Getting Around

To start with the obvious, you're likely seeing this site in a browser. Which one? Shouldn't matter, because Hypervariety is the same on browsers like Chrome, Firefox, IE8, and others. The page you see has a current path just like any file on a disk. The browser downloaded this page by requesting it from my server and showed it to you.

1. Links

A page can link freely to other pages; this is the fundamental idea of the World Wide WebPeople normally just call it the Internet now.... The link will appear in blue underline. The built-in tag is called <a>, which stands for anchor. You can put the actual path of the page between <a> and </a> and the browser will see it. For example: <a>acknowledgments</a>, <a>stack</a>, or <a>/</a> (the last one is just a slash and points to my front page).

Links can also leave your page and go to a server you specify, or to one specific page on the server. <a>https://google.com</a> goes there, and <a>http://www.apple.com/ipod/</a> goes there.

The contents of the tag don't need to be its destination. The server and path properties, if included, specify the target. <a server=yahoo.com>I'll take you to Yahoo!</a> or <a path=welcome>See my welcome page</a>.

2. Pages

It's not too hard to use the <page>...</page> template. There's one in the home page, it's what the files get loaded to. The point of this template is something both the home page and the edit file will support easily, so I needn't support them anymore, and you can move on to static (or mostly static) serving. In fact, you can see this page at /links, at /files/links, and at /~hypervariety/links.

Here's a page that just spins its wheels unless you assign it a file:

3. Concerns

<page> is mainly used for the home page and the editor, two points where loading dynamic content is used to load a different part of the site without actually going there. It works hand in hand with <a>, the tag that shows links. When you are on one of my home pages, the content loads from the /files/ folder, and the URL tracks it (some browsers can't do this. when it fails you can tell).

Test-set page to a particular file called ~dan/home