iBooks footnote popover does not follow links

Question

Apple's support for ePub 3 footnotes is detailed here by Liz Castro.

In short, if the footnote link has the epub:tupe="noteref" format:

<a epub:type="noteref" href="#n1">1</a>

And the footnote text sits in an <aside> tag with the epub:type="footnote" format:

<aside epub:type="footnote" id="n1">
<p>This is the footnote text. However, if I <a href="http://stackoverflow.com">click this link</a> it does not work.</p>
</aside>

Then you get neat pop-up footnotes on iBooks.

Links in footnotes (as I've shown here), however, don't work. When you tap the link the popover collapses:

Any ideas on what I need to do to get this to work? Am I missing an epub type declaration somewhere? Or is it just a bug in the iBooks popover implementation?

[NB: my current workaround is to have the footnote in a at the end of the chapter—so as a normal endnote—with the same epub:type="footnote" tag. This means that it will always show up there (unlike the <aside> tag, which is hidden) and you can follow the link at the end of the chapter, but you still get the in-place popover for information in the flow of the text.]

Curren

Today's update to iBooks 3 does not resolve this issue. – Curren

Answer 1

Same problem here, I made the conclusion that this is a limitation in iBooks popover implementation. Playing with the @_target attribute has no effects too.

Until Apple fixes it, I'd recommend to use non-linear documents for notes with complex content (and to no include them in the 'nav' table of content). In an automated XML process, this can be pretty easy to setup and is effective : when the user click on the note reference, a new window will open with the complex content (links by example). The user can close this window with the "OK" button on the top right of the screen.

Nunley

Radar Bug ID# 12551733 submitted to Apple. – Curren

@Curren Do you have any new information on this? :) – Premed

Nope, nothing. It still has the same behaviour, as far as I can tell. Actually, that's not quite true: instead of collapsing the popover it just doesn't go anywhere. – Curren

Answer 2

For what it is worth the Calibre has a problem with the aside convention for pop up footnotes. The text within the aside is not hidden before or after the reference is clicked. I get the text inside the aside or asides in the popup window, but it is also visible in the text at the point (inline or at the end of a page or chapter) the container is placed. That is true if you put the s in another document at the end of the book. However placed all the text within the group assigns is included in the popup window. I suspect that the epub:type="footnote" had not been programed to toggle the hidden attribute when the popup is activated and when it deactivates. I've searched the web but,as yet, have not found code to fix the problem. The details tag works, but not in line, a line feed is somehow inserted.

Doublefaced