(no subject)

[alexseanchai]

A conundrum, o writerly friends!

Suppose scenes taking place at the same time, both in a social media setting. One character is flipping between channels or tabs or apps or whatever in order to participate in both scenes. How does one track what's going on from that character's perspective, in chronological order, without cluttering the story with mentions of changing tabs?

I'm kind of thinking for AO3 purposes I might left-align one convo and right-align the other, but frankly that'll be ugly...

—say. Does AO3 do columns?

Comments

[jenett]

It poses some pretty serious accessibility challenges (both mobile users, and especially anyone who uses a screenreader), which might be a thing to consider.

[alexseanchai]

well fuck. so much for that, then.

um. I guess the best way to handle the characters' chatlogs while prioritizing accessibility is to put each channel sequentially with timestamps on each line? something like idk

#fivespots

[23:05] pieceofcakedesigns
FOUR GOWNS

[23:07] gravitylawbreaker
do mine eyes deceive me

[23:07] dichatomic
but I don't want to play Comedy of Errors
this is better:
if I profane with my unworthiest hand

#peachykeen

[23:06] greenbeautyquark
...I have had the weirdest day

[23:06] tamiriariani
yeah? bet mine's weirder
check scroll

[23:09] greenbeautyquark
Tamir, beloved
I have checked scroll and
no

? (I mean since we know from earlier in #fivespots log that greenbeautyquark is active in that channel?)

thank you.

[madgastronomer]

Color?

[alexseanchai]

Maybe? But that sounds like hella coding.

[madgastronomer]

Nah. If AO3 allows it, the tags are: < text color = "[hex number]"> < /text> and then if you want both exchanges in not-black, the other color.

[madgastronomer]

You could also change the background colors, in which case it's < div bgcolor="[hex number]"> < /div>. Andyou can get your hex numbers for colors here.

[madgastronomer]

Huh let me try this...

background

text

ETA: apparently DW does not allow.
Anyway. Not any more markup than columns would be.

[neotoma]

I'm pretty sure color isn't going to work for screen-readers.

I remember attending a con-panel on screenreaders and other assistive technology, and the presenter said she couldn't follow Homestuck fanfic because apparently the characters are color-coded to identify them; her screen reader ignored the colors.

[madgastronomer]

Fair point.

[azurelunatic]

This seems readable to me.

[alexseanchai]

Okay, so to some extent I get to sacrifice chronological order, I guess?

Thanks