#FirstWorldProblem: Reading footnotes on PG's essays makes you lose your place, so if you're like me you never read them until you get to the bottom. Solution: Bookmarklet.
What's really amazing is that every now and again someone makes HN easier to read and use, and every time after about an hour, no one cares again. Simple text with simple styles just works, because the content is unbelievably good. Everything else is just bells and whistles.
Good job on the bookmarklet, though I am not sure if anyone will actually use it :) I think it's one of those things where you think it's a good idea, but really it's not quote as big of a problem as it seems.
What you're saying is true. It's a small problem and people will forget; they always do. My real intention was to make it easy enough that there was a chance (a very small one indeed) PG would stick it at the bottom of the page and never have to think about it again.
This is attacking a problem that needs a lot more attention: how should footnotes (or endnotes or whatever) be handled? In other words, what is a good way to handle the addition of optional material in an otherwise linear text?
That said, looks like a nice idea. Not sure how much I like this particular solution yet. Thanks for posting.
As an English major, I read a lot of Shakespeare plays, and I liked the versions that had sidenotes, so that the note appeared at the same level of the line it referred to. This technique translates well to the browser using a hover or click, as seen here: http://rapgenius.com/Drake-the-motto-lyrics
http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/ has notes off to the side whenever there's a * in the main text, which I like a lot. The fixed width can be annoying, though.
I'm surprised that HTML doesn't have a <note> construct; it seems like something that fit the original concept, and should have been a part of the initial design. Browsers could legitimately have a lot of latitude about how to render them, in or out of a page.
Awesome. I always tell myself I'm going to make something like this when reading pg's essays (I specifically remember re-thinking it during the last one) and then never do. Now I don't have to--thanks! :)
If you'd like, you can drop in the JS code at the bottom of the page and it will make your footnotes easier to read automatically. It's not the jumping that's as much the problem as losing the context upon jumping.
Simple trick for iOS: use the "Reader" feature of Safari to scroll to the footnotes while maintaining your current scroll in the main window. Switch back and forth whenever you encounter a new footnote (scroll positions are kept in both windows).
I was also thinking about the footnote problem, while reading PG's most recent essay [1]. Maybe, it is time to kill or supersede footnotes on the web which are one of the examples of the paper text format skeuomorphisms, more common in scientific writing. Footnotes give the serious feeling of a well planned and well thought attire to essays where the main point is elaborated and the distractions are left out, for a delayed, independent, optional reading. However they make the deep readers'[2] experience worse; mainly they prefer to follow the true thought-flow of the writer, and evaluate each footnote in its context rather than separate from the main text.
Hey pg, if I give you a self-contained light piece of JS that does this, would you consider including it in your website? This would also work on mobile.
A couple years ago, the Django Advent had a nifty JS enhancement for footnotes. I thought it worked so well I stole it for a personal project of mine. I would've linked to the original but they're now offline, so if you'll pardon the personal plug you can see it in action at http://sonsofterra.com/
For this kind of problems, I prefer userscripts solutions over bookmarklets as they don't require any intervention from my side -- they auto-load, which is great. This is the typical scenario for a userscripts -- predictable URL sets on where they should fire.
Think about adding this to http://userscripts.org/.
Userscripts are handled via GreaseMonkey extension in Firefox and from what I know, natively by Chrome but I never checked.
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Side note: believe me or not, but I stopped using bookmarks toolbar in my Firefox a year ago or two; I store bookmarks with short memorable names and use kbd to launch them; CTRL-T/CTRL-L, type, ENTER. I abandoned having a toolbar since I was never able to keep visual order in it after constantly adding new items.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 73.5 ms ] threadGood job on the bookmarklet, though I am not sure if anyone will actually use it :) I think it's one of those things where you think it's a good idea, but really it's not quote as big of a problem as it seems.
That said, looks like a nice idea. Not sure how much I like this particular solution yet. Thanks for posting.
[1] Example here: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8486795/the-harden-dilem...
[1] How to get startup ideas http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html
[2] By deep readers, I mean people who don't want to miss a single idea in the essay.
Think about adding this to http://userscripts.org/. Userscripts are handled via GreaseMonkey extension in Firefox and from what I know, natively by Chrome but I never checked.
--
Side note: believe me or not, but I stopped using bookmarks toolbar in my Firefox a year ago or two; I store bookmarks with short memorable names and use kbd to launch them; CTRL-T/CTRL-L, type, ENTER. I abandoned having a toolbar since I was never able to keep visual order in it after constantly adding new items.