The current implementation of footnotes on the site is lacking, requiring the reader to scroll down to the bottom of the page to read them then scroll back up or requiring the author to get creative with formatting to show that the notes aren't part of the main text. Could this be enhanced with a tooltip-style popup? When a reader clicks/taps on the inline footnote number, a small box would appear to show the contents of the footnote in question.
For ebooks, many ereaders (such as Kindle) or reading programs (such as Calibre) already have a feature where tapping a link brings up a small textbox that displays the content of the footnote, even if the note is in another file, assuming the anchor points used for the note are properly named and placed. This requires no extra CSS and anchor points can be programmatically generated (say, c1n1 for the first note in the first chapter). Perhaps the notes themselves could be placed in a separate "Annotations" chapter upon export. I've made a simple ebook to demonstrate and attached the html files I used to create it.
EDIT: After some testing, I believe I've found a simpler solution. When creating footnotes from BBCode to HTML, simply also add an anchor point at the original place in the text and another the footnote location at the bottom. Then, using these anchors, add links that jump from text to footnote or vice versa. This would enable quick access to and from footnotes on all devices, even ereaders, with minimal messing around, no popups necessary.
The current implementation of footnotes on the site is lacking, requiring the reader to scroll down to the bottom of the page to read them then scroll back up or requiring the author to get creative with formatting to show that the notes aren't part of the main text. Could this be enhanced with a tooltip-style popup? When a reader clicks/taps on the inline footnote number, a small box would appear to show the contents of the footnote in question.
For ebooks, many ereaders (such as Kindle) or reading programs (such as Calibre) already have a feature where tapping a link brings up a small textbox that displays the content of the footnote, even if the note is in another file, assuming the anchor points used for the note are properly named and placed. This requires no extra CSS and anchor points can be programmatically generated (say, c1n1 for the first note in the first chapter). Perhaps the notes themselves could be placed in a separate "Annotations" chapter upon export. I've made a simple ebook to demonstrate and attached the html files I used to create it.
FootnoteTest.zip
EDIT: After some testing, I believe I've found a simpler solution. When creating footnotes from BBCode to HTML, simply also add an anchor point at the original place in the text and another the footnote location at the bottom. Then, using these anchors, add links that jump from text to footnote or vice versa. This would enable quick access to and from footnotes on all devices, even ereaders, with minimal messing around, no popups necessary.