Show HN: Paste a link to an article, get a minimal version to read

http://justread.mpgarate.com/

by mpgarate • 12 years ago

78 34 12 years ago

justread.mpgarate.com

mpgarate4• 12 years ago

Useful for articles that have sluggish javascript behavior, span multiple pages, or are otherwise hard to read.

Example use with a TechCrunch article: http://justread.mpgarate.com/read?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftechcrunc...

Also works well as a bookmarklet:

javascript:window.location.replace("http://justread.mpgarate.com/read?url=" + escape(document.URL))

jscheel• 12 years ago

Ugh, I need to set up an extension to automatically rewrite all Techcrunch urls.

cdbattags• 12 years ago

package it with http://squirt.io/ and suddenly we can read everything

notastartup• 12 years ago

oh my god. that is an amazing tool. really hard to say but I don't think I caught everything or remember everything I read but do feel like I can understand what I am reading. I keep trying to sound out the words and give up and begin look at the words only like pictures. its a surreal experience.

vidyesh• 12 years ago

Not sure if this practically possible to read a whole article this way or not but this is an awesome tool.

How come I never stumbled upon this!?

Thank you very much.

jonalmeida• 12 years ago

It's been on HN a while back, but while using it in practical cases like WSJ, it seemed to pick up HTML code, whitespace characters and/or text from a sidebar.

I ditched it at the time, but I may try to start using it again if I can get it work with ebooks.

scoot• 12 years ago

I've added bookmarklets for both, and you can Clean (which sorts out multi-page articles, sidebars etc.) then Squirt to speed-read the resulting article. They really do go hand-in-hand.

goldfeld• 12 years ago

Anyone who thinks speedreaders like this are a good idea should look into the opthtamologist Bates' research and method. Reading without moving your eyes equals tension and stress on your eyes and related muscles (neck, shoulders.) It's a great way to increase your need for glasses.

topherjaynes• 12 years ago

To show of the functionality for first time page landers you should pre-populate with a popular article url. I had to open a new tab and find an article to test. I almost didn't come back. Almost, but glad I did!

grimtrigger• 12 years ago

I see website after website make this mistake. How is this not painfully obvious?

bpierre• 12 years ago

Example with “The Rise And Fall Of The Dreamcast” (multiple pages): http://justread.mpgarate.com/read?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamas...

Original: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132517/the_rise_and_fa...

Awesome tool!

wehadfun• 12 years ago

this is great would like it even more if it remove all images and displayed text in a boring font.

masukomi• 12 years ago

what is different about this than the original arc90 readability algorithm with an URL field added to kick off the processing?

mpgarate4• 12 years ago

This project directly uses the Readability api.

I created this as a more simple interface than Readability offers, primarily for my own personal use as a bookmarklet.

StavrosK• 12 years ago

I didn't know they had an API. Would it be easy to create a bookmarklet that used it? I don't like their extension, it feels too heavy. I want something that doesn't run until I invoke it.

cliveowen• 12 years ago

http://evernote.com/clearly/ I've been using this for years, now I can't read an article without it.

praveenster• 12 years ago

Care to share the details of the html parser? is it one of arc90/goose/boilerpipe/fivefilters or a new engine?

cag_ii• 12 years ago

Built by mpgarate with the Readability API.

Is noted in the footer.

glittershark• 12 years ago

Pentadactyl command to do this with the currently open page:

    :command! justread execute 'open justread.mpgarate.com/read?url=' + buffer.URL

huskyr• 12 years ago

What's the difference between this and something like Instapaper or the iReader plugin ([1])?

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ireader/ppelffpjgk...

nazgul• 12 years ago

You're not concerned about the copyright issues related to this?

akavel2• 12 years ago

By the way, does anybody here know of an algorithm (and/or already implemented open-source library/app) that copes well with auto-extracting content from forum-like websites? (i.e. phpBB, StackOverflow, HN, reddit, ...)

krapp2• 12 years ago

Umm... anything that uses xpaths should work I would think.

Apologies for blowing my own horn but I've had some luck filtering HN and reddit with this project I built (I used to have an example in progress online but i've taken it down): https://github.com/kennethrapp/embedbug

akavel2• 12 years ago

The point is I want some heuristic that would work "automagically" (like Readability, etc), not requiring me to invent a tailor-made xpath for each and every such website in the world.

syllogism• 12 years ago

My suggestion would be to understand the Boilerpipe algorithm, which as far as I can see is the best available solution (and much clearer than readability): http://www.l3s.de/~kohlschuetter/publications/wsdm187-kohlsc...

You can then easily adapt it for your requirements.

hyp0• 12 years ago

http://justread.mpgarate.com/read?url=news.ycombinator.com%2...

Show HN: Paste a link to an article, get a minimal version to read

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