[!-- CURATORIAL NOTE: As with the Foreword, the author of the Directions is responding to a felt need to "explicate the apparatus" -- in this case, a particular reading technology, vanished long ago. Considerable indulgence may be required in traversing this Writing; one should feel no embarrassment about skipping it altogether. On the other hand, patient attention to the clues given here may reward the reader with an image and perhaps even the "feel" for what the Ancients experienced in their early encounters with what they called "hypertext." The bricolage of gadgets and devices described here in such sedulous detail are of course no longer necessary, but, before we settle into a complacent attitude on that account, it is well to remind ourselves that no one is born knowing how to manipulate *any* technology... --]

Directions

In this hypertext reader, two views are always available: a text view (in the window you see now) and a map view (in the window behind this one).

The text view presents the content of the hypertext — i.e., the writings comprising the archive, or else ancillary writings such as these Directions, the Foreword and Afterword, etc. Each text window (or writing space) is like a page of text in a book, except that to get from one hypertext "page" to another, you will usually click an object on your computer screen with the mouse.

To switch from text view to map view, click in the center of the four arrows on the tool palette to the left. Or you can click inside the other window — if it is visible. (To return to text view, simply do the same thing again.)

<Click the double-headed arrow (<=>) on the tool palette.>

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The map view presents the structure in which these writings are arranged and connected. This structure is similar to the hierarchical file system (folders-within-folders) used by the Macintosh and Windows operating systems. Each box on the map can contain text or other boxes or both; some have labeled arrows leading into and/or out of them. These arrows indicate links.

The tool palette contains a variety of navigation devices:

• a compass tool — four directional arrows that move you through the web of nested boxes (in map view) and text spaces (in text view)
• a toggle tool in the center of the four arrows that switches between map view and text view
• a navigate tool (the double-headed arrow) that follows links
• a question mark that shows a different view of the structure.

Clicking the navigate tool moves you forward along the "default path" of links through the writings. You can also follow the default link from one writing space to another by hitting <return> twice. To backtrack, hold down the <shift> key and click on the navigate tool.

<Click the navigate tool.>

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Links are also attached to words and phrases within the text itself. Hold down the Option and Command keys at the same time: wireframes appear around the linked text. To follow its link, select the framed text after releasing the Option and Command keys. (Try it now and see what happens.)

There are a handful of guarded links: i.e., links that will not work until after you have visited a different space, which usually contains necessary information. Most such spaces lie on the default path.

All of the writings can be reached from the Inventory, which resides near the top level of the structure. To go to the Inventory from any space, click the up arrow on the compass tool — repeatedly, if necessary — until you get there. If you overshoot it, just click the down arrow once or twice.

The Inventory consists of two levels. The top level lists the authors or subjects of the writings; selecting a name will take you to that person's "home page," which lists the titles of his writings. At this second level, the titles in green indicate writings that lie on the default path; the writings whose titles appear in blue do not.

<Hit <return> twice.>

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Different methods of navigation will occasionally lead to different places in the hypertext. For example, when you choose a writing from the Inventory, you will go to that writing's title page or book plate. Selecting the title in the book plate will usually open an editorial note on that particular writing, whereas clicking the navigate tool (or hitting <return> twice) will take you straight to the beginning of the writing itself.

After following various paths through the writings, you may wish to surf the map to see if you missed anything. To do this, click once in the map window to bring it to the front, or else click once on the toggle tool to switch to map view. If a box contains text, a paragraph mark (¶) will appear in the title bar. To read the text within such a box, click once on the box to select it, then click the toggle tool to switch to text view. If a box contains other boxes, they will usually be visible within the open space beneath the box's title bar. To open the box to get at the boxes within, double-click in this space.

<Select any word in this space to return to the title page.> [This of course won't work: click here instead.]