Readable: A more readable version of "readability" • Hacker News Board

Re: Readable: A more readable version of "readability"

#71

Post by jackolas » Mon, May 09, 2011, 4:16 AM UTC

tastefulwords wrote: post #25

rudle wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The source code isn't in any repository because I don't work with repositories. You really should be using version control. If you want people to contribute to this open-source project, you can't beat a public repository (like github) at which you can receive patches from other developers. Right now, it is not apparent how I can work to improve your project.

You are correct, sir. But I haven't really gotten in to the open-source game just yet -- maybe I should; I don't know. I am using version control; just not public version control. If you want to help, get in touch ( http://readable.tastefulwords.com/about-and-contact/ ). I'm happy to hear any ideas; and, if you want to do some actual work, that would be quite awesome too.

I don't know why you would use your own version control. and not release it... Makes little sense.

Re: Readable: A more readable version of "readability"

#72

Post by tastefulwords » Mon, May 09, 2011, 4:29 AM UTC

abrowne wrote: post #68

One thing that makes me prefer Readability (or in my case the Readability Redux Chrome extension[1]) is that it's able to stitch together multiple-page articles into one page. It makes reading articles on sites like The Register and Ars Technica much more bearable. I'd love it if Readable gained this feature. (Safari Reader mode also does this, using code from the old Readability.) [1]: https://chrome.google.com/webs…

Quoted from an email, where I answered the same exact question:

  Most likely, Readable will never have multi-page support.
  The reason for this is Readable's philosophy, and not any technical difficulties that feature may imply.

  It is Readable's intention to take whatever is in your browser window right now, and make it better.
  But it is not Readable's purview to go beyond that.

  Readable tries to act like a browser, in this respect.
  Think about it like this: Readable getting subsequent pages in the background would be pretty much equal to web-browsers doing the same thing for all paging, on all websites.
  Just because it is technically possible, does not mean it should be done.

Re: Readable: A more readable version of "readability"

#73

Post by xijhing » Mon, May 09, 2011, 4:52 AM UTC

I'd use it, but my Apture extension doesn't work while using your script.

Re: Readable: A more readable version of "readability"

#74

Post by xijhing » Mon, May 09, 2011, 5:07 AM UTC

tastefulwords wrote: post #19

I'm Readable's author. If anyone has any suggestions for improvements, or even feature requests, I'm all ears. I'm not promising I'll implement them; but I'll definitely listen and consider them carefully. P.S. jbm, thanks a lot for posting this -- I've tried posting Readable to HC myself (twice), but it didn't stick.

I put this above, but I'd like to have access to my Apture extension. For some reason it gets disabled.

Re: Readable: A more readable version of "readability"

#75

Post by tastefulwords » Mon, May 09, 2011, 5:17 AM UTC

xijhing wrote: post #74

tastefulwords wrote: post #19

I'm Readable's author. If anyone has any suggestions for improvements, or even feature requests, I'm all ears. I'm not promising I'll implement them; but I'll definitely listen and consider them carefully. P.S. jbm, thanks a lot for posting this -- I've tried posting Readable to HC myself (twice), but it didn't stick.

I put this above, but I'd like to have access to my Apture extension. For some reason it gets disabled.

I'll be sure to look into exactly how Apture works -- and, if possible, I'll make it work inside of Readable's overlay too.

Re: Readable: A more readable version of "readability"

#76

Post by orionlogic » Mon, May 09, 2011, 7:08 AM UTC

mgkimsal wrote: post #48

Maybe a bit off topic, but readability, readable, instapaper, etc - weren't user-defined style sheets supposed to address at least some of the issues these services are addressing? I ask because it seems that sometimes we get decent tech ideas (the idea behind CSS is good at least) but then we settle for half-baked implementations and don't pursue good user tooling. CSS specifically - no browsers have good ways of de…

Most of those services provide additional utility which CSS doesn't provide: strip out content from other site distractions. But yes, sites should offer more reading options and usability tools to users. Or may be browsers?

Re: Readable: A more readable version of "readability"

#77

Post by orionlogic » Mon, May 09, 2011, 7:17 AM UTC

This one is better than Readability, seems faster. It's more instant like the old readability.

I am complaining the new direction that Readability take since day 1 when they decided to first abandon old readability, than force a meaningless frame around content with a very slow implementation.

My only critique for all: please have a name something other than contains "read".

Re: Readable: A more readable version of "readability"

#78

Post by masklinn » Mon, May 09, 2011, 9:01 AM UTC

mgkimsal wrote: post #46

j_baker wrote: post #4

"Legally, Readable's source is under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license." Erm... Why? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Creative Commons wasn't made for code. There are plenty (even too many) open source licenses to choose from. Why not one of those? EDIT: Yup, using cc for source code is not recommended: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ#Can_I_use_a_Creative_Com...

It's not recommended for code, but it's one of the few understandable licenses that includes "non commercial" clauses. I've got clients that want to put out code under "creative commons non commercial" because they don't want the code they paid for being used by commercial competitors, but they're fine with people using it non-commercially. Almost all of the 'open source'-type licenses out there concern themselves so…

Example of libraries using CC for exactly that end: Highcharts. It's under CC-BY-NC.

Re: Readable: A more readable version of "readability"

#79

Post by bramstein » Mon, May 09, 2011, 11:37 AM UTC

tastefulwords wrote: post #47

shiven wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the clarification, I was unaware of the details you just mentioned. Talking of algorithms, does Readable use something like the Knuth and Plass line break algo used by LaTeX? A Javascript implementation was mentioned a while ago on HN[1]. Good luck with Readable, anything that helps reduce clutter (in any part of life) is a great gift. Thanks for sharing! [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1974963

You're very welcome. No; Readable doesn't use anything like the Knuth and Plass algorithm. But I did thoroughly check out the JS implementation you mentioned; and Readable will probably use a part of the Knuth algorithm in the future -- as I am planning to support hanging quotation marks, hyphenation, as well as better (typographic) justification.

Author of the JS implementation here. Let me know if you have any questions about the implementation or problems integrating it. I was hoping someone would pick it up and integrate it with Readability-like service. (I've slowly been working to add support for it to Treesaver http://www.treesaverjs.com/.)

For hyphenation you might also want to check out my Hypher project (https://github.com/bramstein/Hypher) which is a minimal hyphenation engine written in JavaScript. In my benchmarks it is about 4 times faster than Hyphenator.js (and a lot smaller.)

Re: Readable: A more readable version of "readability"

#80

Post by MediaBehavior » Mon, May 09, 2011, 12:31 PM UTC

tastefulwords wrote: post #19

I'm Readable's author. If anyone has any suggestions for improvements, or even feature requests, I'm all ears. I'm not promising I'll implement them; but I'll definitely listen and consider them carefully. P.S. jbm, thanks a lot for posting this -- I've tried posting Readable to HC myself (twice), but it didn't stick.

I'm another one who uses such services for PRINTability. And one of my big sadness is that the author_line / date_line url_lines are often missing: a real nuisance on a piece of paper that gets discovered months (years?) later.

Note: readability only of late thought to start displaying URL at end of articles.

EDITs:

1) Meant to say I'm pleased to see you working on more flexible/powerful version than Readability (don't much like their latest approach of redirecting during reformatting).

2) You might want to try this sort of test-case - for which Readable only presents the first paragraph: http://boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/05/08/seni...