[Textbook-l] linearity

[Magnus Manske]

Daniel Mayer wrote:
> LDan wrote:
> 
>>I'm not the programmer, but 
>>should it really be a link to a 
>>regular wiki page? I think it 
>>would be more appropriate 
>>if it linked to something like
>>[[Special:Next]] or {{NEXTPAGE}}. 
>>It would also be convienient for 
>>that to appear at the bottom of 
>>the screen automatically, but that 
>>would take some coding.
> 
> 
> I really, really like this idea; that way a particular module (wiki textbook 
> page) could be used by several different textbooks. The software would keep 
> track of the textbook (and module) the reader is reading from so that "Next 
> page" always keeps the reader in the same textbook even when many of the 
> modules of that textbook are shared. A possible way for the software to know 
> the order of pages is to simply scan the table of contents of whatever 
> textbook the reader is reading from. 

OK, practical question: How does the software on a given page *know* 
what page is next? It doesn't until we tell it. The best place is within 
the page/article/module, don't you think?

The alternative would be to make an index page with links, and then have 
*every* page scan *every* index (well, the ones with links to that page) 
for "Am I in here", parse the index, and determine the next page.

Both would be possible, the first one easy to implement (just a link;-).
The second one would be based on indices (tables of contents). To stay 
in the same "book", we'd have to carry the current TOC with us on every 
view. Or, we show all possible links, like "Next page in Biology", "Next 
page in Chemistry", etc.

Magnus