Index links from blue to black?

[ksimpson1986]

Hey guys, i had a technical question. i know that e-readers have a mind of their own, but i figured i might as well throw this question out there and give it a shot.

I added a couple hundred index entries and created the index. everything looks great and functions great, except there are some e-readers that display those index entries throughout the book as blue text. although it's not a link unless you go to the index itself and jump to the entry, the blue could be really confusing to some people(the owners of the book). is there a way to tell the linked text to stay black for day mode, and white for night mode? i just want to get rid of the blue altogether, there's really no reason for it to be there. thanks guys, hopefully this is doable.

[DiapDealer]

You can try. But any reader based on Adobe's RMSDK will likely show them in blue anyway. It's best just to let the reading system handle it. Any attempt to force the text color with css could actually backfire and make things worse. There's no way for an epub to know if it's being read in night-mode or not.

[jwo]

You may want to try using setting the color attribute for the <a> tag in the css to "inherit".

This is what I use to make the TOC look more printed book like:
a {font-size:1.125em; color: inherit; text-decoration: none;}

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by jwo

You may want to try using setting the color attribute for the <a> tag in the css to "inherit".

This is what I use to make the TOC look more printed book like:
a {font-size:1.125em; color: inherit; text-decoration: none;}

Yes.

Except, then--unless you have a page of instructions, or a paragraph at the top of the index, informing your readers how/why you hid linked content from them, how do your readers KNOW that they are links? Do you think that they'll just run around the book, randomly clicking stuff, "just in case?"

Hitch

[ksimpson1986]

thank you!!! you made it look perfect for day mode and sepia mode! the "a {font-size:1.125em; color: inherit; text-decoration: none;}" worked but unfortunately when i switch to night mode, it goes back to blue links...i can't seem to find any control for night mode. any ideas? if i can get night mode to look right, i'm done with this book!

[jwo]

As Diap said above, it's really going to be dependent on the reader for what works and what doesn't. That actually is the general theme of most postings on this site ... what works on one may not on another.

And as Hitch suggests, even if something CAN be done doesn't mean it SHOULD be done.

These two have offered great advice over the years and I've learned a ton from them (as well as many others on this site).

You may also get more advice having this moved to either the EPUB or WORKSHOP forum as this isn't really a Sigil issue.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by jwo

As Diap said above, it's really going to be dependent on the reader for what works and what doesn't. That actually is the general theme of most postings on this site ... what works on one may not on another.

And as Hitch suggests, even if something CAN be done doesn't mean it SHOULD be done.

These two have offered great advice over the years and I've learned a ton from them (as well as many others on this site).

You may also get more advice having this moved to either the EPUB or WORKSHOP forum as this isn't really a Sigil issue.

Thanks for the kind words.

I am somewhat constantly boggled by this request, at my own shop. I mean...why make something a link, if you're hiding it from the reading public? I literally do NOT understand what the thinking is. I just don't.

Hitch

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Thanks for the kind words.

I am somewhat constantly boggled by this request, at my own shop. I mean...why make something a link, if you're hiding it from the reading public? I literally do NOT understand what the thinking is. I just don't.

Hitch

Technically, they're not links in this case, are they? They're the anchors/targets for other links. At least that's what I assumed. Isn't it an RMSDK thing that renders all text in <a> tags in blue (regardless of whether the "a" tag has an href property or not)? I seem to remember something to that effect, anyway.

Regardless ...I still don't think it's worth trying to affect text color via css in an epub. Too many ways it can backfire. Let the reading system handle text colors (including link text), I say.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Technically, they're not links in this case, are they? They're the anchors/targets for other links. At least that's what I assumed. Isn't it an RMSDK thing that renders all text in <a> tags in blue (regardless of whether the "a" tag has an href property or not)? I seem to remember something to that effect, anyway.

Regardless ...I still don't think it's worth trying to affect text color via css in an epub. Too many ways it can backfire. Let the reading system handle text colors (including link text), I say.

Diap:

You could well be right. (That it's the inbounds). I assume that they're blue because the targets in turn contain the outbound "back" links (essentially).

Yes, it's an RMSDK thing, and like you, I'm pulling that from memory, so surely, someone with a crisper brain will be along shortly to say that I'm wrong.

I mean, I get it. I wouldn't want a thousand weirdly blue words throughout. If they ARE solely (so to speak) the targets, great.

But wait...let's say that the index entry is to "Churchill, Winston." and you tap your index item, and it takes you to this page will all kinds of cool Churchill stuff. Right?

How do you know WHERE to tap to go back???

(Yes, it's a two-emoty post!)

Hitch

[ksimpson1986]

Just to make this clear. DiapDealer is right, they are not really links per-se...at least not how i'm trying to display them. i have 1500 index entries to this eBook all dynamically created through sigil. at the back of the eBook is the index of course, when you find a word you're looking for in the index and click it, it jumps to that word in the book. these words in the book are NOT return links. you can't press them, nor do they need to be pressable(clickable)...it's only a one way "link". there's no reason for them to be glowing blue. now after more research, i have found that it's ONLY ibooks that displays those "linked" words as blue. no other ereader does. given the info above, i was able to eliminate the unnecessary blue words for day mode and sepia mode. I understand it can be up the ereader, but if there's a night mode option that will even give a chance of eliminating the blue text on night mode, i'll take it. i appreciate you guys' help.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by ksimpson1986

Just to make this clear. DiapDealer is right, they are not really links per-se...at least not how i'm trying to display them. i have 1500 index entries to this eBook all dynamically created through sigil. at the back of the eBook is the index of course, when you find a word you're looking for in the index and click it, it jumps to that word in the book. these words in the book are NOT return links. you can't press them, nor do they need to be pressable(clickable)...it's only a one way "link". there's no reason for them to be glowing blue. now after more research, i have found that it's ONLY ibooks that displays those "linked" words as blue. no other ereader does. given the info above, i was able to eliminate the unnecessary blue words for day mode and sepia mode. I understand it can be up the ereader, but if there's a night mode option that will even give a chance of eliminating the blue text on night mode, i'll take it. i appreciate you guys' help.

You didn't provide them with "back" links, in the words?

Well, to each their own. As so many eReaders don't have the "back" functionality, we do embed back jumps. (This next bit isn't particularly directed to you; it's to others that may come along and read this down the road.)

If you think about how people use indices, generally, it's a browsing/grazing environment. They want to look up the info in the book on, say, "Irish Setters." Your book may have that information in myriad spots, those spots shown in 4 or more different spots in the Index.

For example: Setters, Irish; Irish Setters; Setters; Hunting Dogs; Family Dogs and so on. In each of those main listings, you may have a large number of listings below it. So, if I rummage around over to "Setters, Irish," and below that I see 4 different options--and I click to get into the book, then what happens?

After I read the first, and want to go read the rest, do I have to "go to" menu, go to the TOC, click into the Index, click something else (A-B-C...) to winnow the search, and then manually search/scroll back down to Setters, Irish, so that I can see the other 3 options?

I mention this only because we've spent a lot of time about usability issues in eBooks, particularly as they relate to indices. While it's certainly true that someone may look up a single thing, find it, and be happy, it's a lot more likely that they'll browse, click, read, and then want to get back to where they were, to resume the browsing, clicking, and so on.

Offered solely FWIW.

Hitch

[Toxaris]

Hitch and Diap are correct, with RMSDK it at least was and perhaps still is not possible to change the color of the links. If, and only if, the target is only to reach the text from the index and you don't want a link back to the index, why not do it like this:

Some <span id="indexref1">dummy</span> text.

The code in the reference could then be a real link pointing to this tag. This would cause you normal text to look normal. Isn't that what you are after or am I totally misinterpreting this?

[ksimpson1986]

Id love to have return links to the exact indexed word! but sigil only creates the index as a one way "link". when i look at the word in the bock, it just has the code the ereader needs that will jump from index to the word only. unless there's something im missing?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

Hitch and Diap are correct, with RMSDK it at least was and perhaps still is not possible to change the color of the links. If, and only if, the target is only to reach the text from the index and you don't want a link back to the index, why not do it like this:

You can change the colour of the links in the later versions of RMSDK though the default is still blue and underlined in the latest version I've seen. I use a couple of styles to set links to black, grey or green with no text decoration--I like the different colour/shade of grey on my ebook readers to allow distinguishing that it is a link but I find the underline to be annoying when I am just reading the text with no intention of tapping the link.