Future browser feature?

[KarlGauss]

I’ve always thought it would be neat, let alone tremendously helpful, to be able click on (virtually) every word/phrase on my screen and be taken to another page which elaborates on the clicked word/phrase.

So, for example, if I were reading the news, I’d like to be able click to find more info on those things I was ignorant of, or interested in, or both:

MIAMI - Tropical Storm Epsilon formed Tuesday in the central Atlantic and could cause dangerous surf conditions in Bermuda over the next few days, forecasters said. But the 26th named storm of the busiest hurricane season on record was not expected to hit land, according to forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. At 4 p.m. EST, Epsilon had top sustained winds of about 50 mph, up 5 mph from earlier in the day.

Alternatively, by clicking, you might be given a choice of, say, definition, brief summary, in-depth knowledge, etc.

Clearly, this can be done with some effort on any site (Wiki seems to do it). What I’m getting at is a browser that does this for any site you visit.

(Actually, for all I know, such things exist already.)

[ultrafilter]

There are any number of pieces of spyware that’ll do this for you, but they only link to items for sale.

[Ximenean]

@KarlGauss

I’ve always thought it would be neat, let alone tremendously helpful, to be able click on (virtually) every word/phrase on my screen and be taken to another page which elaborates on the clicked word/phrase.

So, for example, if I were reading the news, I’d like to be able click to find more info on those things I was ignorant of, or interested in, or both:Alternatively, by clicking, you might be given a choice of, say, definition, brief summary, in-depth knowledge, etc.

Clearly, this can be done with some effort on any site (Wiki seems to do it). What I’m getting at is a browser that does this for any site you visit.

(Actually, for all I know, such things exist already.)

You can already right-click on selected text and be taken to a Google search on that text. Firefox does that out of the box. So it would surely not be difficult to configure a browser to do a Wikipedia search on selected text with one click.

[jjimm]

I personally find it really irritating. Particularly with regard to Wikipedia - I don’t need to know what ‘Tuesday’ means, unless it’s pertinent to the link. I’m not that dumb, and surely nobody else is either. If the link pertains to Tuesdays relevant to the subject, then I’m game, but Tuesdays in general? That’s just silly. Could you guarantee pertinence?

[Imasquare]

In the Opera browser, if you double click on a word you will see a pop-up menu that includes Dictionary and Encyclopedia, Speak, Translate and several other things.

[KarlGauss]

@Imasquare

In the Opera browser, if you double click on a word you will see a pop-up menu that includes Dictionary and Encyclopedia, Speak, Translate and several other things.

That’s exactly the type of browser feature I’m thinking of. So, it does exist already. Neat. Thanks!

By the way, Usram, I don’t understand what you mean when you say:

You can already right-click on selected text and be taken to a Google search on that text

.

[Ximenean]

@jjimm

I personally find it really irritating. Particularly with regard to Wikipedia - I don’t need to know what ‘Tuesday’ means, unless it’s pertinent to the link. I’m not that dumb, and surely nobody else is either. If the link pertains to Tuesdays relevant to the subject, then I’m game, but Tuesdays in general? That’s just silly. Could you guarantee pertinence?

Hang on, is that the jjimm? Welcome back!

KarlGauss, I mean the feature in Mozilla/Firefox where you can select text in a web page and then right-click on the highlighted text - the menu that appears includes an option to “Search Web” for that text. Not quite a one-click operation, but I’m sure it could be streamlined and configured to do a Wikipedia search rather than a “Web” search (which appears to mean a Google search, at the moment).

[Doctor_Who]

@jjimm

I personally find it really irritating. Particularly with regard to Wikipedia - I don’t need to know what ‘Tuesday’ means, unless it’s pertinent to the link. I’m not that dumb, and surely nobody else is either. If the link pertains to Tuesdays relevant to the subject, then I’m game, but Tuesdays in general? That’s just silly. Could you guarantee pertinence?

My feelings exactly. Sooooooo annoying.

[Dewey_Finn]

@Imasquare

In the Opera browser, if you double click on a word you will see a pop-up menu that includes Dictionary and Encyclopedia, Speak, Translate and several other things.

I have the DictionarySearch extension for Firefox that lets me look up selected words in an online dictionary. There may be other extensions that allow one to look up selected words in an encyclopedia.

[ZipperJJ]

I think you need the Google toolbar to do what Usram suggests.

I’ve never used it but…just tried it now and it takes you to a Google search in the SAME window (meaning you are taken from your page)

The IM/chat program Trillian has a Wikipedia plugin that highlights words in your IMs and gives you a capsule Wiki entry when you mouse over them. It is seriously annoying.

[Squink]

@KarlGauss

I’ve always thought it would be neat, let alone tremendously helpful, to be able click on (virtually) every word/phrase on my screen and be taken to another page which elaborates on the clicked word/phrase.

You’d have loved HyperCard.
A lot of people did a lot of neat things with it.

[Queuing]

@ZipperJJ

I think you need the Google toolbar to do what Usram suggests.

I’ve never used it but…just tried it now and it takes you to a Google search in the SAME window (meaning you are taken from your page)

The IM/chat program Trillian has a Wikipedia plugin that highlights words in your IMs and gives you a capsule Wiki entry when you mouse over them. It is seriously annoying.

I do not have google toolbar, and it worked for me. Opened in a new tab as well. After a quick perusal of firefox options I don’t see why it does one or the other.

[bobk2]

“Future Browser Feature”

Darn. I thought this was going to be about web-surfing future events.

[jjimm]

@Usram

Hang on, is that the jjimm?

Well I’m certainly a jjimm

Welcome back!

Cheers!