New feature. This one is being tested:
If you hover over any external link in a post, you’ll see something interesting happen. Try it. Here is a link to the USC website, for example.
I am trying to decide if this is a useful feature or not. Perhaps it is just too annoying compared to the gain in functionality? Or perhaps you don’t care either way since you can just choose to not hover.
Let me know.
I switched it off for internal links to other Asymptotia posts as the site seemed a bit too busy with that. If you think it would be useful to have that on as well, let me know. By the way, I hope that the recently installed site-map feature has been useful for you, as well as the related posts links at the end of some posts (see, e.g., here, or below).
[Update: See discussion in the comments. See also my comment here about what I think I’ll do (so far.. other ideas welcome).]
Best,
-cvj
I imagine so, since we were discussing the former and not the latter.
Cheers,
-cvj
I made a mistake by assuming “snap it” and “snag it” are the same thing?
Sorry, I don’t know what software you are referring to.
-cvj
Any conclusion as to whether to spend the 149 dollars on this software?
“Any conclusion,” as to whether it is worth spending the 149 dollars to incorporate it into your blog?
Just curious. and watching the comments.
Over top of “latex,” and “latex diagrams.” How would that work?
Maybe a first Clifford?
Hi Folks,
I think I’ve found the right compromise between the two competing views….. It will be used somewhat, but sparingly, and where it might help. Sometimes you don’t want to follow all the links. See the Links page as the example.
Further thoughts are welcome.
-cvj
I agree with Cynthia LaTex Yes, Snap Links no. I think if people are interested in a link they can click on it. If not they don’t need to be visually distracted by just running the mouse or pointing device over the link.
Reminds me of the light switch that goes on and off when you clap. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
Elliot
So far, my opinion regarding “Snap Links” seems to come down on the side of the majority. Hate to say it, but this feature remind me too much of those pesky pop-ups, which tend to litter the internet landscape.
However, that other toy called “LaTeX” is most definitely a keeper! Although I feel intimidated by LaTeX, I’ve gotta admit, it’s got legs (Wall Street-speak for potential). Perhaps I’ll become more comfortable with LaTeX, if I’d just play around in its sandbox for a bit…
Yes, I think I’m beginning to see the best way of making a compromise. It is already turned off for internal links, as I said, and it should definitely be off in comments, as mentioned above. But there are places where it is really useful. Look at the links page listing lots of other blogs for example. There are several links there… you don’t want to follow them all… the snap preview allows you to see each blog and get a visual sense of it in seconds… it’s rather nice.
But I don’t want to have i all over the site…. will make things just to busy and messy. There are also concerns for people who have visual impairments… it can be very confusing in a limited visual field to have these sort of thing popping up too much.
Thanks for comments…. More are welcome.
-cvj
perhaps… but not that much worse than having a link there anyway… something you can always do.
Based on thoughts so far (more please) I may have limited use of the feature… most likely only in posts of mine, and not in comments….. I must admit it is really nice to be able to see previews of the links in people’s names in the comments though [Now switched off]….. might try to see how to do that, even if I disable it in comments.
-cvj
could be a problem
what if I would put a link to a porn page???
I like it!
Passing through the comments here, I get a sense of who everyone is. Also, call me cranky, but I tend to make snap judgements based on layout about whether the content is worthwhile.
I don’t think it is useful either. You can’t read anything on the preview, so you still need to click to see if it is interesting.
Can you do that with a per-link choice ? Then you could add it only for links providing pictures. But even in this case I’m not sure that there would be any interest.
It’s nifty tool, but then it just gets annoying like pop-ups. I trust that certain bloggers will put up safe and decent links, so I don’t see much use for it.
I think it’s just another technique for burning up bandwidth for no good reason.
I’m reminded of way back when the old 026/029 key punch card operated computers got replaced with machines time shared among many users each of whom used a terminal. (Yes, I’m older than microprocessors.) Every university that switched over from a card system to a shared time system experienced the same thing. The amount of computing power was suddenly increased by the new hardware, but was very soon inadequate to satisfy new computational “needs”.
With a card system, one set up a program as a collection of cards. You then threw the deck of cards in an in slot, and a computer operator ran them when it was convenient. Meanwhile, you went and had an ice cream sunday. After a while, you went back and got the results of your program.
This was wonderful. The computer was our slave. We threw a deck of cards at the operator, and then had time to do other things. With the time share systems, one ended up chained to a desk, waiting for the thing to do a calcuation. And of course huge numbers of interactive programs were written to take advantage of this. In essence, the humans were forced to become parts of the machine.
With laptops, the situation has gotten even worse. My work now follows me around in my car. And 30 years on, the computing power is still inadequate to perform many of the tasks (newly) required. And what’s worse, the crappy OS from a large employer in Redmond, Washington is unable to consistently turn my laptop off. Instead, I have to nursemaid it like it were an incontinent elder, yanking the battery out when it can’t quite seem to fall asleep.
And here I am, wasting time on the internet when I should be writing LaTex, a language that is a throwback to the pre WYSIWYG modern trend, and still considered to produce the most elegant mathematics and physics typesetting.
Sorry but snap links looks messy to me – gets in the way – like those annoying popups. Site map and related posts are good!
Since we appear to be voting, I like it a lot.
Sorry, I don’t care for it. Kill!
I like gimmicks 🙂 I think it is sweeeeet.
I think Mozilla has released something very similar for their Firefox browser which lets you do the same thing within any site you visit. Maybe it might be better to just let the indivual decide which they preffer, rather than having it coded into your site.
Some people like it; some don’t. I’m one of those that don’t. It’s a cool feature, but mostly it just gets in the way of reading entries.
I had this over at wordpress.com and decided to turn it off. It looks cool at first glance but then you think – does it really do anything useful? Other than show that the link is working before you go there. I also found that it really slowed down my site.
Whoaaaaaaa! Not too useful for me, but WAAAY COOOOL! 🙂