Zap reader

[mukestar]

http://www.zapreader.com/

This is sooo simple, but so cool im actually using it to read T&C agreements at 835 WPM, with total comprehension (well as much comprehension you can get with a T&C agreement. (i think any faster my head will explode like the bloke in scanners).


Basically grab a load of text, past it in the browser, and instead of having your eyes have to scan left to right, it just plonks the text out on work at a time, fat speed.

It sounds crap i know, just try it.

[brotherS]

http://www.zapreader.com/

-mukestar (August 17, 2006, 09:58 PM)

Wow, this is really great! Thanks!!

This is sooo simple, but so cool im actually using it to read T&C agreements at 835 WPM, with total comprehension (well as much comprehension you can get with a T&C agreement. (i think any faster my head will explode like the bloke in scanners).

-mukestar (August 17, 2006, 09:58 PM)

[sri]

I came across this only now and it's good. Here's a IRC convo on it:

[16:13] <srikat> try http://www.zapreader.com/
[16:14] <srikat> I have been testing it since half an hour. Looks like it really makes me intake content faster than normal reading
[16:20] <app> omg...you actually like that?
[16:20] <app> that conflicts with my reading style
[16:20] <app> i don't read 1 word at a time
[16:21] <bro|thr_S> srikat: o.O wow, looks great!!
[16:21] <bro|thr_S> srikat: I *listen* to some knowledge-based radio shows at ~180% of the speed too, so this might work for me
[16:22] <srikat> app: you can set the no. of words it shows you per frame
[16:22] <srikat> I set the speed to 325 and no. of words to 2
[16:22] <app> i am kind of a natural speed reader
[16:23] <srikat> The author said in the screencast, he uses 600 and 2
[16:23] <srikat> now that's really fast
[16:24] <app> kind of makes it hard to visually scan diagonally through a paragraph though
[16:24] <srikat> ya, this is not for most web surfing activities where we scan
[16:24] <bro|thr_S> it should have keyboard control, like GoogleMail and http://www.rememberthemilk.com/
[16:24] <srikat> this is for those articles that we really want to read, every word
[16:25] <srikat> bro|thr_S: it uses few keyboard controls currently. 'p' to play/pause; 'l' to skip to nxt line, 'k' to previous line etc.
[16:25] <app> only thing i read every word is technical stuff where i am reading it to learn something
[16:26] <bro|thr_S> srikat: ah, thanks

[noutters]

And now is the time to introduce my Autohotkey version of this cool reading technique. As you'll notice, I slightly improved it.

The GUI looks like:

Zap reader

Check the whole story and more pictures at: http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=77893#77893

Cheers,

noutters

[mouser]

very cool 

[Ampa]

noutters - I like your script very much and hope that you will develop it a little further based upon the suggestions here and on the AHK Forum.

[noutters]

I hope you'll find this new version of SpeedReader more polished than the initial one.
I changed the GUI and provide a slider for the reading speed. Up to 1000 wpm for *VERY* fast readers 
The user may select to see 1, 2 or 3 words at a time.

Snapshot:

Zap reader

The URLs of the source and the compiled exe are unchanged.

Cheers,

noutters

[Ampa]

Yay! You made some good changes.

One tiny bug I noticed... if the text is paused, you can't escape out of it (at present you must unpause and then escape).

Here are some further suggestions...

• Ability to specify font and font size
• Ability to specify foreground and background colour
• Ability to change settings whilst paused (eg Drop from 2 words to 1 word)
• Ability to run full screen to remove all the distraction of other windows
• Option to change pause duration at punctuation

Hope you keep up the great work as this seems like a nicer little application.

[mouser]

is this a good time to remind people to send some credits with a nice note to people when you see them doing something on the forum that you want to show support for?

[Mark0]

Wow, amazing reading experience!

Thank you!

[Ampa]

Was using SpeedReader today to scan quickly through a long article, and noticed that the only punctuation mark that is recognised is a full stop / period / "."

If you do get around to updating the program at any point, could you add the ability to recognise other common punctuation...

Perhaps discriminate between long pauses and shorter pauses...

LONG = . ; : ...
SHORTER = , ( ) -

Or whatever you feel is appropriate to improve understandability.

Ampa