14 January 2007

Snap Decision

As you have probably noticed, there are no images on this page. This is largely to speed the loading: with pix, it would take much longer, and generally slow down the experience of reading the blog.

Clearly, though, much of the Web is graphical in nature, and many Web pages are visually attractive. So it's a pity not to be able to show this as an enticement to explore the links in these posts further.

But I think I've found the solution. I've decided to install Snap Preview Anywhere on these pages. When you move the mouse pointer over an external link, you should see a small floating image of the page linked to (you need Javascript enabled for this to work). To follow the link, either click on it as usual, or click on the image of the page it leads to. More details here.

I hope you find this useful - I know I do on other sites that have installed it. If you don't, you can turn it off by clicking on Options in the floating window, and disabling it.

Update: Following suggestions in a comment (for which thanks), I've now activated Snap Preview for internal links. And you'll notice a small search box in the pop-up window: this leads to Snap's search engine, which also uses its preview technology to good effect. Feedback on these moves is always welcome.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good move. I like it!

Anonymous said...

I've seen Snap previews elsewhere and find them useful. And yes, obviously, your page loaded practically instantly (versus more and more blogs these days with so much junk that they can take a couple dozen seconds to finish loading). Anyway, the Snap preview didn't seem to be enabled on your right side links, and it would be eminiently useful to have them there, I think. Also, just a suggestion, I've found snap's search engine pretty good, and you might consider activating (showing) the search box in the popup. In retrospect, I can remember using it from other instances of the snap bubble on other blogs. Props to your post and for trying something radical; you obviously leveraged the Snap previews to the max as a value-added feature.

Glyn Moody said...

Excellent. Thanks.

Glyn Moody said...

Many thanks for the suggestions - I've now implemented these, and updated the main entry.

Anonymous said...

amazing!p