Ruby on Rails | Screencasts | Download | Documentation | Weblog | Community | Source

Ruby on Rails
WikiStyleGuide (Version #17)

Home Page | All Pages | Recently Revised | Feed

link style

moved from a discussion on LeeO.

---

I’ve noticed that you and perhaps one other person systematically dewikify WikiWords after the first mention on a page. While I think I understand the motivation (reducing visual clutter), I don’t think this is the the best solution. I personally think that every occurrence of a WikiWord should be clickable, save those that are

• Used as examples of WikiWords
• Used in a sense other than that of the linked page (in which case they probably should be linked to an alternate via <span class="newWikiWord">b<a href="http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/a">?</a></span>.
• And perhaps WikiWords referring to the page on which they occur.

If the issue truly is visual clutter, why not just adjust the style sheets to make them less obtrusive (darkred (or even darkblue) instead of red, only underlined when :hover, or both)?

Why make the users hunt around to find the “hot” occurrence of a WikiWord when it is actually easier for everyone to make them all hot, and more readable to have none of them obtrusively coloured?

— MarkusQ

P.S. I suppose it could be worse—they could be set to blink.

Update:

After a few minutes of playing, I came up with this:
<pre>a:link { text-decoration: none; color: #551122; border-bottom: 2px dotted #ff8899; } a:visited { text-decoration: none; color: #440011; border-bottom: 2px dotted #ff8899; } </pre>
as a rough idea of what I’m thinking. You can still tell that they are links, but they aren’t so obtrusive that you need to ruthlessly mow down redundant instances to save the viewer’s eyeballs.

MarkusQ

I agree that uses should not have to resort to hunting for the singular “hot” link, but I also feel that indiscriminate and abundant links can pose just as much of a barrier for users to find the content they want. I’m somewhat torn on the issue of whether the link style should be reduced to something less obtrusive.

I think the wikipedia style guide on links) is a reasonable guide on the matter of linking.

Here’s a snippet regarding over-linking.

On the other hand, do not make too many links. An article may be considered over-linked if any of the following is true:
* 10% of the words are contained in links
* it has more links than lines
* a link is repeated within the same screen (40 lines perhaps)
* more than 10% of the links are to articles that don’t exist.
* low added value links (e.g. such as year links 1995, 1980s) are duplicated

from Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context

Make only links relevant to the context. It is not useful and can be very distracting to mark all possible words as hyperlinks. Links should add to the user’s experience

Regarding duplicate links:

Avoid duplicate links on a page. Redundant links clutter up the page and make future maintenance harder. However, link the first occurrence of a term, and always link when directing to a page for more information, e.g. “Relevant background can be found in Fourier series”.

So I guess that on the most basic level, I disagree that every word which could be linked should be linked. I think discretion by the author helps uses to identify and navigate to the most useful content.

At the end of the day however, I don’t feel that strongly on the matter, so I’m on the losing end of the general consensus, then so be it.

link style

moved from a discussion on LeeO.

---

I’ve noticed that you and perhaps one other person systematically dewikify WikiWords after the first mention on a page. While I think I understand the motivation (reducing visual clutter), I don’t think this is the the best solution. I personally think that every occurrence of a WikiWord should be clickable, save those that are

• Used as examples of WikiWords
• Used in a sense other than that of the linked page (in which case they probably should be linked to an alternate via <span class="newWikiWord">b<a href="http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/a">?</a></span>.
• And perhaps WikiWords referring to the page on which they occur.

If the issue truly is visual clutter, why not just adjust the style sheets to make them less obtrusive (darkred (or even darkblue) instead of red, only underlined when :hover, or both)?

Why make the users hunt around to find the “hot” occurrence of a WikiWord when it is actually easier for everyone to make them all hot, and more readable to have none of them obtrusively coloured?

— MarkusQ

P.S. I suppose it could be worse—they could be set to blink.

Update:

After a few minutes of playing, I came up with this:
<pre>a:link { text-decoration: none; color: #551122; border-bottom: 2px dotted #ff8899; } a:visited { text-decoration: none; color: #440011; border-bottom: 2px dotted #ff8899; } </pre>
as a rough idea of what I’m thinking. You can still tell that they are links, but they aren’t so obtrusive that you need to ruthlessly mow down redundant instances to save the viewer’s eyeballs.

MarkusQ

I agree that uses should not have to resort to hunting for the singular “hot” link, but I also feel that indiscriminate and abundant links can pose just as much of a barrier for users to find the content they want. I’m somewhat torn on the issue of whether the link style should be reduced to something less obtrusive.

I think the wikipedia style guide on links) is a reasonable guide on the matter of linking.

Here’s a snippet regarding over-linking.

On the other hand, do not make too many links. An article may be considered over-linked if any of the following is true:
* 10% of the words are contained in links
* it has more links than lines
* a link is repeated within the same screen (40 lines perhaps)
* more than 10% of the links are to articles that don’t exist.
* low added value links (e.g. such as year links 1995, 1980s) are duplicated

from Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context

Make only links relevant to the context. It is not useful and can be very distracting to mark all possible words as hyperlinks. Links should add to the user’s experience

Regarding duplicate links:

Avoid duplicate links on a page. Redundant links clutter up the page and make future maintenance harder. However, link the first occurrence of a term, and always link when directing to a page for more information, e.g. “Relevant background can be found in Fourier series”.

So I guess that on the most basic level, I disagree that every word which could be linked should be linked. I think discretion by the author helps uses to identify and navigate to the most useful content.

At the end of the day however, I don’t feel that strongly on the matter, so I’m on the losing end of the general consensus, then so be it.

i2 on Rails, powered by Phusion Passenger™ and Ruby Enterprise Edition.