
Towards a more perfect link underline - acusti
http://www.acusti.ca/blog/2014/11/28/towards-a-more-perfect-link-underline/
======
TheLoneWolfling
I _really_ do not like this.

It breaks the assumption (wrong word? Intuitive guess?) that one underline ==
one link.

Which means that every time I look at the link I do a doubletake trying to
figure out why there are 6+ links in that word.

~~~
psychometry
Maybe there's something wrong with your browser. The underline style is only
interrupted slightly for descenders. It continues through spaces and other
punctuation like it does normally. It looks _nothing_ like a phrase with each
word underlined individually.

~~~
garrettgrimsley
There's nothing wrong with their browser, they are talking about a single
word, not phrase, being composed of multiple links.

As HN does not support markup I'll attempt to demonstrate with underlines.
Imagine that each slice seperated by underlines is a seperate link.

_Su_p_ercalifra_g_alisticex_p_ialdocious_

~~~
psychometry
The only characters that introduce separation in a standard typeface are the
ones with descenders: q, y, p, g, j, and some punctuation characters.

I have no idea why you think i_f, r_a, c_e, or almost any of the other pairs
of letters in your example would have a discontinuous underline.

~~~
garrettgrimsley
Edited, better?

They are saying that currently if there is a break in the underline it is
understood that the two underlined portions of the word are two different
links.

------
jamesgagan
another recent blog post on this topic with some nice examples:
[http://eager.io/blog/smarter-link-underlines/](http://eager.io/blog/smarter-
link-underlines/)

~~~
acusti
Beautifully illustrated post! Thanks for sharing.

------
SixSigma
I still prefer Wired's transparent ones

see examples [http://www.wired.com/2014/11/2014-physics-gift-
guide/](http://www.wired.com/2014/11/2014-physics-gift-guide/)

------
JoshTriplett
I actually _do_ find this to be an improvement for underlining of text as a
visual style, such as for emphasis or headings. (Which you should never do on
the web, specifically because "underline" means "link" and nothing else;
however, in non-hypertext, underlining can work as a visual style.)

However, as a style for _links_ , it has a sufficiently different style that I
find it distracting, both from . appearing far too faint to stand out, and
from introducing breaks in the line. It isn't _nearly_ as bad as sites that
hide link underlines entirely, however.

------
zkhalique
[http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/people/lamport/pubs/b...](http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/people/lamport/pubs/buridan.pdf)

The whole premise of this paper about Buridan's ass principle is wrong. That
is to say, its assumption of continuity. A simple strategy of "always go to
the right after you haven't made a firm decision after X time" leads to a
discontinuous function, violating their assumption. It is trivially possible
for strategies to lead to discontinuous decision functions, undermining the
whole idea.

The author tries to report that "you aren't sure if you've decided or not
after X time", but doesn't go very deeply into it, and clings to the
assumption of continuity. In fact, one can always be sure whether they've made
a FIRM decision or not by a certain time, in the same way the author has
X_t(1) = 1 for all t.

~~~
wcarss
I think this may belong in a different submission.

------
username223
Anyone whose website looks like this [1] has no business complaining about
underlines.

[1] [http://i.imgur.com/Y1MAsHt.png](http://i.imgur.com/Y1MAsHt.png)

~~~
acusti
Sorry if I gave the impression I was complaining about underlines.

My personal website is a playground for ideas; it is not a product anyone
payed me to build, and it is not intended to sell anything. The fixed semi-
transparent nav is an attempt to balance my annoyance with fixed navs that
break page down/page up functionality with the utility of having quick access
to useful links (use case being “interesting post, who is this person?” or
“what else have they done?”). I don’t love it, and it’s pretty bad at mobile
widths, but it has the distinct advantage of preventing readers from losing
their place when paging. Another commenter picked up on that:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8679336](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8679336)

Anyways, I appreciate the criticism. Though I heartily disagree that as a
result of that expirement, I cannot write about improving text underlining on
the web.

~~~
username223
A floating sidebar would still be mildly annoying, but much better than the
awful header nonsense. The New York Times has plenty of money to throw at web
designers, but still breaks my space bar (wiggling the pointer around after
hitting SPC mostly makes it work). Please don't encourage this terrible
behaviour elsewhere.

------
mattxxx
lgtm

I really like the selection color-change, but I'm not sold on the actual CSS
:/

It's too bad line-height doesn't work so great, because that _feels_ like a
great solution.

~~~
acusti
Do you mean border bottom in conjunction with reduced line-height as a
solution for link underlines? Or something else?

~~~
mattxxx
Yes, I meant border-bottom in conjunction with line-height. It feels more
connected to the idea of "underline" than adding a line-gradient.

------
zobzu
I find the "regular" underline a LOT more readable and ensure im seeing an
hyperlink... IMO readability should always trump "being pretty".

~~~
smorrow
Especially since "pretty" often means tacky or garish. I see alot of comments
in here where people like the look of the thing but don't like the gaps in the
context of something you're going to click on. Me, I just don't like the look.
itself. For some reason, my eye is seeing the text as being "in front" of the
underline, instead of the desired effect which would be the underline getting
out of the text's way.

------
jamesmcq24
Just seems a little nit-picky to me. I can't help thinking there are more
important things to implement than little gaps around letter descenders and
configurable line thickness in text underlines...

~~~
psychometry
Just because there are more important things to do worry about than one
particular thing doesn't mean no one on earth should worry about that thing
until everything else is fixed.

I really need to vacuum my car, but maybe I should hold off until we resolve
the Ebola outbreak?

~~~
jamesmcq24
I'm not sure that example is the same, I'd say a better example would be "I
really need to fix the giant hole in my roof, but maybe I should hold off
until I find the perfect position of the pillows on my bed"

EDIT: But sure, the fact that there are other things to do doesn't mean no one
should worry about anything else. I just feel like this is one of those things
that doesn't really make any meaningful change, add any value, etc. Like I
said, just seems like nit-picking. To each their own.

