Building informational webs with PyStyler

It is also convenient to provide standard navigational links from each page, such as links to “Next” and “Previous” topics for material that is serially organized. These standard links are typically at the top or bottom of a page, or both.

The maintenance of standard links is a nuisance if you have to do it by hand. For example, if you add a new page in the middle of a sequence, you have to fix the “Next” link on the preceding page and the “Previous” link on the following page to point to the new page. If these links aren't maintained, they can confuse or strand the reader.

PyStyler provides features that will automatically fill in standard navigational links of certain common types. These links go by default to places that are determined by the outline structure of your web.

For example, suppose a fragment of your web has this outline structure:

4.2 Using a parachute
    4.2.1 Get out of the plane
    4.2.2 Pull the ripcord
    4.2.3 Roll when you land

Suppose that topic 4.2 is a bullet list that has links to topics 4.2.1, 4.2.2, and 4.2.3. If someone wants to read all the lower-level topics in sequence, it's convenient for 4.2.1 to have a “Next” link that points to 4.2.2, and then page 4.2.2 will have a “Next” link that points to 4.2.3.

Someone who comes to 4.2.3 from elsewhere might appreciate a “Previous” link on that page that points back to 4.2.2, so they can back up to the beginning of the sequence—it might be important! And 4.2.2 has a “Previous” link that points back to 4.2.1.

Of course, you won't want to be stuck with this particular navigational sequence in all cases; PyStyler just builds those links as a default. You can override these defaults, and specify that a given page's “Next” link can point somewhere else, or that there be no “Next” link at all.