7. Working with links
A link in Sophie is an action that is triggered when the book is read by the reader. A link can be triggered when the reader turns to a particular page; it can also be triggered when the reader clicks on a graphic. When this happens, different other things can happen: the book might turn to another page, or a frame might be hidden and shown.
In the complete version of Sophie, links will be possible on the page, frames, and in text. In this release of Sophie, links can be set only on frames. Click on a frame's link halo to reveal the link HUD, which looks like this:
To create a link, first press the + button to add a segment to the link. Then start creating your link. All links have two parts: when something happens, something else happens.
The first "something happens", the trigger, can be chosen from a list. For page-based links, it can only be "when this page is opened" or "when this page is closed". For frame-based links, this can be when the frame is shown or hidden, but it's more likely to be when the user's mouse interacts with the frame in some way: when the user clicks on the frame, or moves the mouse over it.
The second "something happens", the action, can also be chosen from a list. The list of possible actions to take varies depending on which trigger is chosen. Actions can be going to a page or hiding or showing a frame.
For some actions, a further parameter is required, the target of the link. This is not always the case - if you make a link that says "on mouse click" "go to next page", you don't need a target, because Sophie knows which page the next page is. But if you make a link that says "on mouse click" "go to page", Sophie doesn't know which page that is. A third field is opened up where you can choose which page to go to. If your action is to show or hide a frame, a list of all possible frames appears as a drop-down menu.
Possible frame actions are:
- Go to next page, which goes to the next page
- Go to page, which goes to any numbered page in the book; you'll need to enter the page number in the target field.
- Show frame, which shows a selected target frame if that frame is hidden.
- Hide frame, which hides a selected target frame if that frame is shown.
- Toggle frame, which hides a selected target frame if the frame is showing and shows the frame if it is hidden.
At the top of the link HUD is a list of previously-saved links: if any links have previously been saved in the book, they will appear in this list, and selecting them will bring those triggers, actions, and targets into the link HUD. You can add a new section to the link by clicking the + icon; you can remove a saved link by clicking the - icon.
Link functionality is only partial in this release of Sophie. In the future, links will become a major part of Sophie and Sophie books.
