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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

#351

Post by TeMPOraL »

vanderZwan wrote: post #346
TeMPOraL wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wouldn't be HN without some snark^H^H^H^H^Hconstructive feedback, so... it's perfect, except it's missing a fake quote at the end. Also, I hate the yellow. (Am I the odd one out here to prefer cold light to warm light? Warm light makes me seriously sleepy. But everyone I talk to, they all prefer to have warm lightning in their homes. And like with home lightning, I feel the same about webpages. On HN I got used…

Warm light doesn't make people sleepy, blue light keeps people awake . So basically: you are sleep deprived, the blue light is keeping you awake, and without realizing it you consider that a feature rather than a bug, whereas many other people conclude the opposite. Which is of course fine, you decide what's best for you. Given how big of an impact good sleep (or lack thereof) has on my physical and mental health I a…

That's a possible explanation, but the same happens to me during the day, even when I'm well rested.

Cold light is much closer to natural sunlight than warm light. So working in a warm-lighted environment can be seen as being deprived of the blue parts of the spectrum that should be there. Blue light keeping you awake is a feature because the natural environment in which we evolved is saturated by it during the day.

I use blue light filters on my screens too, but they're timed to turn on around sunset. Ideally, everyone would have adequate access to raw sunlight during the day, but that's not the case for many (myself included) - whether because they live/work in a city, or because it's overcast weather, or both (like me, right now).

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#352

Post by dredmorbius »

alessioalex wrote: post #349
dredmorbius wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On emissive / colour displays, this still is my preference: https://codepen.io/dredmorbius/full/KpMqqB On e-ink, the off-white / off-black colour palette is actually something of a probem, though the page otherwise remains highly readable. From the original page, the lack of margins is a problem. Text running straight into the gutter is a readability problem.

Love it. Would you mind putting it on Github and making the licence MIT so that I can use it and link back to you? I really like it, makes it so easy to read. Big like for the nice transition on hovering links as well.

Consider it MIT / BSD 2-phrase or more permissive.

(I don't have the login handy for that CodePen account presently.)

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#353

Post by dredmorbius »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #343
dredmorbius wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On emissive / colour displays, this still is my preference: https://codepen.io/dredmorbius/full/KpMqqB On e-ink, the off-white / off-black colour palette is actually something of a probem, though the page otherwise remains highly readable. From the original page, the lack of margins is a problem. Text running straight into the gutter is a readability problem.

This wouldn't be HN without some snark^H^H^H^H^Hconstructive feedback, so... it's perfect, except it's missing a fake quote at the end. Also, I hate the yellow. (Am I the odd one out here to prefer cold light to warm light? Warm light makes me seriously sleepy. But everyone I talk to, they all prefer to have warm lightning in their homes. And like with home lightning, I feel the same about webpages. On HN I got used…

If I may quote some motherfucker on the web:

And no, you don't have to fucking love all my shit

The background colour's the 2nd CSS rule (followed immediately by text). If I were to redo the page, I'd have a media query for colour depth and set those to #fff and #000 respectively for B&W screens anyway.

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#354

Post by dredmorbius »

dredmorbius wrote: post #240
nicbou wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3. Remove all the crap that isn't the article the user came for I don't use Reader mode for readability, but to remove all the clutter on the page.

It's not absolutely necessary to remove it, but when reading the article it should not be front-and-centre on the page. That means: - Single-column layouts. Sidebars suck. - No fixed-position elements. Especially not headers or footers, though fixed sidebars are also almost always a mistake. (There can be some benefit for reference / tools, but only about one time in a thousand that they're actually used.) On desktop…

Erm, Stylus, not Stylish.

Stylus is a useful CSS manager.

Stylish is a piece of malware that spies on you.

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#355

Post by vanderZwan »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #351
vanderZwan wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Warm light doesn't make people sleepy, blue light keeps people awake . So basically: you are sleep deprived, the blue light is keeping you awake, and without realizing it you consider that a feature rather than a bug, whereas many other people conclude the opposite. Which is of course fine, you decide what's best for you. Given how big of an impact good sleep (or lack thereof) has on my physical and mental health I a…

That's a possible explanation, but the same happens to me during the day , even when I'm well rested. Cold light is much closer to natural sunlight than warm light. So working in a warm-lighted environment can be seen as being deprived of the blue parts of the spectrum that should be there . Blue light keeping you awake is a feature because the natural environment in which we evolved is saturated by it during the day…

Right, makes sense. Sounds like that was the bit of context I was missing and also taking for granted: available natural sunlight. And I should have thought of that, honestly: I work next to a window with lots of light during summer, but in winter I use a high-power lamp to fake sunlight.

(plus I happen to treat blue light filters as an "default with opt-out possibility" kind of setting in general)

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#356

Post by vanderZwan »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #351
vanderZwan wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Warm light doesn't make people sleepy, blue light keeps people awake . So basically: you are sleep deprived, the blue light is keeping you awake, and without realizing it you consider that a feature rather than a bug, whereas many other people conclude the opposite. Which is of course fine, you decide what's best for you. Given how big of an impact good sleep (or lack thereof) has on my physical and mental health I a…

That's a possible explanation, but the same happens to me during the day , even when I'm well rested. Cold light is much closer to natural sunlight than warm light. So working in a warm-lighted environment can be seen as being deprived of the blue parts of the spectrum that should be there . Blue light keeping you awake is a feature because the natural environment in which we evolved is saturated by it during the day…

I do wonder if you might benefit more (during daytime) from a high-powered daylight lamp though, since light intensity also matters when regulating sleep cycles.

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#357

Post by alessioalex »

dredmorbius wrote: post #352
alessioalex wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love it. Would you mind putting it on Github and making the licence MIT so that I can use it and link back to you? I really like it, makes it so easy to read. Big like for the nice transition on hovering links as well.

Consider it MIT / BSD 2-phrase or more permissive. (I don't have the login handy for that CodePen account presently.)

thank you!

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#358

Post by TeMPOraL »

vanderZwan wrote: post #356
TeMPOraL wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a possible explanation, but the same happens to me during the day , even when I'm well rested. Cold light is much closer to natural sunlight than warm light. So working in a warm-lighted environment can be seen as being deprived of the blue parts of the spectrum that should be there . Blue light keeping you awake is a feature because the natural environment in which we evolved is saturated by it during the day…

I do wonder if you might benefit more (during daytime) from a high-powered daylight lamp though, since light intensity also matters when regulating sleep cycles.

Quite likely. I'm considering it for my new location.

My current home office has a ceiling light fixture with three slots, adapted to low-wattage incandescents. I've plugged in three Hue bulbs I had sitting in a drawer, and tuned them to full intensity and color temperature as close to natural daylight as the bulbs can get. As a result, the lights almost always outshine the available daylight. I feel pretty comfortable with this temperature and intensity. Plus, my eyestrain reduced a bit, as the difference between room lightning and computer screen brightness isn't that big anymore.

On evenings, my color filters kick in on the screens, and I either kill two of the three bulbs, or bring their color temperature down.

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#359

Post by mark_and_sweep »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #340
zzo38computer wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, peopl…

userChrome.css and userContent.css still work just fine in Firefox (though you have to enable toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets in about:config first). I'm using them to (re-)style both the Firefox UI as well as some specific sites.

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#360

Post by dunnevens »

illegalmemory wrote: post #30
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…

One of the little feature of reader mode I love is, if you time it correctly (before loading all javascript of the page) you can skip a lot of prompts ( subscribe to read / monthly limit reached and so on )

If you're on Firefox, there's an extension called Auto Reader Mode which saves you the game of "click reader mode before the popups appear."

Though I guess this extension is less useful now that many sites are purposely breaking reader mode.

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