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Hyperbole User Manual

3.1 Explicit Buttons

Hyperbole creates and manages explicit buttons which look like this <(fake button)> to a Hyperbole user. They are quickly recognizable, yet relatively non-distracting as one scans the text in which they are embedded. The text between the <( and )> delimiters is called the button label. Spacing between words within a button label is irrelevant to Hyperbole, so button labels may wrap across several lines without causing a problem.

Hyperbole stores the button data that gives an explicit button its behavior, separately from the button label, in a file named `.hypb' within the same directory as the file in which the button is created. Thus, all files in the same directory share a common button data file. Button data is comprised of individual button attribute values. A user never sees this data in its raw form but may see a formatted version by asking for help on a button.

Explicit buttons may be freely moved about within the buffer in which they are created. (No present support exists for moving buttons between buffers). A single button may also appear multiple times within the same buffer; one simply copies the button label with its delimiters to a new location in such cases.

Each explicit button is assigned an action type which determines the actions that it performs. Link action types connect buttons to particular types of referents. Activation of such buttons then displays the referents.

Hyperbole does not manage referent data; this is left to the applications that generate the data. This means that Hyperbole provides in-place linking and does not require reformatting of data to integrate it with a Hyperbole framework.