Readability and Reading List

[Cuffy]

Is anyone familiar with the browser add-on Read Now and Read Later from Readability.com or MS's own Reading Lists, which does basically the same thing?

"Readability

https://www.readability.com/

Readability is a web and mobile app that zaps online clutter and saves web articles in a comfortable reading view."

I found Readability a while back and thought my problems were solved......
not true!
Only partially........
My memory is bad and getting worse so rather than save something to Favorites I save the web page. As you all know, web pages are getting larger and larger and only about 5% of the page is data you want to save.
Readability has come up with a partial solution and from what I can gather they have stopped further development.
Using Read Now add-on you come up with a page stripped of all the clutter and left with the "meat of the matter" for your perusal. Nice!!
Now my problem enters the picture...........
when I save the converted page I get a copy of the original page and not the stripped down page (I'm smelling java!)
I contacted Readability.com and the man on the phone suggested I try saving as EPUB or something. duh!
Currently, as a workaround, I've been viewing the source of a page, copying the source, dropping it into Notepad2, and saving it as the original title.htm.
I get what I want with this method but it is time consuming and I'm frustrated that so seemingly a simply problem is so damned complex.
With the "Cloud" in the mix and 90-95% of their storage space consumed by superfluous clutter I don't understand why this is still a problem.
I'm a two-fingered-hunt and peck typist who hasn't even written a .bat file in the last 20 years so I'm worthless as part of the solution!
Anyone know anything about this that would solve the problem?

[TaoPhoenix]

Hmm. I'll trade you being a 4 fingered typist who somehow managed to get to 30 wpm, vs *never* having written a .bat file ever! So I'll go sideways in my attempt to work on your concept and problem.

I just glanced at Readability, but I'm not up for signing up for a service just for this post. My specialty is more user-level tweaking offline tricks to do stuff.

Some ideas:

1. Make a folder on your desktop called articles. Make a bunch of empty text files just by copying one and hitting Control-V until you get "copy of copy of copy of copy of newfile.txt" or whatever. Point is, you use Readability to strip the page down, then select the article, and paste it to one of the empty text shells, and rename it as you like. Bonus of this is you add your own name to what the article means, vs the site default page name. Downside is sometimes pages use pictures for part of the article.

2. I discovered a while back, a fast and dirty hack addon called "QuickJS" (Javascript) which toggles Javascript on and off in one click. (When you said Java, I think you mean Javascript, a different thing and a whole other thread.) So sometimes you just toggle that off, load the page, and it stops five of the seven other dumb things from loading. Then you "Save as html only", and while it looks a bit ugly, it tends to be pretty small all told.

3. "Links Files". If you're really cruising, and this time keying on the "memory problem", I have used text files with 2 line entries. (I get lazy and call the files like "July 13 links" but name them whatever.) So then you just copy the link and smash it into the text file, with a 7 word description of what it is. This is when having 20 separate items could overwhelm you in a folder, but 20 items in a text file isn't so bad if you have them in two week batches.

4. This last one is a bit different. Let's say there's an article (or a TV show!) that has just one incredible part and the rest is blah. Then you can do things like use Mouser's SC Capture to capture the exact part, then dump it into Tom Revell's Stickies. (If this sounds remotely interesting there is one more advanced trick for later.) Point is, you didn't want that entire 3000 word article, you wanted 2 sentences that changed your life for a week.

So there's some stuff!

[Cuffy]

Thanks,
I glanced at your ideas and there's nothing there I can use.
Text files won't work......... I need the images.
"QuickJS" doesn't work in IE.
Links don't help........ I want an uncluttered web page saved to my HDD.
SC or parts of a page is not what I'm after.
I'm looking for a way to save a web page, converted by Readability, using java script, as an HTML file that I can open in IE11.
Thanks again...

[Contro]

If the web is not prepared to modify the letter size i use a lupa .

Lately i was searching for a readability software in the sense of easy to comprehend. There is not much software able to do this. simplify the text.

[Cuffy]

Try Readability...........
it's free
a simple add-in.............https://www.readability.com/

It satisfies my needs with the exception of saving. It has no provision to save the simplified file??

I drop the simplified source code into Notepad2, which handles html nicely, and save as an uncluttered web page. Neat and sanitary but more time consuming than I'd like.

[Contro]

Trying to comment.

Good Nights

Best Regards
 

[Contro]

Owwww. Wonderful. I am following Virginia Murdock.....
By the way I am downloading two promiful tools for Ubuntu :

Text Analyzer Classifier Summarizer

Text Summarizer For Linux and windows

Open Text Summarizer


 

[Cuffy]

Contro,

We are not even close to discussing the same subject!
You seem to have wandered off into the woods and got lost???
I think the only way back is for you to install "Read Now" from Readability.com.............
open a very busy and cluttered web page.............
Convert it by clicking on "Read Now" in your menu bar............
When the cleaned up page comes up you can compare it with the original page.
The converted page should have a link to the "Original".

 

[Contro]

Contro,

We are not even close to discussing the same subject!
You seem to have wandered off into the woods and got lost???
I think the only way back is for you to install "Read Now" from Readability.com.............
open a very busy and cluttered web page.............
Convert it by clicking on "Read Now" in your menu bar............
When the cleaned up page comes up you can compare it with the original page.
The converted page should have a link to the "Original".

 

-Cuffy (July 15, 2014, 05:06 PM)

I have done. Works fine for me.
Best Regards
 

[TaoPhoenix]

...when I save the converted page I get a copy of the original page and not the stripped down page (I'm smelling java!)

-Cuffy (July 14, 2014, 03:48 PM)

Okay, since I saw this thread pop up again, I decided to just go ahead and sign up as much for my own benefit as anything!


Your reply to my notes added some new info - that we're talking about IE11 apparently, so that narrows down the browser.

Now we get a slightly different problem in that I am on XP, so I only have IE8 (and it's getting cranky on me!) and my various copies of Firefox.

So that gets me closer to your original question, and hopefully you can modify one of these further hints and get to where you want to go. PS it's a nice concept for an addon!

[TaoPhoenix]

As a test I went for a Forbes Magazine article, remembering that they are among the "noisier" sites, but not quite as "tricky" of a test case as Chessbase.

I grabbed a random article from a topic I recalled from last month, Congress mulling suing the President.
http://www.forbes.co...hat-is-the-question/

My version of the converted article is at:
https://www.readabil...om/articles/euy0kpxl

Notes:
1. It seems to matter if you are logged in to your Readability account. So even if the buttons are there, take a look to see if you are logged in. (I'm frowning a little at their processing model, that takes whatever article you are reading from wherever, and then stores the copy on their server. But that's another thread's topic!) So in my tests, when I was logged in, your final goal of saving the page was easier. Before I logged in, copying and pasting the readability version URL was redirecting me back to the original page, which is close to the problem you were having.

Trying to guess ahead of Cranky-IE8 vs your IE11, try saving in something approaching the following ways:
- "Webpage Complete .html"
- "Webpage single file .mht"
- Fiddle with whatever you have as "Compatability Mode"

On my cranky IE8 I couldn't get the first to work at all, and the second came through with "hidden" script text from Readability, in the form of an ugly "how did we (Readability) translating this page?" survey.

2. On my PaleMoon copy of Firefox, I got your full goal of the saved page instantly with a simple as "Save as complete page html". So a new workaround could be, if you really like and must use IE11, install a copy of Firefox anyway, log it in to Readability, and then when you're reading on IE11, once you get the converted page URL like
https://www.readabil...om/articles/euy0kpxl

then just flip over to Firefox, paste the URL, hopefully the converted copy comes up, and then just save-as-html like you want to. Two more clicks, but at least not the 12 you were doing!

So I hope those notes are at least closer to what you are trying to do! Do they help?

Hola,

--Tao

[Cuffy]

I'm getting suspicious that you and Contro are trying to drive the old man bananas???
Before I go running off looking for Firefox please tell me that the links you posted above don't all go to the same place!
All three links take me to the original page........... no converted page in the whole lot!!!

and Contro.

you were following Virginia Murdock yesterday and that means you were in the Reading Lists feature at Readability.com and a fur piece from Read Now which is my topic of interest.

I've got Google Chrome installed and the Read Now add-on installed easily on that so I'm going to do some testing on that before I chase down Firefox.
Convince me that you have a stripped down web page saved to your HDD in html format........
dare ya!

[Cuffy]

Hey Guys,
I quit!
I installed Read Now in Google Chrome. loaded a Windows 7 Tutorials page, clicked Read Now, got a perfect page with all images, just as the ad says!
I haven't been able to duplicate the fear since.
Loaded the same web page into three different browsers.............. Read Now.......... save to disk.
Got three different byte counts with the three saves........ no images?
Read Now is a great idea but it's too flakey to do me any good.
besides, I hate java script!
Thanks again for all the time and effort.
Maybe next time.
Chio!

[Curt]

A Readability page is meant to be printed, or virtually printed = saved as a PDF file => so you should click "Print", not "Save", and print to .pdf!

I am and have been using Readability for some years. Yes, it doesn't always save the pictures, but then I save the picture separately, and in my PDF editor I simply insert a new page with the missing pictures. But as you said, this is a frustrating waste of time.

By the way: The reason pictures are not always saved is, that Readability itself has determined that they are adverts or otherwise not related to the article. So, it is not a javascript error, but the article itself that was not designed in a way Readability could fully understand.

[TaoPhoenix]

I'm getting suspicious that you and Contro are trying to drive the old man bananas???
Before I go running off looking for Firefox please tell me that the links you posted above don't all go to the same place!
All three links take me to the original page........... no converted page in the whole lot!!!

-Cuffy (July 16, 2014, 11:28 AM)

Naw, I wouldn't try to drive you bananas! It's more the reason I was suggesting my other hints before, because a new issue popped up.

It's true the second link was repeated, but I was trying to use the whole link for rhetorical purposes. But you apparently just discovered (see my grumpiness note from above) that they apparently don't cache the "readable" page very long, so you're right that it's reverting back to Forbes, but that is *not* what it was doing for me yesterday!!

"Read Now is a great idea but it's too flakey to do me any good."
You were saying earlier they may have stopped development ... maybe they were finding that each site has its own nasty javascript doing weird things, and it was getting harder and harder to produce "readability profiles" for sites plus different implementations across the browsers.

Plus, the Readability email itself sends a clue - re: the three different byte counts, I wouldn't put it past them based on the other weird things their script does, is to try to auto-detect browsers and produce something customized. In my signup email it says "go get the add-on" and auto-detects the browser and feeds me different instruction pages, when I was testing for you. So your three different versions could have been browser specific!

Yeah, I agree with the conclusion, "good idea, but flaky"!       : (

[Cuffy]

A Readability page is meant to be printed, or virtually printed = saved as a PDF file => so you should click "Print", not "Save", and print to .pdf!

I am and have been using Readability for some years. Yes, it doesn't always save the pictures, but then I save the picture separately, and in my PDF editor I simply insert a new page with the missing pictures. But as you said, this is a frustrating waste of time.

By the way: The reason pictures are not always saved is, that Readability itself has determined that they are adverts or otherwise not related to the article. So, it is not a javascript error, but the article itself that was not designed in a way Readability could fully understand.

-Curt (July 17, 2014, 02:10 AM)

Curt, I think you might have wandered off into the woods with Contro following Virginia Murdock.

I am not even remotely interested in Readability or a pdf page.
I've been talking about "Read Now", a feature provided by Readability.com that promises to convert a web page and remove the clutter, ads, extraneous, and superfluous garbage, that we must endure to get a paragraph of data about a subject we are interested in learning more about. For years I've been saving to my HDD, how-tos and tutorials as html pages which, time permitting, I edit and remove all the clutter that 'Read Now" promises to remove. In many instances they produce an acceptable product that has value to me but a page without the images has no value. A page discussing a screenshot of a page in your registry without the screenshot is worthless, at least to me!

What I want is a copy of the article, with images included where appropriate, sans "Junk". Reverse engineered is one way to explain it.
I want the page in html format so I can edit it further if I want or reduce it to a "checklist"
I subscribe to a method used by the old railroad section chief, Finnegan, when reporting a train derailment to the line chief:
Off Again
On Again
Gone Again,
Finnegan

Save to pdf? The guy at the desk at Readability.com suggested EPUB. I think he's out in the woods with Contro, following Virginia Murdock.
I need html files, as they can be compiled, using MS's Help Compiler. A series of tutorials, reduced to their lowest common denominator, in html format, compiled into a .chm file is neat and sanitary.

I appreciate your explanation of javascript, and have been informed repeatedly that it's a necessary evil, but to me it's simply a PITA.
I remove it when possible as it seems to help with the headaches?

Thanks for your input but I don't think we are on the same page.