New Paradigm for the Internet – Hoverboxes, HoverCards, Layouts, Workstations

When I recommended HoverBoxes to GitHub and others, I intended that they also be moveable, resizable, and hoverable and clickable themselves. And that they could be dragged to Boxes/Panels/Cards to be iconized (an icon substituted and placed on the panel, which hovers opened the HoverCard/HoverBox.)

And that the HoverBoxes/HoverCard layouts for a screen or work session can be saved for different work situations and shared with others.

For instance, say I am gathering all the sites and groups working on exascale computing. I found many sites and data sources, many useful places with content, and many important concept clarifications. I create hoverboxes for them on the fly as I am browsing, and drag them into boxes representing categories. I link the online tools like searches, models, calculators, messaging, groups and have them neatly laid out.

The whole layout is a map of that topic across the whole Internet. Not just a single anchor and click “then go to a whole new page, forgetting everything that was before”

The current Internet paradigm requires users to already know the whole and memorize it. Each user has to build a global map. Just like the cab drivers memorizing the city map before uber.

I do not have time to write code myself. I am making a few things related to hoverboxes (boxes is a better word than card because a card only holds flat things, and I want boxes that can hold 3D objects, models of the sun, models of the earth – its interior, oceans, atmosphere, fields, sensor networks, human activities, future and all parts of what is in the real world).

If you want to talk about this, you can reach me at RichardCollins@TheInternetFoundation.Org I am trying to rewrite the Internet in a form that is more open, accessible, understandable, does not require human memory as much, and where problems involving billions of people or organizations or topics and things can be solved and seen and understood more easily.

One thing I want you to think about. Put an icon for each page owner in the upper left corner of every screen. On this page that would be (Internet, my own icon), GitHub, and Justineo. Three symbols (each movable, resizable, etc) and each with a hoverbox.

I would try locking the hoverbox by holding the cursor still for a few seconds. That opens the hoverbox for that target. Then leave it for a little longer and lock that hoverbox so you can hover it. If you have a box within a box, it comes up.

I am not sure I am saying this clearly for you. But imagine starting with a single tiny icon for “github” or “climate change” or “hoverboxes” on a screen created from a shared layout (or your own, or your groups layout) and it allows you to navigate and investigate a large region of the map. Just like hovering a global map of places on the earth – but including all things and worlds. Hover “mathematics”. Hover an example equation. Hover the terms of the equation and see lists and maps of possible things people have used that equation for on the Internet.

I am going to post this at /?p=1341 because I am trying to get all pages on the Internet upgraded so they do not keep static items on every page. And so every page can be easily marked with the owner and feedback and contact and connections – with small icon hoverboxes and not have to build static things for everything.

A hoverbox can contain anything – layouts, spreadsheets, equation editor, Juptyer models, SAS container, applications from different operating systems, image editors, video machine vision tools, development environments – anything that can be on a screen now, can be managed by one Internet-wide paradigm.

Not hand written by too many people across the whole Internet. Views, new content boxes, new layouts will explode and diversify. But groups will have a vested interest in refining their layouts and workstations – electrical engineering, finance, astronomy, biochemistry, semiconductor models – when you are looking at one thing, or a collection of all of those things – all butterflies, all DNA of butterflies, all chemical processes and gene expressions and global occurances of different butterflies. It needs better ways to let users manage their own layouts. For groups working on common things to do the same.

I am recommending to some large website owners that they can have one screen, export the content for indexing or a standard form for the search engines – then bring everything to the visitor by hover and other paradigms.

It is happening all over the Internet – but there are no standards, no sharing, no convergence of effort, no improvement for the human species.

Richard K Collins, Director, The Internet Foundation