Tractatus Stretchtext, by Satoh Sinh (4974655872)

StretchText is a

hypertext Hypertext is text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typically ac ...

feature that has not gained mass adoption in systems like the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...

, but gives more control to the reader in determining what level of detail to read at. Authors write content to several levels of detail in a work. StretchText is similar to outlining, however instead of drilling down lists to greater detail, the current node is replaced with a newer node. This ‘stretching’ to increase the amount of writing, or contracting to decrease it gives the feature its name. This is analogous to zooming in to get more detail.

Ted Nelson Theodor Holm Nelson (born June 17, 1937) is an American pioneer of information technology, philosopher, and sociologist. He coined the terms ''hypertext'' and ''hypermedia'' in 1963 and published them in 1965. Nelson coined the terms ''transcl ...

coined the term . Conceptually, StretchText is similar to existing hypertexts system where a link provides a more descriptive or exhaustive explanation of something, but there is a key difference between a link and a piece of StretchText. A link completely replaces the current piece of hypertext with the destination, whereas StretchText expands or contracts the content in place. Thus, the existing hypertext serves as context.

References

“Stretchtext – hypertext note #8”
by Ted Nelson (April 29, 1967). Part of Nelson’s

Project Xanadu Project Xanadu ( ) was the first hypertext project, founded in 1960 by Ted Nelson. Administrators of Project Xanadu have declared it superior to the World Wide Web, with the mission statement: "Today's popular software simulates paper. The World ...

. (TIFF) Hypertext 1960s neologisms {{web-stub