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I wish I could read Wikipedia like this
- alxndr 12y agoSimilar, but apparently "one-way": http://www.telescopictext.com/ http://www.telescopictext.com/
- mosselman 12y agoI like your concept a lot. It would be great addition to reading complex things.
- Svip 12y agoThis already exists on Wikipedia. Under preferences, select the Gadgets tab and enable "Navigation popups". When hovering over a link in a Wikipedia article, a small popup will appear, in addition to some metadata about the link, the first paragraph of the article will appear, including links that may appear in that paragraph, which can also be hovered to make another popup appear.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- dbbolton 12y agoLink: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation_popups https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation_pop... Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/lySrN1I.png http://i.imgur.com/lySrN1I.png
- pietrofmaggi 12y agoWell, Navigation popups seems something a bit different for me and not at all something intended for general consumption like the proposed changes (that I think is great). First of all you need to have a Wikipedia account to enable them, and second this is something intended as an help for the editors. Wikipedia description of this function is: "article previews and editing functions popup when hovering over links"
- Svip 12y agoWell, even the Hovercards under Beta features also require a user account. And of course, there is the downside of now only having it enabled on the English Wikipedia. What about the German or French Wikipedia? What about Wiktionary? Oh man, that is going to be hard. Indeed, Navigation popups is not perfect and it is intended for editors first. But I mostly use it for speeding up my browsing. But writing a general tool for all MediaWiki installations is going to be quite the task; a lot of MediaWiki wikis don't even have opening paragraphs like Wikipedia does (see Wiktionary for example). Sure, we can make some compromises and accept that non-encyclopaedia styled wikis don't apply to this tool. I'd love to see a Firefox extension that did this. But for now; either Hovercards or Navigation popups provides the basics of the requested functionality.
- neilk 12y agoThe OP's design for it is much nicer. Navigation popups have been around since 2005, and while in some ways better than the OP's design (pictures!) this is useful enough to test it as default behavior. Hover doesn't work on mobile, so perhaps they should appear if you click and hold for a few seconds.
- 3rd3 12y agoImplementing it in HTML/CSS/JS certainly poses an interesting problem because, as far as I know, one cannot directly access individual, dynamically broken lines of text. One would probably have to wrap each word in a container and keep track of the absolute positions.
- assaflavie 12y agoVery true. I got a rough POC of this, implemented using the technique in this answer: http://stackoverflow.com/a/22816419/11208 http://stackoverflow.com/a/22816419/11208 (just with divs instead of images) It's very brittle though. It relies on knowing the line-height, calculating the line in which the highlighted word sits, accounting for the existence of vertical scroll-bars... not trivial.
- 3rd3 12y agoAh, that was surprisingly easy: http://jsfiddle.net/5p92U/ http://jsfiddle.net/5p92U/ Or am I missing something? Edit: Yes, I do. It does not work together with images on the right side: http://jsfiddle.net/Nup2F/ http://jsfiddle.net/Nup2F/
- Adirael 12y agoYou can use getSelection() to do that, but it doesn't work everywhere. [0] [1] [0] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7563169/detect-which-word-has-been-clicked-on-within-a-text https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7563169/detect-which-wor... [1] http://jsfiddle.net/Vap7C/15/ http://jsfiddle.net/Vap7C/15/
- deleted 12y ago
- sksksk 12y agoI find the Google Dictionary plugin is pretty good for reading wikipedia like this... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-dictionary-by-goog/mgijmajocgfcbeboacabfgobmjgjcoja?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-dictionary-...
- kubiiii 12y agoI like it a lot, my use of wikipedia often leads to a bunch of opened tabs and a lack of focus on what I was looking for in the first place (which might also be a great thing depending on your mood).
- tty 12y agoWikipedia currently has a Beta feature name Hovercards You can enable it here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsec...
- hugi 12y agoThank you! I've had this feature for about 10 minutes and I already find it indispensable.
- medell 12y agoAgreed! How have I lived without this...
- gabemart 12y agoThanks! Here is a screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/fXYAZgm.png http://i.imgur.com/fXYAZgm.png Unfortunately, it's not recursive, unlike "Navigation popups" described in what is currently the top comment. They are prettier though!
- vxNsr 12y agoThis is a nice start, but I already see one issue with this that the "Navigation popup" doesn't have: nothing on the hovercard is clickable, and thus you can't go more than one level down a tree. The navigation popups are great except that if you move the mouse off them then they close, so as you traverse down the tree you lose parents. And you kinda end up with the same issue as before only now you really have no idea how you got there because you don't even have the open tabs to guide.[0] [0] http://imgur.com/RS0IEet.png http://imgur.com/RS0IEet.png
- Inversechi 12y agoTotally didn't know about this! Cheers for the heads up.
- nashashmi 12y agoI prefer Chrome's extension called Google dictionary. Every time I highlight a word, it pulls up a definition. Anywhere on the web.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- r0h1t4sh 12y agoIt will be great to see this as a Chrome/FF extension.
- brunorsini 12y agoThis reminds me of Apture, which Google acquired in 2011.
- hngiszmo 12y agoI want my computer to get a concept of what I know. It should then gray out stuff I know and linkify stuff that might be new to me. Semantic Web is the key word here. Decades of research went into that but this magic tool still is not anywhere near yet.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- ygra 12y agoIncidentally, this was what my diploma thesis was about. The basic idea was to have a single »text« that contains lots of possible branching or expansion points, depending on certain criteria. Depending on those criteria you'd get a expanded or contracted text to read that would be tailored to what you already know or are interested about. Altering the text in small parts (like [−1½] mentioned in another comment – I found that one much later, though) was one part of it; inline expansions if necessary or wanted were a possible UX enhancement I thought of (avoiding a completely static text where you'd have to tell the engine everything beforehand). Use cases I thought of were mainly adjusting texts explaining things (e.g. Wikipedia, school books, etc.) to the already existing knowledge of the reader. So that an article explaining a concept could look radically different (and going into increasingly more detail) depending on what the reader already knows. One proof of concept I created was adjusting the German Wikipedia article on Turing machines to three different levels (school, 1st semester CS student, 4th semester CS student) [75.3]. What each level does is either explaining things differently or leaving out parts altogether (no need horrifying a pupil with formulae). So my main focus was on providing something that reads well (expanding things inline still incur a context switch because they're not part of the original narrative) and finding a way how to model such things. Nothing automatic because a clear semantic model is needed for that to work. Thesis can be found at [0.046], it's in German, but the abstract is in English too. Just in case someone might be interested in that. [−1½] http://www.telescopictext.com/ http://www.telescopictext.com/ mentioned by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7602335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7602335 [75.3] http://hypftier.de/temp/turing.html http://hypftier.de/temp/turing.html – sorry, it's in German, but Google Translate seems to work fine. [0.046] http://hypftier.de/temp/Diplomarbeit.pdf http://hypftier.de/temp/Diplomarbeit.pdf
- CatsoCatsoCatso 12y agoTelescope Text is very interesting, thanks for the link.
- tim333 12y agoYeah, it would be an interesting format to produce a novel in. You could see the summarised story and expand the interesting bits.
- api_or_ipa 12y agoThis is why some IDEs allow you to to "peek" at a definition, for example.
- Dewie 12y agoYeah... try to look up some category theory terms you found in the wild on Wikipedia. You will not be enlightened. I guess this can be generalized to most mathematics on Wikipedia.
- badgateway 12y agoDidn't Ted Nelson suggest this sort of in-situ display for transclusion in Xanadu?
- kristopolous 12y agoGoes a bit beyond that, especially in the kablang navigation and sworfing but yes ... it definitely gets closer than the current one-way linking model of html.
- assaflavie 12y agoAbout popups/tooltips/hovercards: I considered this approach, but decided to go with this sort of "inline" expansion for the following reasons: 1. A popup obscures the original text. This interferes with context, albeit admittedly to a much lesser degree than full-blown navigation, but still. 2. Multi-level popup hierarchies just don't look good, in my opinion. 3. You must dismiss a popup to continue, whereas with inline expansion you can just as well keep the expansion and continue reading. 4. The hover approach doesn't work as well for touch-devices (i.e. without a mouse).
- TeMPOraL 12y agoAgree with all four; I prefer inline expansion to popups as well. Especially 2/ - multiple popups can quickly lead to a mess on screen, just like on the Wikipedia's Navigation Popups screenshot, where it does not only look ugly, but the popups also obscure each other as well as the original text.
- Zakuzaa 12y agotldr.io chrome extension does something like this
- assaflavie 12y agoThank you! Just tried it. I'm in love. :)
- PhasmaFelis 12y agoWhat we really need is for more Wikipedia writers to remember that it's an encyclopedia, not a technical reference manual.
- softgrow 12y agoMaybe the prose could be written to assume less knowledge and reduce the amount of other material needed for most people to understand? Alternatively as a user preference the prose could auto-include the meanings of some terms?
- enscr 12y agoI prefer popups (floating elements) instead of altering the flow of the document. The continuous re-flow of the document is distracting.
- vacri 12y agoI'm the same - I'm currently trying to use DuckDuckGo and familiarising myself to it, but it's driving me nuts as it reflows the results as it loads elements. I'll go to click on something only to have it move away as another element is loaded.
- MichaelAza 12y agoWish granted: http://wikiballoons.tomodo.me/wiki/Main_Page http://wikiballoons.tomodo.me/wiki/Main_Page I also made a (by no means complete) POC more simmiliar to your animation which you're welcome to fork and improve: http://en.wikimore.tomodo.me/wiki/Main_Page http://en.wikimore.tomodo.me/wiki/Main_Page In general, whenever you want to improve a website - Tomodo is the place to go (http://tomodo.com/ http://tomodo.com/)
- pandatigox 12y agoIs it based on hover? Doesn't seem to be working for me (iPad)
- owenversteeg 12y agoHmm. Your example doesn't work for me (Arch Linux Chromium 28). Tomodo is also broken in general when I tried to use it.
- bachback 12y agowelcome to Ted Nelson's original idea of hypertext. further information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hypertext http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hypertext
- Holbein 12y agoWhile the suggested feature would be a improvement, the real goal imho should be that each Wikipedia article can be read and understood by itself, without the need to go on a recursive yak shaving expedition through other articles first.
- Wohui 12y agoI don't see how that is feasible. Upvoting the analogy though.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- dredmorbius 12y agoTree-style tabbed browsing makes tree-traversal style web browsing far more tractable. Sadly, Chrome doesn't have a tree-style tabs mode, nor can it be provided by the existing Chrome extension format. There are a number of tree-style tab extensions for Firefox (e.g., "Tree Style Tab": http://piro.sakura.ne.jp/xul/_treestyletab.html.en http://piro.sakura.ne.jp/xul/_treestyletab.html.en). There are any of a number of changes to the browser model I'd very much prefer aimed at information management, as opposed to the web-applications centric focus of the past several years. In an interesting departure, Kobo advertised among the features of its (Android-based) tablet a web browser which simplified pages to an easy-to-read view. Based on present pre-loaded apps bundles, it looks as if that was the Pocket browser, but I still find it interesting that this was pitched as a benefit to a largely nontechnical, literary audience. It certainly reflects my own growing dissatisfaction with present-generation browsers.
- lewispollard 12y agoI use the 'wikipedia quick hints' chrome extension and it works really well for me. It works kind of like the navigation popups already mentioned - but links inside the modal can also be hovered over, 'recursively'. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wikipedia-quick-hints/ldnhgfghebflgcndlbppfanbchpgmkna https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wikipedia-quick-hi...
- jasongrout 12y agoThe American Institute of Mathematics has been promoting "knowls", which is a very similar idea and implementation: http://www.aimath.org/knowlepedia/ http://www.aimath.org/knowlepedia/ Rob Beezer's free open-source linear algebra book uses these extensively to provide more details in proofs and in exposition. It's very nice. For example, click on the underlined blue text at http://linear.ups.edu/html/section-SSLE.html http://linear.ups.edu/html/section-SSLE.html
- zodiac 12y agoI thought this was a really interesting idea and tried implementing it. You can check out the demo here: http://xuanji.appspot.com/static/wikipedia.html http://xuanji.appspot.com/static/wikipedia.html Note that the "sinusoidal wave" link isn't working, as it redirects to "sine wave"...gotta work around that :( If you want to read/modify the code send a pull request to github.com/zodiac/xuanji.appspot.com/, the commit which implemented this is https://github.com/zodiac/xuanji.appspot.com/commit/872b40dca7dd001b6413eee8e8d9b3daff3a1c1d https://github.com/zodiac/xuanji.appspot.com/commit/872b40dc...
- someguy1233 12y agoIt works well until you get too deep. Then it becomes unreadable. Http://i.imgur.com/9lSpyxb.png
- Aardwolf 12y agoSince my primary language is Dutch, it's easy for me: If I want a short article, read the Dutch version. If I want too many details, read the English version :)
- ronaldx 12y agoI have Dutch as a second language and can vouch for this - when an English article is convoluted and misses the point, I click on the Dutch link for a simpler version.
- Goladus 12y agoAny article on an advanced topic is going to be difficult if you lack prerequisite knowledge, no matter how fancy the cross-reference ui.
- Raphmedia 12y agoTake a look at https://github.com/sanketsaurav/easywiki https://github.com/sanketsaurav/easywiki which do exactly what he proposes and work on other websites when hovering wikipedia links!
- ozh 12y agoNeat idea, but the article also made me discover Basic English and its 850 words. Didn't know about that, I think that should be mentioned when you learn English. Does anyone know of similar general purpose word sets for other languages?
- jaynos 12y ago>Does anyone know of similar general purpose word sets for other languages? This would be great. All my attempts at learning a new language are thwarted by the seeming daunting nature of the task. 850 (or so) words? I could see myself doing that (and then continuing on to another few thousand words. I believe Tim Ferriss did something like this for learning Japanese. He made the list himself, but published it for others. It's in "The 4 Hour Chef" and probably on his website.
- jaynos 12y agoSelf reply, I hope that's okay. I looked into this more (had an urge to learn Spanish today). Frequency dictionaries might be a good place to start. Here's the Spanish one I found [1]. It's a dictionary sorted by frequency of use (in a 20 million word text survey) instead of alphabetically. I imagine you can find a similar dictionary for other languages. [1] http://speak-spanish.ru/wp-content/uploads/A-FreDictSpan.pdf http://speak-spanish.ru/wp-content/uploads/A-FreDictSpan.pdf
- epochwolf 12y agoIf you have a mac, you can right click on any word and choose "Look up in dictionary". The dictionary pulls definitions from it's internal dictionary and wikipedia.