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PARC's Popout Prism Aids Web Navigation
sulo writes "Popout Prism is a Web Browser that reduces the amount of time users end looking for information in Web pages. By creating visual "popouts" that emphasize critical elements in Web pages, Popout Prism draws users' attention to the right information." Not a very complicated idea, but one that could be useful.
'He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.' - Douglas Adams
In event of further Slashdotting, here's Google's copy
...you can still get some info and a download here (well, for the moment anyway).
they appear to have fscked up their installation regarding JAVA.
i have 3 or 4 different JVM versions on my box - and normally i can run just about everything without any problems. the highest version of JAVA I have is 1.4.1 and whenever i run their installer it tells me that JAVA is not found and then it installs JRE 1.3.1 and then does exactly the same thing.
SYNOPSIS: if you have anything higher that 1.3.1, this probably won't work.
FWIW, Opera has a special version of their browser, with the ability to render the usual webduhsigners fixed width websites on small screens. Check out Opera's Small-Screen Rendering.
Qoute from the page:
How do we do it?
Opera's Small-Screen Rendering technology enables access to all the content available on the Internet today. Even before this innovation, it was of course possible to browse the Web with Opera. The problem is that most sites are designed with fixed widths that make them hard to navigate on small handheld devices.
As an example, most news sites have a center column where the main article text is located. This column is usually 468 pixels wide (due to the standard ad-banner sizes) and the text is set to fill this width. This means that to read an article, you would have to scroll back and forth for every line of text.
With Small-Screen Rendering?, the page is reformatted to fit inside the screen width and eliminate the need for horizontal scrolling. All the content and functionality is still available, it is only the layout of the page that is changed. This innovation is the key enabler for surfing on a mobile device.
Actually it was just around 1000 years ago that perspective was first formulated by al-Haytham, and a few hundred years later that people began to apply it to the arts.
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
But we already have that. It's called BannerAddRemover. If you also disable java/javascript, automatic redirection, popups and asp, you are able to get straight to the interesting links.
Just hit "/", type the word you are looking for, and *BAM*, it gets highlighted and jumps to the next instance of the word.
Okay, so it may not be the same thing, but it is a superior alternative.
"You think wrong. There are version differences in Java, and some programmers are dumb enough to write to a particular Java implementation, like Java 1.3 for instance, for a particular platform, like Windows for instance, for a particular application, like IE for instance. RTF download page."
Well, Sun changed the way some things work between version 1.3 and 1.4 breaking some GUI applications. They don't provide any backwards compatability. It's not the programmers fault. As for a particular platform like Windows or Solaris or Linux, there is nothing in Java itself that is tied to a particular plaform. You do have the ability, however, to make system calls in Java thus making your app plaform dependent.
-- Jason
Opera has a lot of neat features when it comes to finding the goodies on a page. E.g., you can force your own stylesheets on a page, even multiple ("User Mode"). So I have a standard b/w stylesheet that underlines and colors links no matter what the designer intended, and another one to switch off all images (except those that are links).
...
Also, you can zoom in and out pages: 25% gives a nice "thumbnail" style overview, while 400% should be enough for even the smallest, err, details. Bonus: Images and Flash movies are resized as well, so this is much better than IE's feature. Press "W" to move from headline to headline (assuming the designer actually used H1 and not just f****ng bold). Pressing [ctrl][j] brings up a window that shows all links on the page. Just select those you want and open them in a background window etc. etc.
And just pressing F12 will give you a Popup menu to switch off all that nonsense that often keeps you from reading: GIF animation, background Audio, Java, Popups
Also, Opera will allow heavy customization. Almost every element of the UI can be tweaked and moved around. Whether you want a minimalist, near-fullscreen browser or a large set of custom stylesheets, search engines etc. at your fingertips, new keyboard shortcuts or Google Toolbar style Bookmarklets: Just tweak a few INI files.
PS: If it's only highlighting you want: When you're on Windows, the Google Toolbar is very helpful. Also, there's Text Spotlight, which does the same thing system-wide, not only in the browser.
The download and Internet Explorer sometimes don't get along. Rename the file you downloaded to end in .exe, and it should work. Mozilla-based browsers do not have this problem.
And, yes, there are some problems with the installer. If you're having trouble, write to popoutprism-support@parc.com, and we'll see what we can do to help.