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I've always enjoyed the to-me graceful experience of coupling each link to a footnote with a return anchor, so that you get the (to olds like me) familiar exper
by JadeNB 1y ago
I've always enjoyed the to-me graceful experience of coupling each link to a footnote with a return anchor, so that you get the (to olds like me) familiar experience of footnotes without the pain of navigating to the bottom and then forgetting where you came from. My memory is that Daring Fireball, among many other sites, does this. (I just checked, and it does. Here's the most recent article that uses a footnote: https://daringfireball.net/2025/06/apple_app_store_policy_updates_dma https://daringfireball.net/2025/06/apple_app_store_policy_up.... Here's the reference to the footnote: https://daringfireball.net/2025/06/apple_app_store_policy_updates_dma#fnr1-2025-06-28 https://daringfireball.net/2025/06/apple_app_store_policy_up.... And here's the footnote itself: https://daringfireball.net/2025/06/apple_app_store_policy_updates_dma#fn1-2025-06-28 https://daringfireball.net/2025/06/apple_app_store_policy_up.... This does require some special handling if you refer to the same footnote multiple times, but, if you really need to do that, the solution could be as simple as having the second reference be to a new footnote that immediately refers to the old one.)
- jaffathecake 1y agoFwiw this technique is covered in the article, with an example, and the UX issues are discussed. The simpler solutions presented do not have these issues.
- JadeNB 1y agoYou are right, thanks. Ironically, I didn't realize that because I only read the text: > If the footnote markers are links, then the user can use the back button/gesture to return to the main content. But, even though this restores the previous scroll position, the user is still left with the challenge of finding their previous place in a wall of text^6. and didn't read footnote 6, which mentions the technique I'm describing. But I still don't seem to see the UX issues, other than the mention of a teeny-weeny hit target, which I admit is perfectly legitimate. But I am an academic, so it is probably no surprise that imitating academia appeals to me.
- jaffathecake 1y agoThe other issue is the poor link text (a superscript number) which gives no clue as to the content at the other end of the link. Like I said, it just becomes a test of your curiosity. Whereas the other examples have headings relevant to the content.
- out-of-ideas 1y agoi prefer them laid flat out too - grinds my gears when there is a wall of text, then trying to use the browsers built-in-search to find a text i remember but cannot find due to some hover/click-element that only displays text sometimes. though - i do not mind a list of sources at the bottom nor embedded within a bracket or w/e - there are many standards (i guess what is worse are pages which re-invent the wheel and re-implement text-searching, like [gitlab i think], where the browser search is broken as its only displaying a sub-section of text at any given moment and browser search fails unless you scroll a page down and find again)
- bshacklett 1y agoUgh, this has become a huge issue with text editing controls. More and more, I find that content gets unloaded once it’s out of the editor’s viewport, making the browser’s built-in search fail.
- out-of-ideas 1y agoxkcd standards; why use the standard search feature when you can build a new search feature per page per website ! new shiny, ooo weeee ooo personally, i blame javascript