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> One immediate thought is that this is completely superseded by the regular browser scroll bar that’s ever-present at the side of the page. This is unfortunat

> One immediate thought is that this is completely superseded by the regular browser scroll bar that’s ever-present at the side of the page. This is unfortunately too often not the case, as people see fit to hide the default scrollbar and have something of their own that doesn't always show or is barely obvious. Though I agree with ToCs and showing progress that way, for pages long enough to make it useful rather than just extra visual noise, though this page itself doesn't actually do that with either of the techniques shown (an extra bar showing just progress through the actual content, or using the contents list as such a display), unless my content sanitisers have blocked some JS that would be doing such work (I see no evidence of such a problem). > Easily Linkable Headings Again, these are sometimes very useful, and when not are easy to ignore completely. But again, the page doesn't make use of the feature it is extolling the virtues of! > Grouping Series of Posts Yes, though I might argue that such links, or a link to a ToC page for the group, belong in a more general list of related links. > Dialogues I can't say I agree there, but I think that sort of style point is very subjective so I'll agree to disagree :-) > Code Blocks with Origin Yep, can be very useful where relevant. > Markers for External Links Definitely, including local links that open in a new tab should also be visually indicated. I'd stay away from an icon per target site/type though - that could quickly get confusing as you essentially have many icons for the same thing (an external link), and every site will use its own preferred set of icons, so the difference won't help generally identify things at a glance. > Link Preview For me, yes, though I'd be very careful where to use such things. It might confuse many non-technical users. > Anything else I'd like all articles to carry an obvious date of publishing and/or last update. That can be very useful in judging if the content is likely to be entirely relevant or should be verified where it may go stale.

082349872349872 2y ago
> > Grouping Series of Posts > Yes, though I might argue that such links, or a link to a ToC page for the group, belong in a more general list of related links. Indeed, in the salad days of HTML there was some way to put related page-links in the <HEAD/>, and Sir Tim's browser displayed UI that enabled navigation via them. Unfortunately that feature was already lost by the mid-1990s.
- zzo38computer 2y ago
  There is a <LINK> command, although many of the possible link types seem to be ignored by common browsers; however, some of these can be used for <A> as <LINK> anyways.
- adiabatty 2y ago
  Seamonkey and I think Firefox, as late as the early 2000s, would expose some of those like next (<https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Attributes/rel#next https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Attributes...>), but roughly nobody used them (either writing or reading) and so they got dropped or shoved off into a plugin.
danilafe 2y ago
Thank you for your thoughtful comment! > But again, the page doesn't make use of the feature it is extolling the virtues of! I said I loved the feature, not that I had the energy to implement it -- though I definitely should. :-) > Yes, though I might argue that such links, or a link to a ToC page for the group, belong in a more general list of related links. This is a good idea, and in my ideal world my site (and others) would support this, but it's more difficult to do automatically. Stitching together a series TOC and connecting sequences of articles is easier to automate. > I'd stay away from an icon per target site/type though - that could quickly get confusing as you essentially have many icons for the same thing (an external link), and every site will use its own preferred set of icons, so the difference won't help generally identify things at a glance. Yes, I'm not sure that I'd advocate for this in general. Another issue is that I personally get a little confused by some of the icons (what does "SAMA" stand for, if you don't know about OpenAI / Sam Altman already?). > I'd like all articles to carry an obvious date of publishing and/or last update Definitely, though as others in the comments have suggested, it may be that Google downranks pages like this. Not that I care much for my search ranking.
- dspillett 2y ago
  > I'd like all articles to carry an obvious date of publishing and/or last update Definitely, though as others in the comments have suggested, it may be that Google downranks pages like this. Not that I care much for my search ranking. I've heard the same but I've not seen trustworthy documentation stating that is an issue. It might be plausible that a date older than a certain point will make something be considered out of date, or more so than an article with a newer date, but if you think about it deeper it could be a bad indicator. How do you compare to articles without dates? I'd argue a dated article is better all else being equal, because the extra context makes it potentially more informative, some information doesn't date badly (at least not quickly), and how would the algorithms know what to do with pages containing multiple dates?

082349872349872 2y ago

> > Grouping Series of Posts > Yes, though I might argue that such links, or a link to a ToC page for the group, belong in a more general list of related links. Indeed, in the salad days of HTML there was some way to put related page-links in the <HEAD/>, and Sir Tim's browser displayed UI that enabled navigation via them. Unfortunately that feature was already lost by the mid-1990s.

zzo38computer 2y ago
There is a <LINK> command, although many of the possible link types seem to be ignored by common browsers; however, some of these can be used for <A> as <LINK> anyways.
adiabatty 2y ago
Seamonkey and I think Firefox, as late as the early 2000s, would expose some of those like next (<https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Attributes/rel#next https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Attributes...>), but roughly nobody used them (either writing or reading) and so they got dropped or shoved off into a plugin.

danilafe 2y ago

Thank you for your thoughtful comment! > But again, the page doesn't make use of the feature it is extolling the virtues of! I said I loved the feature, not that I had the energy to implement it -- though I definitely should. :-) > Yes, though I might argue that such links, or a link to a ToC page for the group, belong in a more general list of related links. This is a good idea, and in my ideal world my site (and others) would support this, but it's more difficult to do automatically. Stitching together a series TOC and connecting sequences of articles is easier to automate. > I'd stay away from an icon per target site/type though - that could quickly get confusing as you essentially have many icons for the same thing (an external link), and every site will use its own preferred set of icons, so the difference won't help generally identify things at a glance. Yes, I'm not sure that I'd advocate for this in general. Another issue is that I personally get a little confused by some of the icons (what does "SAMA" stand for, if you don't know about OpenAI / Sam Altman already?). > I'd like all articles to carry an obvious date of publishing and/or last update Definitely, though as others in the comments have suggested, it may be that Google downranks pages like this. Not that I care much for my search ranking.

dspillett 2y ago
> I'd like all articles to carry an obvious date of publishing and/or last update Definitely, though as others in the comments have suggested, it may be that Google downranks pages like this. Not that I care much for my search ranking. I've heard the same but I've not seen trustworthy documentation stating that is an issue. It might be plausible that a date older than a certain point will make something be considered out of date, or more so than an article with a newer date, but if you think about it deeper it could be a bad indicator. How do you compare to articles without dates? I'd argue a dated article is better all else being equal, because the extra context makes it potentially more informative, some information doesn't date badly (at least not quickly), and how would the algorithms know what to do with pages containing multiple dates?