February 18, 2004
A Short Manifesto for Online Readers
OK, maybe this isn't the most appropriate forum for this, but I'm really sick of
reading long, single-spaced-equivalent, small-font, Times-New-Roman (which
isn't easy to read on a computer screen) online documents (e.g. the
Cybertext review).
One major distinction between codex and online writing is that online writing
is not limited by page size. You can scroll to infinity if you like (though infinity
would certainly be too much of a good thing). This means you can have a larger
font and can have the equivalent of double spacing without too many folks being
bothered.
Online writing (there is a reason I am avoiding the term "cybertext") also
allows for coding possibilities usually ignored by those composing/publishing in
an online environment. You can code into your documents the things mentioned
above (larger font and double spacing), and also indented paragraphs.
Why have we jettisoned such textual innovations? Maybe to distinguish the
codex from the electronic text, or maybe out of some kind of textual anxiety. But
I believe it is a mistake to eliminate the technological breakthroughs of print
culture when they can enhance and facilitate reading in an online environment.
I aim to change this deleterious situation. I am hereby inciting a revolution
against what will heretofore be known as scrunch-text. I suggest that,
for anything you are publishing online you insert the code below (in the attached
image) into the document header (doesn't matter where, but must be in the
header). You can do it with any text editor, even something as simple as
Notepad. And if you don't know enough about HTML, go to
webmonkey.com
I also suggest that, for any HTML document you are assigned to read for a
class (such as this one), you download the document to your hard drive, insert
the code into the header of the document, and THEN read it in a browser (before
your eyes fall out of your head).
Here is the code. You'll thank me when you brain has not exploded and you're
not completely blind when your reach 50.
P.S. I noticed, much to my chagrin, that when I hit preview Moveable Type took
out my painstakingly-placed extra spacing between paragraphs and my indented
paragraphs (which I guess I should have known would happen) and read but
would not print my code. There is a conspiracy afoot! So that's why the code
comes in the form of an image. You'll have to type it rather than cut and paste.
Sorry. We must take the revolution to MT.
Posted by Joseph at February 18, 2004 12:14 PMOne of the reasons Mozilla is my browser of choice is that it has a Zoom option which will always override default style settings (so I can always increase the size of my font over the will of the original designer).
Posted by: MGK at February 18, 2004 03:00 PMI think this might be one of the grinding edges of cybertexts, particularly texts online--are we changing the nature of an online text when we adjust things like text size or font face? What about visual composition or visual rhetoric as part of the online text? Or is the very fact that the text is part of a web browser (or view through the lens/filter/apparatus of a browser), such considerations become flexible?
As a amateur web designer and a friend to many webmonkeys, sometimes composition is important. How it look is as much a part of the text as what it says (or doesn't say).
Just an interesting aside...
ED
I think we definitely change the nature of cybertexts when we start playing with font and formatting, and the effects are similar to those that occur when artists/writers/pencilers, etc. etc., do the same in comics. In fact, isn't the window it's own framed panel space, where action can occur in sequence, scrolling down or to the left or right? The window, to me, is much like the panel in a comic, the bound space where time passes and sequences are marked in the narrative.
Last semester, I was interested in seeing how folks protray the body as text in cyberspace, and it occured to me that a lot of comic theory could help work with this. The obvious things that pop into my head initially are font changes to convey emotion, size, the visual voice of a particular charater, such as is done with the figure of Morpheus in Neil Gaimon's "Sandman" series, where the pale figure of the King of Dreams is portrayed with pitch black eyes filled with endless night and a thousand stars. To match his being as the personification of Dream itself, the word balloons where the character's speech emerged were black balloons with white text, rather than the more traditional black on white bubbles. In this way, there was no doubt when Morpheus speaks, and a sense of visual voice is conveyed.
I think this is carried through in chatrooms, for instance, as folks use netspeak, vary fonts, emote, or type with a certains style and carry over an image of themselves.
DON'T WE KNOW BY NOW THAT THIS IS SHOUTING--AND THAT IT'S VERY RUDE TO BE SO LOUD AND VULGAR?
If nothing else, nettiquette on things like this certainly teach us how to deal and read text in a world where voice is active in time but not generally "heard" by the reader--unless you are rigging up a mic and speakers.
Heh, it's late, so I am not sure if this makes much sense or properly addresses your question/points, but I am bound by habit to using blog space to think off the cuff and off the top of my head--i.e., this is the type of space where I actively "think aloud", and old habits die hard.
So, yes, I think that the space and formatting of online text is definitely something to develop a dialogue about, and I, for one, am inclined to look to comics as my model.
But...I'm just a big geek. :)
Posted by: Kell at February 19, 2004 01:36 AM