Readability makes web pages look elegant and removes all the clutter around the actual content.
Try using it on a CNN.com article and you’ll see what I mean. It’s brilliant.
I’m using it in Opera, but there’s also a Firefox add-on here.
Cool! Thanks for sharing, xash.
Readability goes beyond simple clutter removal. It also includes using plain language, and the concept of cognitive readability. Here are a few URLs:
[ul]
[li]http://www.plainlanguage.gov/[/li][li]http://juicystudio.com/services/readability.php[/li][li] Flesch–Kincaid Readability Test - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch-Kincaid_Readability_Test[/li][li] Gunning FOG Index - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunning_Fog[/li][li] SMOG Formula - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMOG[/li][/ul]
I love it! This is something I’ve been harping on for years. It’s ironic, but we’ve gotten so much technology used on webpages to add more and more crap that we have to add another add-on to get rid of the crap! If webmasters made their pages readable in the first place, we wouldn’t need this.
There’s also a Chrome add-on:
http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Internet-Utilities/Readability-Redux-for-Chrome.shtml
Remember you also have to bookmark their Readability button AND click it on the page you want to read. I installed the plugin and was less than impressed in the fact that everything looked exactly the same. Then I figured it out.
Well, it doesn’t work on Google to fix their stupid layout, and I’m not sure why it wants to add white bars to everything. Simplified to me would be liquid.
I have watched the video and followed the instructions for IE. It doesn’t work. Any ideas?
Never mind. I went through the steps three times and third time charmed; it works. I have no idea why it didn’t at first. DH had the exact same problem. He hasn’t got it working yet. Note: you can also revert to the original page, print the page and e-mail it by using three handy buttons on the side. Very nice little program.
I used it for some time to declutter the New York Times. And then the Times changed something about their page layout which killed the ability of arc90.com’s tool to improve their pages. But I loved reading with it for a few weeks.
It looks (looked?) really slick if you switch whatever site into display for printing mode first.
Which browser were you using LSLGuy? I just used it on a couple of NYT articles this morning without any problems. (I’m using the latest version of Firefox.)
I also like the ability to make the article scroll (ctrl+shift+a or cmd+shift+a depending on whether you’re using a PC or Mac). You can adjust the speed using + and -. Makes for much smoother reading.
For those of you who haven’t used it, it’s intended for sites containing articles. Looks like it puts the article into something similar to the printing format, but with more white space on each side of the print column. This feature combined with the autoscroll makes it much easier to read (bigger print, no surrounding clutter). I’ve used it successfully on the NYT site, Washington Post, NPR, Reuters, Die Franfurter Allgemaine Zeitun, and CNN (probably more, but those are the ones that immediately come to mind).
ie7 with a lot of lockdowns. Thanks for the feedback; I’ll try some more fiddling now that I know there’s some llight at the end of the tunnel.
Thanks for the heads up xash! Another blow struck in the battle for legibility.
Just popping in to say thanks for posting this. I’ve been using it for a few weeks and I love it.