The Hyperpage

This month --- Hypertext Links.

In every stack that you create, you end up with buttons for navigation. Many people use the arrow icons to navigate forward or backward or buttons that indicate that clicking on them will navigate to the next card, previous card, home card, etc.

It's a pretty standard way to do things and most people understand how navigation works using them.

There are times when buttons for navigation may not cut it.

For example,

	you might have an index card with a large number of links on it. Since each of those links would require a button, much of the real estate of your card could be consumed by buttons. The result is a cluttered card.
	you might have a piece of text that the user of your stack is asked to read and certain of the key words link to other places in your stack.
	or, you might just be looking for something different.

Enter Hypertext Links. 

In the example below, I have an index of all of the secondary schools in Greater Essex County. There are currently 15 of them. Using buttons, I'd have to have 15 buttons. This is not really an attractive option. Instead, I used Hyperlinks.

After entering the text, "Belle River", I select the entire text and then choose Hypertext Links from the Objects Menu. After naming the Hypertext Link, the familiar "Places to Go", "Things to Do" menu opens up and I can choose a particular action to occur when the user of my stack clicks on the school. I could even use this as a launch pad to visit the school internet homepage.

So, next time you're creating links from one page to another, don't feel locked into buttons. Hypertext Links may be your answer.