Discussion on Multi-column articles | Userscripts.org

Small update, replied by Raking Leaves

Raking Leaves — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:11:10 +0000

I just uploaded version 0.5.1, which fixes some issues with NYTimes.com and The Atlantic. At some point soon, I hope to go through the list of supported sites and make sure they still work.

Small update, replied by Raking Leaves

Raking Leaves — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:28:48 +0000

Hi all,

Sorry I haven't been responsive to the last few comments. Between family and work I haven't had time to look at script issues. I will look at these issues as soon as I have time, but it may be a while. The script still works fine for me on the main news sites (NYTimes, Wash. Post), but I'm sorry if it's broken elsewhere. I will gladly accept bug fixes from others and I'd be happy to help anyone else understand the code.

Refresh loop, replied by Heather Hollick

Heather Hollick — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 14:05:47 +0000

When I use this script Firefox goes into an endless loop of reloading the page. The page formats to multiple columns, then reloads, always back to the first page. Anyone have any idea how to stop Firefox from reloading the page?

Many thanks,
Heather

Missing text / Bad margins, replied by ed420

ed420 — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:12:45 +0000

The script seems to cut out phrases, and the margins seem to be out of whack. Example at: http://www.economist.com/world/international/Pr...

The missing phrases seem to be due HTML mark up in the original article (both instances it cuts out the rest of a paragraph after the article mentions the name of a source, which is italicized.)

Archived Comments, replied by a new nadir

a new nadir — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:49:17 +0000

This plugin no longer works on most sites--when I go to multi-column view, a lot of text is shorn out between pages--at least a sentence or two. Also, the margins are messed up, so that sometimes text bleeds off the page.

Archived Comments, replied by Raking Leaves

Raking Leaves — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:43:23 +0000

Hi Margot,

Glad you like the script! Wikipedia works fine for me. To get the multi-column layout, just click on the "Printable version" link in the box labeled "toolbox" in the left column on any article. Pictures don't appear in the multi-column view since they are often removed from printer-friendly versions of articles. Beyond that, I'm not sure the column layout in Firefox is advanced enough yet to add pictures to multi-column text in a nice way. But, when that happens, I'll think about how I can include them.

Archived Comments, replied by Margot

Margot — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:48:23 +0000

It doesn't work on wikipedia unless I remove the "printable=yes*" from the url (Included Pages), but I guess it was there for some reason. Also I can't see any pictures in the multi-column view.

Besides that it's great!

Archived Comments, replied by Raking Leaves

Raking Leaves — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 02:27:43 +0000

I've just released version 0.5.0, coinciding with the release of Firefox 3. The big new feature is automatic hyphenation via Firefox 3's soft hyphen support and the hyphenator script (see http://code.google.com/p/hyphenator/). The script still works with Firefox 2, but hyphenation won't work. There's also support for a bunch more sites, mostly thanks to ihq (see comment below). I've also noticed that smooth scrolling performance seems to be much improved in Firefox 3, at least on Mac. Enjoy!

Archived Comments, replied by Raking Leaves

Raking Leaves — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 02:12:53 +0000

Sweet, thanks for the patch, ihq! I will include it in the next release, along with the hyphenation feature. I'll try to get it out soon after the Firefox 3 release this Tuesday.

Archived Comments, replied by ihq

ihq — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 23:31:30 +0000

BBC News:

// @include http://*.bbc.co.uk/*/pagetools/print/*

else if (theURL.match(/bbc\.co\.uk/)) {
        return getTextBBCNews();
}

function getTextBBCNews() {
    addGlobalStyle("body { padding-left: 0; padding-right: 0; }");
    addGlobalStyle("div.headline { text-align: left; }");
    removeAll(getElementsByClass('ibox',null,null));
    return addChildrenToNewDiv(document.body);
}

ABC News:

// @include *abcnews.go.com/print?id=*

else if (theURL.match(/abcnews\.go\.com/)) {
        return getTextABCNews();
}

function getTextABCNews() {
    addGlobalStyle("h1,h2,h3,h4 { font-family: sans-serif; text-align: left; }");
    return document.getElementById('content');
}

Newsweek:

// @include http://*.newsweek.com/*/output/print

else if (theURL.match(/newsweek\.com/)) {
        return getTextNewsweek();
}

function getTextNewsweek() {
    addGlobalStyle("img {margin: 0 0 0 0;}");  
    // TO DO: remove p tag from deck div (subtitle) so the style isn't overwritten
    addGlobalStyle(".author { padding: 5px 0 0 0; }");
    addGlobalStyle(".articleUpdated { margin: 0 0 0 0; }");
    addGlobalStyle(".contentWrapper { margin: 0 0 0 0; width: 100%; padding-top:0 }");
    removeAll(getElementsByClass('copyright'));
    removeAll(getElementsByClass('hr'));
    removeAll(getElementsByClass('URL'));
    return getElementsByClass('body', document.body, 'div')[0];
}

Time:

// @include http://*.time.com/*/printout/*

else if (theURL.match(/time\.com/)) {
        return getTextTime();
}

function getTextTime() {
    removeIfNotNull(document.getElementById('topBannerWrap'));
    removeAll(getElementsByClass('button',null,null));
    addGlobalStyle('.contentMain { padding: 0 0 0 0; }');
    addGlobalStyle('.tout1 p { line-height:1.3em ! important; }');
    addGlobalStyle('h1 { text-align:left; }');
    addGlobalStyle('.tout1 { border:0; }');
    addGlobalStyle('#footer { margin-top:0; }');
    removeAll(getElementsByClass('find'));
    return getElementsByClass('tout1',null,null)[0]
}

Archived Comments, replied by Raking Leaves

Raking Leaves — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 02:54:43 +0000

Hi everyone, thanks for all the comments. First, some good news: I have an initial implementation of hyphenation! It was done mostly via the wonderful hyphenator script:

http://code.google.com/p/hyphenator/

Thanks to ihq for the initial pointer. In my preliminary tests, readability is sometimes dramatically improved. The only issue is that automatic hyphenation relies on soft hyphen support, which is implemented in Firefox 3 but not Firefox 2. Since Firefox 3 should be released relatively soon, I am going to hold off on a new release until I can fully test it with Firefox 3. I'll also add support for a couple more sites in the next release.

Regarding printing of articles in multi-column format, it sounds like there are some good ideas out there, but I think it would require some significant changes over what is implemented now. It took a long time to get the notion of "pages" working decently with the script as-is. Firefox doesn't really tell you exactly how wide a column is or how many columns are currently being displayed, and calculating that information wasn't very easy. My guess is that trying to determine what should go on a "printed page" will be even harder. I don't have time to work on this, but if anyone is interested in taking charge, I'm glad to try and help.

Marc Savoy: not sure what happened in your case. Do other scripts work? My guess is your problem isn't with this script in particular, but with Greasemonkey in general.

Archived Comments, replied by Marc Savoy

Marc Savoy — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 12:04:14 +0000

This worked when I initially installed it yesterday but even after uninstalling and re-installing, it doesn't work anymore. :-(

Archived Comments, replied by orrorin

orrorin — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 19:58:19 +0000

Can we have this working for San Francisco Chronicle (sfgate.com)? They have verbose articles as well.

Also, instead of creating a multi-page output, can we have a single page or pseudo-pagination (where the entire article is on a single web page, but the next and prev buttons are pointing to (pseudo-)page based anchors on it)? This will make it easier to print in multi-column format.

Thanks for the good work!

Archived Comments, replied by Raking Leaves

Raking Leaves — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 03:02:14 +0000

I just posted an update (first in a while!) that hopefully fixes the Washington Post. Hopefully more soon...

Archived Comments, replied by Raking Leaves

Raking Leaves — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:01:15 +0000

Hi everyone, sorry for being somewhat unresponsive here. I have a real job now, and hence less time to work on the script :). I'll try to fix the washingtonpost issue soon. I'll also try to get Firefox 3 support going soon after it's released. But, because of other commitments, I can't make any promises about timely releases. As always, I welcome patches, and I'm glad to answer any questions ppl have about the code.

Archived Comments, replied by ihq

ihq — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 13:50:57 +0000

The script isn't working for me on washingtonpost.com. I get the error

Error: theText has no properties
Source File: file:///C:/Users/Me/AppData/Roaming/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/default/gm_scripts/multicolumnarticles.user.js
Line: 668

Archived Comments, replied by ihq

ihq — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:01:11 +0000

These settings make pages look a little more like a printed newspaper:

padding-top: 0pt ! important; padding-bottom: 0pt ! important; text-indent: 1em ! important;

Is there a way to include hyphenation? Here is a starting point: http://www.mnn.ch/hyph/hyphenation2.html.

Archived Comments, replied by mmcc

mmcc — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 19:03:30 +0000

Great script! I'm trying to figure out how to use this to print out long web articles in multiple columns. I've changed the script a bit so the entire article is drawn with a scroll bar at the bottom of the browser instead of having the nav bar. However, when I try to print, the article is either shrunk down to fit on one page, or only one page is generated with the rest of the article cut off.

I'd love to somehow say that two or three columns should be printed per page. Any ideas?

Archived Comments, replied by Raking Leaves

Raking Leaves — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 22:01:54 +0000

I just uploaded version 0.4.0, which adds the ability to use a custom style for article text. I hope people find this feature handy; I think the default custom style is a big improvement over the style for most printer-friendly pages. Note that I haven't thoroughly tested modifying different parts of the custom style; some changes may have adverse affects on script functionality. Changing fonts and font sizes should be fine, though.

neetij: I added the margin as you suggested; thanks. Re: the access keys, I couldn't get the suggested code to actually do anything, as far as I could tell. I also read this web page, which suggests that access key support can be quite tricky. If someone can explain to me what benefits the access keys provide in Firefox, I'll add the code.

Still thinking about Eoin's issue with printer-friendly links; I may write a separate script to address them.

Archived Comments, replied by neetij

neetij — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 09:03:53 +0000

I must say this is a wonderful script. Thanks for taking the time to write this up.
You might want to add a margin to the body for the Wired print view - it sticks to the edges.

document.body.setAttribute("style", "margin: 10px; width:auto;");

I think introducing access keys for the pagination would be a welcome addition.

prevButton.setAttribute("accesskey", "p");
nextButton.setAttribute("accesskey", "n");

Cheers.

Archived Comments, replied by Raking Leaves

Raking Leaves — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 21:29:07 +0000

I just posted a new version with a revamped implementation of scrolling that should hopefully fix several minor bugs. Note that now, there may be an extra blank page on some articles; this is a known issue. Post a comment if you see problems with text being cut off or too few pages for an article.

In the next version, I hope to allow user formatting of articles (text font, size, etc.), and I'm still thinking about a good way to address Eoin's issue.

Archived Comments, replied by Eoin Jones

Eoin Jones — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 13:03:09 +0000

Hey thanks, look forward to the update, its already very handy, but I guess us greasemonkey users by nature are always looking for the ideal scenario.

Archived Comments, replied by Raking Leaves

Raking Leaves — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 16:25:36 +0000

Hey, sorry for being so slow in responding; I just completed a move. Eoin, you're right, being able to go directly to printer-friendly pages would be a great feature. There are already separate scripts that take you directly to printer-friendly pages for certain sites (e.g., http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/10855). As you suggest, I would like to be able to choose printer-friendly vs. standard on a per-article basis, as sometimes there are interesting pictures or multimedia features linked from the standard article view. I'll keep thinking about an unobtrusive way to make navigating to the multi-column view easier.

I'm working on some other minor improvements; hopefully a new version will be released soon.

Archived Comments, replied by Eoin Jones

Eoin Jones — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 14:53:28 +0000

sorry, maybe something other than ctrl+click as that is the shortcut to open the link in a new tab.

Archived Comments, replied by Eoin Jones

Eoin Jones — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 14:49:09 +0000

It would be very handy if link redirection was added to this script so you could ctrl+click on headlines to go directly to the printable page without needing to go through the standard article page first, but I guess that might be tricky.