seriously, you can't get there from here with URLs, not unless you use a link shortener, but make sure that you choose one like goo.gl, so that it will be around for the duration of the book. ;-)

I am no fan of link shorteners. That would lead to Link Rot:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_rot

I don't care HOW big you think they are, the shortener will die and it will make it impossible to find the source in the future (for example, being able to use Archive.org to get copies of the old website).

Side Note: One of the favorite projects I ever ran across was URLTeam by Archive Team:

http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=URLTeam

They are scraping every single URL from every single URL shortener and trying to archive the real links hidden behind them.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Why not the full URL? You just have put the URL in the <a and use plain text to describe it and that text would be the link.

WOLFIE!

Shame on you. Never suggest that. You have any idea what it's like, to try to use a link on an eInk w/o a browser, that's an anchor link? Ixnay on that. Naked links, boys and girls, for all the good folks that use dedicated eReaders that don't have built-in browsers. This is a lecture I give my clients constantly. I once wrote to a friend of mine, whose non-fic book I read, and told him how frustrated I was to learn that I couldn't use any of his linked resources--because I had zero idea where the links went to. Nary a clue. It's not like a browser, where you can hover-over and see the link. And even if you could--what, you want to try to do that, and type a 90-character-long link into your browser?

Of all the people, Wolfie, I know you know better. You just brain-farted.

For the general public: about 40% of all eReaders out there do NOT have browsers or Net capability. If you put your reference-material, additional-content, etc., links in anchors, you are screwing your reading audience that isn't reading you on a tablet or smartphone. Don't do it.

Hitch

[PeterT]

How about having an Author or eBook specific website and posting all links (and errata) there; something simple to access like http://notjohn.com/mybestseller

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by Hitch

WOLFIE!

Shame on you. Never suggest that. You have any idea what it's like, to try to use a link on an eInk w/o a browser, that's an anchor link? Ixnay on that. Naked links, boys and girls, for all the good folks that use dedicated eReaders that don't have built-in browsers. This is a lecture I give my clients constantly. I once wrote to a friend of mine, whose non-fic book I read, and told him how frustrated I was to learn that I couldn't use any of his linked resources--because I had zero idea where the links went to. Nary a clue. It's not like a browser, where you can hover-over and see the link. And even if you could--what, you want to try to do that, and type a 90-character-long link into your browser?

Of all the people, Wolfie, I know you know better. You just brain-farted.

For the general public: about 40% of all eReaders out there do NOT have browsers or Net capability. If you put your reference-material, additional-content, etc., links in anchors, you are screwing your reading audience that isn't reading you on a tablet or smartphone. Don't do it.

Hitch

Eloquently put.

I will never do it again.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

Eloquently put.

I will never do it again.

Really, don't. Lots of people just ASSUME. They think of digital stuff, and browsers, and computers, it's a natural mistake...but at least 40% of all dedicated eReaders don't have built-in browsers. Those that do, that have crappy built-in browsers, like Voyages, etc., aren't much better.

So, please, folks: use RAW links, so that your devoted readers can find the stuff to which you've linked.

Your friendly neighborhood book converter,
Hitch

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by Hitch

So, please, folks: use RAW links, so that your devoted readers can find the stuff to which you've linked.

Your friendly neighborhood book converter,
Hitch

Pardon my ignorance, but what's a 'raw link'? And how does one do one?

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

Pardon my ignorance, but what's a 'raw link'? And how does one do one?

Just meant something like this:

<a href="http://sample.com/article1/">http://sample.com/article1/</a>

instead of:

<a href="http://sample.com/article1/">Read this article</a>

If you are on a non-internet connected device, you can still manually read and type in the first link.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Just meant something like this:

<a href="http://sample.com/article1/">http://sample.com/article1/</a>

instead of:

<a href="http://sample.com/article1/">Read this article</a>

If you are on a non-internet connected device, you can still manually read and type in the first link.

Yup, what Tex said. ;-)

Naked links: the eye can see the link, and replicate it via typing.
Anchor links: the eye only sees the "click here" (or whatever) text, and has no good way in some environments to see or replicate or get to the linked content.

Honestly, I didn't think about it for years--until that thing happened with my friend's book. I now recommend the naked link thing to all our clients (although only about 50% listen to me, but...hey, a girl can try).

Hitch

[BetterRed]

@Hitch - in a previous post you referred to a 'raw link', in this post you use the term 'naked link' - I think for the same thing, but maybe not.

BR