interaction-introduction.tex /size: 2945 b    last modification: 2023-12-21 09:43
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3\environment interaction-style
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5\startcomponent interaction-introduction
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7\startchapter[title=Introduction]
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9This document introduces the cross reference mechanism, viewer control, fill||in
10fields, \JAVASCRIPT\ support, comments, attachments and more. It is a rewrite of
11the \MKII\ widgets manual. There is (always) more available than discussed in
12manuals so if you miss something, take a look at test suite or when you're brave,
13peek into the source code as there can be examples there.
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15Interactivity has always been available in \CONTEXT\ and in fact it was one of
16the reasons for writing it. In for instance the YandY \WINDOWS\ previewer, one
17could have hyperlinks and we used that for a while when checking documents. Later
18Acrobat showed up and \PDF\ stepwise added interactive features that we always
19supported right from the start. Unfortunately there is a viewer dependency and
20the documentation of \PDF\ lagged behind, so solutions based on trial and error
21could not work well in a follow up on \PDF. Some features disappeared or became
22so limited that they effectively became useless. Especially multi||media have a
23reputation of unreliability. Because open source viewers never really catched up
24(at least not in this area) the momentum was lost to make sure that documents
25could have audio and video embedded in reliable ways. Even forms and basic
26\JAVASCRIPT\ control of for instance layers is often missing.
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28That said, we do support a lot but can support more when it makes sense. Deep
29down in \CONTEXT\ we always had the mechanisms to deal with this, so extensions
30are not that hard to program. Somehow we thought that publishers would like these
31features but that never really was the case, so there was no pressure from that
32end. Most features are user driven or just there because at some point we wanted
33to make some fancy presentation. In fact, the \type {s-present-*} files provide
34examples of interactivity.
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36The original \PDF\ reference was a couple of hundred pages and looked quite nice.
37A later print has many more pages and still looks ok, but nowadays we have to do
38with a \PDF\ document. If you want to see what \PDF\ supports you can study this
39(now about) 750 page standard. It is, being an \ISO\ standard, not public but
40you can probably find a (maybe older) copy someplace on the web.
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42When reading this manual you need to keep in mind that we assume that you design
43a decent layout and when you make something for an electronic medium, we hope
44that you pay attention to the way you can enhance accessibility.
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46If you miss something here, don't hesitate to ask for clarification, or even
47better, provide an example that we then can use to discuss (an aspect of) some
48mechanism.
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50\stopchapter
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52\stopcomponent
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54% A nice double page e-ink device can be seen at:
55%
56% https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdOXCn1vvzI :
57%
58% vkgoeswild: Playing Pink Floyds Great Gig in the Sky on Imperial by Bösendorfer
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