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The most underused browser feature: reader mode

frankgroeneveld.nl

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Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#331

Post by zzo38computer »

amelius wrote: post #286
dredmorbius wrote: post #211

I'm a huge fan of Readability Mode and use it often. It's proof that Web design isn't the solution, Web design is the problem. For those who are using e-ink devices, or even just standard tablets, EInkBro is another immensely useful tool. Yes, it's a standalone browser, not a mode on Firefox, Safari, Vivalti, etc. https://github.com/plateaukao/browser (Available through Google Play, F-Droid and other sources. Android…

I wish somebody would create a DL/GAN/style-transfer tool to automatically change the style of any website into https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ (regardless of how the website is structured, so deleting the CSS doesn't count)

I think that is very good (even though they say it is satire, it is good). (The end user should apply their own CSS if wanted; my idea of "meta-CSS" (not implemented or even properly defined yet) would allow the end user to conditionally apply CSS, so that for example it will only apply to those that don't have their own CSS (or whatever other criteria you might want); meta-CSS would also be the way for the user to configure media queries such as dark mode preference, etc.)

For some web pages, deleting the CSS can help, sometimes not. Perhaps the way to go about such a thing is to consider mainly HTML, also considering CSS and ARIA to fix the layout (some web pages have forms that don't work correctly when CSS is disabled, but I have seen them have ARIA; an implementation could use ARIA to fix up any forms that are broken by doing so). So, while the CSS can be deleted, it still might need to consider it for some purposes, such as checking if something should be removed or formatted differently (e.g. emphasis, fixpitch, etc; HTML can specify such things too but it is not always done properly).

(That web page does have Google Analytics, with the comment "yes, I know...wanna fight about it?" preceding it, but you can just disable JavaScripts to avoid it.)

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#332

Post by dotancohen »

dredmorbius wrote: post #211

I'm a huge fan of Readability Mode and use it often. It's proof that Web design isn't the solution, Web design is the problem. For those who are using e-ink devices, or even just standard tablets, EInkBro is another immensely useful tool. Yes, it's a standalone browser, not a mode on Firefox, Safari, Vivalti, etc. https://github.com/plateaukao/browser (Available through Google Play, F-Droid and other sources. Android…

Thank you so much. I have been looking for a good browser for E-Ink devices for years.

I'll also take the opportunity to mention that AnkiDroid works perfectly fine on E-Ink devices such as Nook. You don't even need root anymore, just install a launcher via ADB. I literally spend an hour every day on my Nook with AnkiDroid.

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#333

Post by nikisweeting »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #198
infogulch wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ArchiveBox is a tool that downloads web pages and saves them in various different formats: warc, pdf, rendered png, plain text. I wonder what it uses for plain text extraction and if the readability repo would be useful for that purpose. Edit: Oh neat it does actually. https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Configuration#... > Archive method SAVE_READABILITY > Extract article text, summary, and byline using Mo…

That's pretty amazing it already does it. ArchiveBox and the other stuff from the "DIY no-credentials don't-care-about-the-rules" web archiving community, like ArchiveTeam.... continues to astound me with it's quality and "professionalism" (as a credentialed professional in the field of digital library stuff... they are often outdoing the actual credentialed professional community).

Aww thank you!

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#334

Post by epse »

obscuren wrote: post #266

I’ve always been puzzled by the “You accept these cookies” banners. Some have an ‘accept’ and ‘don’t accept/let me choose’ and some even come with a ‘X’ to close the banner. So what does it mean when I either click the ‘X’ or simply do nothing and leave the banner there while I read the article? What does it mean when I use reader mode and basically ignore the question whether I accept them or not?

You have not explicitly given your consent to tracking / cookies so there should be none

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#336

Post by visarga »

abrowne wrote: post #63

Personally, I found reader mode missed just enough — like images loaded with js or footnotes referenced in an article — that it was more trouble than it was worth. And as much as I liked the "readability", I missed missed seeing the different designs, fonts and so on. (Who would want to read all books with exactly the same layout and typeface‽) Now I have a collection of user stylesheets I use with Stylus to improve…

Not just footnotes but also comments. I never saw a reader mode app that handles comments. I would use it to switch on TTS and have the comments read aloud, this increases my focus.

Well, actually I have my own hand-made reader mode that works with comments as well, implemented as a bookmarklet about 10 years ago. But other tools can't handle reddit and hacker news for reading aloud.

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#337

Post by Vinnl »

mdoms wrote: post #252
k1m wrote: post #70

Any developers who'd like to contribute to improving how article content is extracted from web pages should check out Mozilla's Readability repository: https://github.com/mozilla/readability I'm currently trying to bring the PHP port up to speed here: https://github.com/fivefilters/readability.php We use an older version as part of our article extraction for Push to Kindle: https://www.fivefilters.org/push-to-kindle/

Just reading through that code it seems like readbility is only intended to work on English language websites? Like it checks for nodes with class names matching /and|article|body|column|content|main|shadow/ and uses a minimum length of 140 characters for matching nodes that are reader-able. Seems a bit lazy for a company whose stated mission is "to ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible…

For what it's worth, even when working on Dutch websites my class names will usually be in English, and I think that's common across the industry. After all, the programming languages we use to write them are already in English, so Dutch class names would stick out like a sore thumb.

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#338

Post by Vinnl »

barbinbrad wrote: post #97
aerojoe23 wrote: post #14

I love reader mode in Firefox. It will also do text to speech for you. The voices seem to dependent on something built into the OS. They sound okay on windows and I haven't figured out how to get them to sound good on linux. On windows the voices sound good, but I Wish I could get it to go a little faster. The voices don't sound human so it takes some getting used to. On linux the voices just sound more harsh. To the…

For web developers, one thing to keep in mind with text to speech is that you can use the aria-hidden attribute to prevent things (like menus or ads) from being read. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility/A...

If you add that to menus, they will be completely inaccessible to people dependent on screen readers, such as blind people.

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#339

Post by Vinnl »

jayknight wrote: post #251
aerojoe23 wrote: post #14

I love reader mode in Firefox. It will also do text to speech for you. The voices seem to dependent on something built into the OS. They sound okay on windows and I haven't figured out how to get them to sound good on linux. On windows the voices sound good, but I Wish I could get it to go a little faster. The voices don't sound human so it takes some getting used to. On linux the voices just sound more harsh. To the…

I just wish Firefox Focus had reader mode. It's my default browser on my phone, which gets me around free article limits on some sites, so having to open it in another browser can defeat that purpose.

You can now set regular Firefox to behave like Focus (Settings > delete browsing data on quit), and it does have reader mode.

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#340

Post by TeMPOraL »

zzo38computer wrote: post #331
amelius wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish somebody would create a DL/GAN/style-transfer tool to automatically change the style of any website into https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ (regardless of how the website is structured, so deleting the CSS doesn't count)

I think that is very good (even though they say it is satire, it is good). (The end user should apply their own CSS if wanted; my idea of "meta-CSS" (not implemented or even properly defined yet) would allow the end user to conditionally apply CSS, so that for example it will only apply to those that don't have their own CSS (or whatever other criteria you might want); meta-CSS would also be the way for the user to c…

> (The end user should apply their own CSS if wanted;

I still remember the time when user styles were a first class feature built into all browsers. Hell, that 'C' in CSS - "Cascading" - was always there to allow styles to enhance/override prior styles, including allowing the user to override website's styling. Back before web designers ruined everything by making every web page into its own special snowflake, people thought users would have one or two default CSS sheets to choose from and apply to any webpage, the way we today think about "dark mode".

These days, we have to resort to using browser extensions. A well-known one is Stylus [0][1]. In a way, it's much better than old built-in user styles. But then, it's not built in. Still, it's a nice way to fix up some of the frequently visited websites.

--

[0] - https://github.com/openstyles/stylus

[1] - Mind the name, it's "Stylus", not "Stylish" - the latter used to be popular, but then it sold out and become another peace of surveillance capitalism detritus. Stylus is a GPLv3 fork of Stylish with data collection removed.

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