# Stretchtext > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Stretchtext > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Stretchtext.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stretchtext > Source revision: 1332523355 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{Short description|Hypertext feature}} {{Use American English|date=December 2016}} {{Use mdy dates|date=December 2016}} [[File:Tractatus Stretchtext, by Satoh Sinh (4974655872).png|thumb|A demo of StretchText listing the propositions of [Ludwig Wittgenstein](/source/Ludwig_Wittgenstein)'s ''[Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus](/source/Tractatus_Logico-Philosophicus)'', with Wittgenstein's further commentary on the propositions being revealed]] '''Stretchtext''' (also called '''StretchText''', '''stretchtext''', '''stretch-text''') is a [hypertext](/source/hypertext) feature that allows the reader to expand the text to show more detail. The term was defined in 1970 by [Ted Nelson](/source/Ted_Nelson) as a genre of hypertext,{{Cite journal |last=Nelson |first=Ted |date=September 1970 |title=No More Teacher's Dirty Looks |url=https://archive.org/details/computerdecision00unse_0/page/22/mode/1up?q=stretch |journal=Computer Decisions |pages=22 |archive-url= |archive-date=}}{{cite book |last1=Landow |first1=George P. |title=Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization |date=2006 |publisher=Johns Hopkins university press |isbn=978-0-8018-8257-9 |edition=3rd. |location=Baltimore |page=93-98}}{{Cite book |last=Wardrip-Fruin |first=Noah |title=Proceedings of the fifteenth ACM conference on Hypertext and hypermedia |date=2004-08-09 |publisher=Association for Computing Machinery |isbn=978-1-58113-848-1 |series=HYPERTEXT '04 |location=New York, NY, USA |page=127 |chapter=What hypertext is |doi=10.1145/1012807.1012844 |quote=Nelson next presents a type of hypermedia called the "hypergram" ("a performing or branching picture") followed by another form of hypertext — "stretchtext." Nelson writes: "This form of hypertext is easy to use without getting lost… There are a screen and two throttles. The first throttle moves the text forward and backward, up and down on the screen. The second throttle causes changes in the writing itself: throttling toward you causes the text to become longer by minute degrees." Note that Nelson referred to hypertext as "forms of writing which branch or perform on request." Discrete hypertext uses links to branch on request. Stretchtext uses no links — instead making a non-branching performance. |chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1145/1012807.1012844}} although he had described it in unpublished materials as early as 1967.[https://xanadu.com/XUarchive/htn8.tif “Stretchtext – hypertext note #8”] by Ted Nelson (April 29, 1967). Part of Nelson’s [Project Xanadu](/source/Project_Xanadu). Stretchtext has not gained mass adoption in systems like the [World Wide Web](/source/World_Wide_Web), but has remained a topic of study in [hypertext](/source/hypertext) and [hypermedia](/source/hypermedia) research,{{Cite journal |last=van Dam |first=Andries |date=1987 |title=Hypertext '87: Keynote address |url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/48511.48519 |journal=Proceedings ACM Hypertext '87 |volume=31 |issue=7 |pages=887–895 |doi=10.1145/48511.48519 |via=ACM DL}}{{Cite book |last=Fagerjord |first=Anders |chapter=Editing Stretchfilm: ( ''The full text HTML files for this article are fully compatible with the following browsers: Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, and Safari'' ) |date=2005-09-06 |title=Proceedings of the sixteenth ACM conference on Hypertext and hypermedia |chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1145/1083356.1089507 |series=HYPERTEXT '05 |location=New York, NY, USA |publisher=Association for Computing Machinery |pages=301 |doi=10.1145/1083356.1089507 |isbn=978-1-59593-168-9|chapter-url-access=subscription }} and has also been used to literary and poetic effect in [electronic literature](/source/electronic_literature) and interactive cinema. == Ted Nelson's 1970 definition == alt=A black and white photo from 1969 showing a person holding a light pen up to an computer screen.|thumb|In 1970, interfaces for computers were not yet standardized, so Nelson's suggestion of using throttles to navigate text was less surprising than today. This photo shows a reader using a light pen to edit hypertext in 1969. Ted Nelson coined the term in an article he published in ''Computer Decisions'' in September 1970. The article argued that computer assisted instruction would be better than traditional learning in schools because it would allow people to learn according to interest. He presented hypertext, a term he coined in 1965, as the best way of organizing this, and presented several different types of hypertext. Stretchtext is one of these. Nelson imagined a screen with two throttles that the reader would use to control the text. One throttle would move forwards and backwards in the text. The other would expand sections the reader was particularly interested in. He presented the following short text as an example:
'''Stretchtext is a form of writing.''' '''It is read from a screen. The user controls it with throttles. It gets longer and shorter on demand.'''
Nelson offers this text to demonstrate how the above might be expanded to provide more detail for a curious reader:
'''Stretchtext,''' a kind of hypertext, is basically '''a form of writing''' closely related to other prose'''. It is read''' by a user or student '''from a''' computer display '''screen. The user''', or student, '''controls it''', and causes it to change, '''with throttles''' connected to the computer'''. Stretchtext gets longer''', by adding words '''and''' phrases, or '''shorter''', by subtracting words and phrases, '''on demand.'''
The idea has also been developed to work with other media than text alone, for example as stretchfilm.{{Cite book |last=Fagerjord |first=Anders |chapter=Editing Stretchfilm: ( ''The full text HTML files for this article are fully compatible with the following browsers: Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, and Safari'' ) |date=2005-09-06 |title=Proceedings of the sixteenth ACM conference on Hypertext and hypermedia |chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1145/1083356.1089507 |series=HYPERTEXT '05 |location=New York, NY, USA |publisher=Association for Computing Machinery |pages=301 |doi=10.1145/1083356.1089507 |isbn=978-1-59593-168-9}} Conceptually, StretchText is similar to existing hypertexts system where a link provides a more descriptive or exhaustive explanation of something, but there is a key difference between a link and a piece of StretchText. A link completely replaces the current piece of hypertext with the destination, whereas StretchText expands or contracts the content in place. Thus, the existing hypertext serves as context. == Usage in electronic literature == Stretchtext has been used in works of [electronic literature](/source/electronic_literature) including [''Pry''](/source/Pry_(novel)), a novella written to be read on an iPad,{{Cite journal |last=Przybyszewska |first=Agnieszka |date=2016 |title=Więcej niż książka, więcej niż film, więcej niż gra. O czytaniu (?) Pry |journal=Sztuka Edycji. Studia Tekstologiczne i Edytorskie |language=pl |volume=10 |issue=2 |page=107 |doi=10.12775/SE.2016.024 |issn=2391-7903|doi-access=free }} [Stuart Moulthrop](/source/Stuart_Moulthrop)'s [''Victory Garden''](/source/Victory_Garden_(novel)) (1991) and Judd Morrisey's ''The Jew's Daughter'' (1998), which [Mark Bernstein](/source/Mark_Bernstein_(publisher)) has called "perhaps the most artistically successful stretchtext fiction".{{Cite book |last=Bernstein |first=Mark |chapter=On hypertext narrative |date=2009-06-29 |title=Proceedings of the 20th ACM conference on Hypertext and hypermedia |chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1145/1557914.1557920 |series=HT '09 |location=New York, NY, USA |publisher=Association for Computing Machinery |page=11 |doi=10.1145/1557914.1557920 |isbn=978-1-60558-486-7 |quote=Moulthrop’s Victory Garden includes a long stretchtext passage. Morrisey’s “The Jew’s Daughter” [35] is perhaps the most artistically successful stretchtext fiction, though it is not a hypertext; see also [36] and Ian M Lyon’s “TextStretcher” [28].}} ==References== {{Reflist}} Category:Hypertext Category:1970 neologisms --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Stretchtext](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stretchtext) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stretchtext?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.