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eInk Mode: Making web pages easier to read

jackscogito.blogspot.com

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Re: eInk Mode: Making web pages easier to read

#61

Post by jack101311 »

evantbyrne wrote: post #13
bityard wrote: post #6

Okay, so I started reading this and got excited to see what this was all about. I've been wanting a web browser that can turn the "regular web" (as much as possible) into something more like an e-book that happens to have hyperlinks. Essentially, imagine Reader Mode, but all the time. But this is... something else? I tried scrolling to the bottom and as soon as I click on the scroll bar, I get a pop-up showing a bunc…

This is something I've been wanting for a while. You could probably build an extension to accomplish that. One hard challenge would be extracting content and then displaying it in a way that retains its semantics across the web, including navigation, sidebars, etc. Another would be form handling.

Thank you for your feedback. I do plan to turn this into a browser plugin.

Re: eInk Mode: Making web pages easier to read

#62

Post by jack101311 »

carlosjobim wrote: post #51
latexr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Essentially, imagine Reader Mode, but all the time. You can tell Safari to use Reader Mode by default on all websites. On iOS 18: Settings > Apps > Safari > Reader > All Websites. On macOS 15: Safari > Settings… > Websites > Reader > When visiting other websites.

The advantages of this: - Every website has the same accessible layout - Blocks advertisements - Blocks popups and auto playing videos - Blocks cookie banners - Blocks newsletter signup modals - Blocks sticky headers and all distractions - Auto dark/light mode on all websites - Choose your preferred colour theme, font, font size and margins and it applies to all websites - Images are presented neatly - Inline videos…

I've tried Reader Mode, but Safari's Reader Mode doesn't properly display JavaScript elements, such as my footNote popups, and some YouTube videos also fail to load correctly. Additionally, embedded Google Maps within this article don't appear accurately, and many website layouts get distorted. Furthermore, current Reader Modes on major browsers predominantly rely on scrolling, which isn't ideal for E Ink. These shortcomings are pain for E Ink users and this is why I'm advocating for this alternative mode.

Re: eInk Mode: Making web pages easier to read

#63

Post by jack101311 »

carlosjobim wrote: post #22

This is something genius from the article: "WYSIWYG Printing (PDF Saving) When printing web pages, browsers typically use a default pagination algorithm that rearranges the content based on the printed paper size. This ensures images aren't cut off by page boundaries. However, this pagination isn't tailored to the user's current device screen size. Instead, it uses standard paper dimensions like A4, A3, or B5. As a r…

Thank you for your appreciation.

Re: eInk Mode: Making web pages easier to read

#65

Post by carlosjobim »

jack101311 wrote: post #62
carlosjobim wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advantages of this: - Every website has the same accessible layout - Blocks advertisements - Blocks popups and auto playing videos - Blocks cookie banners - Blocks newsletter signup modals - Blocks sticky headers and all distractions - Auto dark/light mode on all websites - Choose your preferred colour theme, font, font size and margins and it applies to all websites - Images are presented neatly - Inline videos…

I've tried Reader Mode, but Safari's Reader Mode doesn't properly display JavaScript elements, such as my footNote popups, and some YouTube videos also fail to load correctly. Additionally, embedded Google Maps within this article don't appear accurately, and many website layouts get distorted. Furthermore, current Reader Modes on major browsers predominantly rely on scrolling, which isn't ideal for E Ink. These shor…

I completely agree. When it comes to eInk, then classic reader mode scrolling is an inconvenience. But compared to normal browsing, it is great. As for distorting website layouts, that is usually a bonus. Reader mode + standardized website navigation layout would be the golden solution.

Re: eInk Mode: Making web pages easier to read

#66

Post by bityard »

dflock wrote: post #35
bityard wrote: post #6

Okay, so I started reading this and got excited to see what this was all about. I've been wanting a web browser that can turn the "regular web" (as much as possible) into something more like an e-book that happens to have hyperlinks. Essentially, imagine Reader Mode, but all the time. But this is... something else? I tried scrolling to the bottom and as soon as I click on the scroll bar, I get a pop-up showing a bunc…

I want this too! I discovered a really esotieric way to get this: https://duncanlock.net/blog/2024/01/04/super-fast-reader-mod... - but it would be really nice if there was just a way to switch reader mode on permenantly in modern browsers. Apparently Safari can do that, but afaik no other browsers support it. I really wish browsers were more modular - if the rendering engine and network fetching were easily separabl…

Interesting... I may have to give that a shot in the near future.

Re: eInk Mode: Making web pages easier to read

#67

Post by bshacklett »

dflock wrote: post #35
bityard wrote: post #6

Okay, so I started reading this and got excited to see what this was all about. I've been wanting a web browser that can turn the "regular web" (as much as possible) into something more like an e-book that happens to have hyperlinks. Essentially, imagine Reader Mode, but all the time. But this is... something else? I tried scrolling to the bottom and as soon as I click on the scroll bar, I get a pop-up showing a bunc…

I want this too! I discovered a really esotieric way to get this: https://duncanlock.net/blog/2024/01/04/super-fast-reader-mod... - but it would be really nice if there was just a way to switch reader mode on permenantly in modern browsers. Apparently Safari can do that, but afaik no other browsers support it. I really wish browsers were more modular - if the rendering engine and network fetching were easily separabl…

> if the rendering engine and network fetching were easily separable - and you could insert your own steps into that pipeline, you could do all sorts of neat stuff.

Can’t that be done relatively easily with https://mitmproxy.org/?

Re: eInk Mode: Making web pages easier to read

#68

Post by themadturk »

politelemon wrote: post #45
pyaamb wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish apple would enter the eink device market. Would be a piece of cake for them and easy new revenue for the company if they even get it half right IMO

I find comments like this strange and tbh a bit worrying too; instead of wishing for technology to get better, it's wishing for a specific company's revenue to improve. I hope they do not enter the eink device market. Eink in general is unfortunately already suffering from the stranglehold of one giant which has locked innovation away due to its proprietary implementations. Having two will not make the situation bett…

Several alternate eink devices are doing quite well against the Kindle. it’s true that Amazon dominates, but devices like the Kobo and others are still innovating and developing new devices, at least partly because they’re less locked-down than Kindle’s.

Re: eInk Mode: Making web pages easier to read

#69

Post by dredmorbius »

bityard wrote: post #6

Okay, so I started reading this and got excited to see what this was all about. I've been wanting a web browser that can turn the "regular web" (as much as possible) into something more like an e-book that happens to have hyperlinks. Essentially, imagine Reader Mode, but all the time. But this is... something else? I tried scrolling to the bottom and as soon as I click on the scroll bar, I get a pop-up showing a bunc…

There's an e-ink optimised Android app, Einkbro, which I've been using for several years now. It's mentioned in TFA, for what it's worth.

One of Einkbro's highly underappreciated features is "save page as ePub". This provides the "web as ebook" experience you're looking for.

But it gets better: You can save multiple pages to a single ePub, where the additional pages are appended to the end of the document. This provides a book (or multiple books) which can follow a theme: a set of pages on a topic, a time-oriented collection of pages, etc.

The UI/UX isn't as seamless as reading online, but the end result is really good.

Note that an ePub document is a compressed archive of HTML documents. You can pull apart the ePub to edit it: re-order contents, re-title them, edit the underlying documents themselves, etc., using shell tools. On an Android device itself directly if you've installed Termux. A bluetooth keyboard helps immensely here.

I've been raving about this feature for years now, see: https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/107958709435468728>.

Re: eInk Mode: Making web pages easier to read

#70

Post by dredmorbius »

jack101311 wrote: post #61
evantbyrne wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something I've been wanting for a while. You could probably build an extension to accomplish that. One hard challenge would be extracting content and then displaying it in a way that retains its semantics across the web, including navigation, sidebars, etc. Another would be form handling.

Thank you for your feedback. I do plan to turn this into a browser plugin.

That would be absolutely awesome.

If you're not already considering it, the Readability.js module might make this more straightforward:

https://github.com/mozilla/readability>

(I think. I've looked into this but not applied it directly myself yet.)

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