HYPERWEB

 

 

 

This is an experimental hypertext site using HTML.

 

It is an essay about what hypertext is, and it performs what it says.

 

While making use of various images it is text driven, and like all such projects is a combination of the personal, the contingent, and the theoretical.

 

It relies on Netscape version 2 or greater. This is not my usual policy in WWW publication and design, but this site is less about the WWW and much more about hypertext per se. As far as I’m aware these pages are HTML 3.0 compliant, and they make use of gifs and jpegs (depending on which yields the more economical file). Netscape 2 seems to do the best job of the browsers I’m familiar with of dealing with the HTML elements contained on these pages.

 

What happens…

 

The web pages that make up this site use the HTML <meta> tag to provide a client side pull where pages are loaded serially. You can attempt to intervene at any point by clicking on an image, a word, or a letter. In most cases where a link is available it will randomly place you back into the series, however in some cases the HYPERWEB ‘expels’ the reader.

 

If you simply let the pages cycle then the HYPERWEB will take about 6 or 7 minutes to return to its beginning (if you’ve already loaded the graphics – see below), but if you intervene you can end up anywhere.

 

Making it work

 

These pages require Netscape version 1.1 or greater. Version 2.0 is recommended.

 

To speed delivery of the pages you can download a page that has all the images this site uses, then move into the site proper. This is advantageous because Netscape caches these graphics, which means that it delivers them as needed; thus the pages will run as they’re supposed to.

 

You should make sure that you have Netscape configured to load images automatically.

 

FTP

 

If you have downloaded the HYPERWEB via FTP to your own computer then you do not need to preview all the images manually. Simply enter THE HYPERWEB, making sure you have your browser set to load images.

 

Technical specs

 

The pages were written in Storyspace v.1.3 (Eastgate Systems) then exported as HTML files. They were edited substantially using PageSpinner and BBEdit. All work has been done on a Macintosh Quadra 630 (20MB RAM, 500MB drive) and a Macintosh Duo 250 (12MB RAM +RamDoubler, 200MB drive). An Apple Colour One Scanner was used for the graphics, graphics editing by Photoshop, and that’s about it.

• The graphics page

• The HYPERWEB

 

 

Department of Communication Studies
Media Studies
RMIT
amiles@rmit.edu.au