This technique might also help those whose browsers crash when loading PDFs.
PDF files are the most common format for text documents on the web. Perhaps you should find out what the problem with your computer is rather than blaming someone else for a link that YOU went and clicked on. As you acknowledge in your OP, mousing over a link displays the URL, which includes the file type, in your status bar. Why then am I being “rude” if you:
#1 Chose to click on a link. Nobody clicked for you.
#2 Reuse to do one simple thing that would give you the information you desire ( mousing over the link before clicking ).
#3 Have a computer that has problems handling the most common type of document or text file on the web. Why don’t you get that fixed?
In short, why is it someone else’s fault that you failed to do any of the three simple tasks that could have prevented the problem? I’m just not seeing it.
They’re big, Weirddave. Perhaps people’s problem is that they’re on dialup. It may not be easily fixable. Also, Adobe Reader just plain sucks. That’s not something wrong with my computer, except perhaps that it’s a few years old. A link is usually a way of getting to another HTML document. That’s what the web is built from. Most of us don’t really expect to have a link go to a PDF and it’s easy to slip up. In recognition of this, the courteous linker will post a warning even if it’s not strictly necessary (as with naughty pictures) just because they want to avoid crashing others’ computers or clogging their connections. I know you’re a courteous person, so I have no doubt that you will reconsider your position.
Courtesy is not about doing the absolute minimum to avoid inspiring pitchfork-wielding mobs. It’s about going a step further to accomodate others. Recognizing a (very common) mistake this way is on par with making sure a fragile objet d’art in your living room is located somewhere where no one will stumble against it: in a perfect world, where everyone could and did plan every action carefully, it would be unnecessary. In the real world, though, it’s only prudent.
They might be the second-most common, but I’d be more inclined to suspect they’re the third. Most common, by a huge landslide, is HTML, and I suspect that txt holds the number 2 spot.
They’re not even third. Portable Document Format. It’s a thoroughly inadequate and inappropriate way of disseminating information other than that which is intended to be printed out.
Weirddave: it takes one second to type “(PDF)”. You’re expecting every user of this board who doesn’t like PDFs to look at every status-bar message. And has been said already, the problem is with Acrobat being a shitty program, not with “people’s computers”.
It depends on what you mean, exactly. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if .pdf is the most common document format on the web if you exclude formats that are expressly intended for browsers - note that a casual user might not consider a “web page” to be what they meant when they said “document”. I suspect this is what the poster meant. If you DO mean to include HTML, you have to decide whether a raft of server-side templating / scripting formats like php, asp, jsp are a “different format” when they are being used to generate HTML. I strongly suspect there are more links to .php pages alone than to .pdf files.
I wouldn’t say .pdf and Adobe reader “suck” in an unqualified sense. It’s more that it’s a format ill-suited to online use because it is bulky, and takes a lot of processing to render. It’s very good at what it was intended for - representing high quality typeset documents very flexibly (this is the reason it is bulky and takes a lot of processing - you get what you bloody well wanted, not an approximation). This is why it survives, and is a standard in some circles.
The facile presentation of links in a browser means that most people are NOT going to look at the status bar to see what they are clicking on every time. Even many fairly savvy users aren’t going to. Especially on something like a message board. And there is also the matter of redirections and embedded content on innocent looking target pages. A combination of browser intervention to prevent you from inadvertant time-consuming or dangerous actions, and courtesy by the person providing the link are needed in the real world. Courtesy is probably the ONLY solution when the issue is one of embarassment in a public or work setting, such as links to pages that make bizarre noises or display dirty pictures.
Let me put it another way. This is similar to a discussion my husband and I often have about the bathtub faucet. On our bathtub, we have a hot tap and a cold tap. In between them is a dial that you spin to switch the water from the bath faucet to the shower head. If you forget to spin it back after your shower, the next person to get in the bathtub and turn the water on gets doused with cold water from above.
Sure, the smart thing to do is to check the dial before turning on the taps, to make sure it’s not on the shower setting. Usually that’s what I do. But some mornings, I’m really tired and haven’t had my coffee yet, or I’m in a hurry, or I just plain forget, and I don’t do it, and if those days coincide with days on which MrWhatsit forgot to flip the shower dial back, I get doused with cold water. It’s annoying.
It’s the same thing with links. A lot of the time I remember to check the preview to make sure it’s not a PDF, but I don’t always. As others have pointed out, the vast majority of links take you to an HTML document. PDFs are much more rare, so I’m not thinking about a PDF when I click a link. And as for “fixing my computer”… well, 1) problems with Acrobat Reader are extremely common, so I’m not convinced the problem is on my end, and 2) even if it is, I don’t need to view PDFs on anything approaching a regular basis. When I do, I fire up Reader first and then open the PDF from its internal menus, and that usually doesn’t cause too many problems. I have no vested interest in getting my browser to correctly view PDFs, as I generally just skip links that lead to PDFs. Unless, that is, I don’t know they lead to PDFs because I forgot to check the preview, and then I’m in browser-crash hell for the next ten minutes, which could be easily avoided if people would just take a second and put “(PDF)” after a link going to a PDF.
I can’t really explain my position any better than this, I’m afraid.
I agree with the polite warning on PDFs. I used to get very angry at myself if I accidentally clicked on a link that opened a PDF file.
Side note: I say “used to” because I’ve been primarily using a Mac for the past 5 months or so (an iMac G5). On the Mac, PDFs open quickly. Very quickly…as quickly as a similar-sized .txt file. The only time spent waiting is the download of the file. I must say I’m impressed with it, and have no idea why they can’t duplicate this performance on Windows.
Until I read this thread, I always wondered why people mentionned it was a PDF file they were linking too.
I doubt I would have bothered mentionning it had I linked to such a file.
Only half the time? I’ve yet to open more than 1 in 10 that hasn’t crashed browsers on three different computers. I only open them at all if there’s absolutely no other format for the same information out there on the web.
I used to have a big problem with Adobe Acrobat. Until I got cable. The problem isn’t really acrobat, the problem is your browser/acrobat opens a viewer to something you haven’t finished downloading yet and then tries to render it. Normally, if I just waited for the pdf to load before switching to that tab, it wouldn’t crash. Not using IE also helps.
It’s polite to warn, but I’m not gonna have an aneurysm if you don’t.
This isn’t my problem - 2Mb connection and it still crashes. And that’s before I try to switch tabs.
How strange. Acrobat has it’s place, and it’s not in a browser. Who the fuck came up with that stupid plug-in anyway?
It takes a fraction of a second to read the status bar. You’re expecting every user of this board who posts a PDF link to label it every time (or be declared impolite) for those who don’t like PDFs even though
- They probably would have checked the status bar anyway.
- They might have thought the link wasn’t worth following at all.
- They might not have even read the post.
Furthermore, you’re expecting someone who has nothing to do with the problem and has even less control over it than you do to do something about it. I’m reminded of this joke.
There is another option that’s even easier than posters identifying PDFs. It involves zero extra intervention on the part of either those who don’t like PDFs or those who post links to them. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader for the moment, but it’s something anyone can think of, so someone should come up with it in short order.
How often do I link to a PDF? Perhaps once every couple of weeks. How often do I click on links? Hundreds, perhaps thousands of times a day. You do the maths.
Furthermore, you’re expecting someone who has nothing to do with the problem and has even less control over it than you do to do something about it. I’m reminded of this joke.
Yeah, great. Your great idea is ruled out by the comments earlier, that many of us choose to download PDFs and open them up separately - note that not all of us have said we don’t want to open PDFs, just that we don’t want to have Acrobat crash our browsers.
I hate Adobe Acrobat with a passion !!! :mad:
Here’s a Pit Thread I started which shows my real feelings for it:
I will never link to a .pdf file and probably never will.
Should I ever have to link to a pdf, everyone will get plenty of warning.
(flashing lights, sirens, highway flares, etc).
Sorry for sounding so angry … but it was a story that had to be told.
What’s that ? Oh it’s time for my medication.
Thank you.
Which browser is that, so I can avoid using it?
Adobe reader integration with IE pretty much sucks on anything but a really fast connection with a relatively small file; mostly it sucks because there’s no progress bar, so you don’t know for sure that it’s still loading and how long you’ll have to wait if it is. Warning people that your link goes to a PDF helps because it means they are slightly less likely to just click is and that they have the opportunity to right-click and Save Target, then open it locally (which typically works a lot quicker than the browser plugin.
Yes, people should probably use a different browser, or hover before they click, but they don’t and they don’t, so warning them that it’s a PDF is a nice little courtesy that costs nothing.
Right. A browser that works without crashing, 100% of the time (since installing the full relase of Firefox, I’ve never had a crash of any kind). Click on a PDF, and boom Adobe’s endless ‘features’ all load, within the browser. And it all crashes (both Acrobat and Firefox). And yup, it’s the browser that’s at fault. :rolleyes: (Given any evidence that it’s Firefox that’s the problem, I’ll concede - but don’t assume that a Big Company like Adobe can’t be at fault.)
Baloney. The overwhelming majority of text documents are either rendered into HTML to appear as a text document, or as actual .txt documents. There’s no particularly good reason to use .pdf format unless controlling exact appearance on all platforms is necessary. And AFAIK it costs money to get software that creates .pdf documents, which limits many webmasters from ever doing so.