Feetneet

[jack]

[1] Preferably both at once.

I often use footnotes both for their intended purpose of conveying incidental or clarifying informtation, and for humour value[1], and have thought somewhat about the best way of presenting this.

For a book, at the bottom of the page is reasonable, you can easily see it if you want to, and not if you don't. I'm pleased to see that my wordprocessor, I'm sure since the last time I looked, has acquired the ability to do this automatically. The problem of footnotes too long for a page isn't really solved, though -- though they're only really a wonderful novelty, you should ideally have a different convention for that much supplementary information.

Many websites duplicate this, which mostly works, though it often involves scanning up and down. Some people htmlise the process, and make the footnote mark a link to the text at the bottom, and some cunning fellows have that have a link back to the right place in the main text.

[2] This text should appear in a box at the right side of the post, level with the main text paragraph.

[3] Or linked.

But an innovation that in retropsect seems obvious is sidenotes[2]. In book or website, having a box at the side of the page level with the note makes it easiest to track to, and the numbering nearly superfluous, if the word is underlined[3] and repeated in the box. But I more often have notes referring to paragraphs, when underlining the last word or the whole thing both seem odd.

I neglect dynamic solutions, eg. mouse hovering making text appear in a box, or autonumbering because (a) less compatible (often using javascript) (b) useful for definitions, but less so when people want to read all your footnotes (c) I don't like it.

Here I've had a go at making callout boxes, doing it simply with div style tags, and not bothering will colours. Please comment if it seems to appear correctly or incorrectly in your browser. If it doesn't implement styles, the footnote will appear at the start of the paragraph.

Comments

[mair_in_grenderich]

well, it works. I guess I don't mind it.

the interaction of LJ-cuts and footnotes is one that interests me...

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

well, it works. I guess I don't mind it.

You sound unenthuseed though :)

the interaction of LJ-cuts and footnotes is one that interests me...

How do you mean? Here I just cut the whole thing in case it broke anyone's friends page. Normally you normally want both halves of the footnote to appear in or out of the cut, but occasionally would make one visible.

[mair_in_grenderich]

my eyes aren't used to the right-left-right movement, I guess.

oh, sometimes people post LJs that suggest they didn't think about what they were and weren't cutting. and putting a special cut for footnotes is annoying.

lalala.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's something odd about this layout. But might it be imperfections in the positioning of my boxes, etc, rather than a flaw in the concept?

[mair_in_grenderich]

I think skipping right->left->right bothers my eyes more than glancing down while carrying on right->left. it could be they're not used to it, or it could be that it doesn't flow so well.

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

I am using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Version 2002 Service Pack 2, running on an AMD Athlon 64, and your sidenotes appear in the manner that their contents indicate they should.

[megamole.livejournal.com]

Snap but s/Home/Professional/

[mooism.livejournal.com]

I wish sidenotes would take off in books — it’s easier to go back to where you started from in the text.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I think they're more wasteful of paper. One small footnote per page mandates a whopping great margin all the way down.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I assumed they would be boxes the text flowed round a bit like in this post, or the Technote or HandyHint boxes in Dummies books; the idea of having a margin just for this hadn't occured, and would be odd, though now I think of it I may have seen it done in books with very dense footnotes.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

(Literal) footnotes in web pages are a dreadful idea and also completely different from their paper equivalont: you have to move the document rather than moving your eyes in order to read them, and then move it back again, which makes it much much harder to get back to where you were.

Paragraph-notes are my favourite solution for web pages, but sidebars don't seem like an unreasonable alternative. They look OK to me though I wouldn't want to predict how they'll come out in lj2news (which currently uses lynx as its HTML-to-text/plain translation).

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

Webpages with footnotes are the equivalent of those books which put all the footnotes at the end of the book, which severely irritate me.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

Especially when they don't even have numbers (presumably because they've been tacked onto a previous typesetting), so you just have to read the notes page in parallel with the main text, trying not to go too far ahead and get spoilers.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yes, I forgot that. Literal footnotes are ok if you choose a paradigm where webpages are designed to all fit in one window[1], but most scroll.

[1] Or if you know what it's going to say.

Paragraph-notes are my favourite solution for web pages,

Yes! I often *do* do that, but was just thinking of footnotes.

I wouldn't want to predict how they'll come out in lj2news

Part of the point of CSS is that it *should* be possible to make them appear as brackets/paragraphnotes if your style attribute doesn't do anything, which seems pretty much perfect. But see reply to Owen.

[stephdairy.livejournal.com]

Looks sane to me. I recommend having the footnotes at the end of the paragraph rather than the beginning for those who don't have CSS. (Though I suspect this may be hard to do without CSS3.)

(S)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

That's what I had first, but five minutes in google couldn't figure out how to align the top of the box with the previous paragraph, or preferably the footnote itself, so I decided to switch, and textonly people can work it out this once. (I wouldn't use it again until I sort something out.)

I've no idea if there are text browsers which could accept alternative

Actually, as a matter of interest, do any of you know how many people do use lynx/lj2news?

[stephdairy.livejournal.com]

Right. I've made it work, but only if you're prepared to work with percentages rather than with a particular width for the sidenote block.

See this temporary mockup thing. Note also that since margins and padding are still specified in units rather than percentages, there will come a point (if you narrow your window sufficiently) where the accumulated padding etc. exceeds the 5% of page width I've allowed for it.

(S)

[stephdairy.livejournal.com]

Erm, for "page width" read "containing element width".

(S)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Percentages is fine. In some ways it makes more sense, though looks surprising when you resize the broswer :)

See this temporary mockup thing.

Ah! That is cool.

Is it necessary to have the paragraph text floating? It works well, but (discounting the faff of having to have a "paragraph with footnote" class or "all paragraphs float" style) doesn't seem quite right: for instance, if you wanted an image specified further up to jut down into it and it to flow around it.

[stephdairy.livejournal.com]

I think it is necessary, sadly.

(And argh, it's hard to make the styling less faff because of the strictly forwards nature of CSS.)

(S)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[sillytrippy.livejournal.com]

Don't know anything about lynx/lj2news, but I generally read livejournal from within w3m. Having the footnotes before the paragraph is a little annoying, but easy to put up with if there is no way of doing it the other way round.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I knew that was a problem (though not how many people it would apply to); I wouldn't adopt this technique until there's a system which isn't inconvenient to them. I presumed that changing it so it worked with postnotes would be an easy but googling intensive css excersize, so postponed it till later.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

They look fine in Mozilla 1.7.8 under Debian. The [3] one is confusingly low. I'd be tempted to increase the paragraph spacing so that a side note never (or less often) appears adjacent to the wrong paragraph.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

Actually [3] worked as I expected, and I formatted it so people would see that effect and judge, which was apparently fortunate.

My reasoning was the natural thing to do is the eyes jump to the side and then flick down boxes until they find the [3]. And often you will have several footnotes in a para, you have to do something.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

Ouch. lynx 2.8.4 (under OSF/1) displays the footnotes above the paragraph. I quite often read LJ using lynx, especially when replying to comment notification emails (since it's just one keystroke from within pine). 's very confusing.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I knew that was a problem (though not how many people it would apply to); I wouldn't adopt this technique until there's a system which isn't inconvenient to them. I presumed that changing it so it worked with postnotes would be an easy but googling intensive css excersize, so postponed it till later.

[simont]

I'm curious about that misspelling "excersize". It seems very common, and I have a theory about why which I'd like to test. Can you think about why you spell "exercise" that way, and then un-rot13 the following and see if it agrees? Vg nyjnlf frrzf gb zr gung gur zvffcryyvat pbzrf sebz svefg chggvat "fvmr" ba gur raq, naq gura erzrzorevat gung lbh xabj gurer'f n p va gurer fbzrjurer naq gurer'f bayl bar cynpr yrsg gb chg vg.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Embarassingly I didn't even see the 'c' even when I reread it. Sorry :) But I agree.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

They're all in the correct place running the latest version of Firefox under OS X 10.4.

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

It appears correctly for me. But I couldn't get into the habit of reading them in order like I was supposed to - if I see boxes I want to read them first! ;)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I don't specifically write them to be read first, but I certainly assume everyone will read them, and try to make reading each footnote its own little adventure. If they were purely informationary I'd make them gray or something so they don't draw the eye until you're looking for them.

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I like the sound of footnote adventures. Hmm, I think I'll set up a little mystery a la Bad Wolf through the footnotes of my thesis and see if the examiners like it[1] ;)

[1] Or fail me for being annoying...

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

*adventuresnotes your feet*

LOL. There's long tradition of footnote games in papers.

[chess]

Works in Firefox 1.0.8 under Ubuntu.