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Haaretz Enhancer

Improves Haaretz's site: streamlines front page, removes textual ads, loads articles in same page, and more.

Fixed for Haaretz's new home page (1-Nov-07).

Features:

This script enhances Haaretz (www.haaretz.co.il) in one big way and many small ones. Just give it a try to see what it does! The small enhancements include removing textual ads, cleaning out and streamlining pages, etc. List of improvements so far:
  1. Removing the textual advertisements at the bottom of articles.
  2. Improving the legibility of the front page and of a few others, by removing the rightmost column of advertisements, and expanding the other columns. (This is a good thing even if you already have Adblock.)
  3. The “news flashes” scroller at the front page is expanded when you move the cursor over it.
  4. Removing the annoying floating ad at the front page.
  5. A “favicon” icon now appears on tabs, so you can easily distinguish them.
  6. Tabs will now have more informative titles. (e.g. “Editorials” or “Gallery” instead of a generic “Print Edition”.)
The big enhancement is more dramatic. It lets you read articles without ever leaving the “article list” page. Whenever you click on a link to an article, the article will be shown inside the page you’re currently viewing—just below the link you clicked. Another click will close it. (Or you can now use the ‘close’ button.) This is essentially like reading talkbacks on Ynet, or reading messages on a Tapuz forum. You can easily turn off this feature if you like. Just un-check the checkbox that appears at the bottom of the page.

Further Tips:

  1. Eliminate banners and graphical ads by installing the extension Adblock Plus . (My script doesn’t do that, because redundancy is bad.)
  2. Problems with encoding? Does text with Hebrew, English and numbers get messed-up? install Effie Nadiv’s extension Fix Ha’aretz Encoding.
  3. Tired of talkbacks? Install my other script, Haaretz Talkbacks, to remove them for good.
  4. Use the script Haaretz Books Viewer for the Books Online and Gallery Online sections.
  5. If you want similar functionality for Ynet, check out my experimental script Ynet Enhancer

Change Log:

  • 0.69 (1.11.07) Fixed for Haaretz's new home page.
  • 0.68 (3.6.07) Tiny changes to further clean up the front page and other ads (the talkback conundrum).
  • 0.65 (18.4.07) More improvement to infrastructure. Slightly faster, but no new functionality.
  • 0.61 (15.4.07) Small under-the-hood tweaking.
  • 0.6 (26.3.07) MAJOR changes to underlying infrastructure. Script is much faster now. You must use Greasemonkey version 0.6.8.20070314 at least.
  • 0.51 (1.11.06) Small bug fix – on few odd occasions, lists of links wouldn’t get processed.
  • 0.5 (17.10.06) Added a “favicon” icon for the tabs. Tabs now have an informative title. Before-and-after screenshot:
  • 0.41 (10.9.06) Tiny bug fix.
  • 0.4 (22.8.06) Added a ‘close’ button; removed auto-refresh.
  • 0.31 (25.1.06) Bug fix – “Loading…” was shown indefinitely. Improved help box.
  • 0.3 (22.1.06) Major update – was made compatible with Firefox 1.5!





Apr 15, 2008
Matan Scriptwright

Thank you Lior, I have converted many people to greaseMonkey by showing them before and after versions of the Haaretz site. Your script makes that site so much better. A real killer app for Hebrew readers.
 
Jan 11, 2008
Dov User

To eliminate the frame obscuring the first talk-backs, just add www.chart.co.il to adblock as a filter.
enjoy
 
Jun 3, 2007
Lior Zur Script's author

Zaphod: Excellent, thank you. I coded the script so that quick solutions like yours are easy to create, and I'm glad it works. I'll incorporate your change.
 
Jun 3, 2007
Zaph0d User

I've added these lines to the main block (let's say, after the end of "if (isPrintArticleList) {" block).
----Code start----
//#### Remove ads_frame
removeElements("//iframe[@id='ads_frame']");
-----Code end-----

This solves the talkback being hidden problem.

As the Blue Raja says: "Cheerio!"
 
Mar 27, 2007
Lior Zur Script's author

"me": the ad you're complaining about can be eliminated using Adblock. Just set Adblock to block this iframe.
 
Nov 24, 2006
me User

this is very nice. can you also do something about the text ads at the bottom of haaretz articles. the ads overwrite the first few talkbacks... this is in firefox 2 on windows. thanks!
 
Nov 16, 2006
lycralout User

This is *so* useful. Makes the Ha'aretz site actually readable. Kol hakavod.
 
Oct 27, 2006
Lior Zur Script's author

Hi Anonymous One, I appreciate your effort, but I can't understand exactly what you fixed. Why don't you e-mail me with precise details? I'm at liorzur -at- yahoo -dot- youknowwhat.
 
Oct 22, 2006
mar 1 Scriptwright 		Sorry, I'm logged in through BugMeNot. I hope line breaks will work this time.

Here is an example article that doesn't get patched:
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/776414.html

I haven't noticed if all articles are like this,
or only the article above which I wanted.
I've solved this, and here is the diff:

65c65
< var reListPrintEdition = /^http:\/\/www\.haaretz\.co\.il\/hasite\/spages/;
---
> var reListPrintEdition = /^http:\/\/www\.haaretz\.co\.il\/hasite\/pages\/LiArtPE/;
215c215
< "//td[@width='280']",
---
> "//td[@width='120']",
228c228
< "//td[@width='470']|//td[@width='470']/descendant::*[@width='470']",
---
> "//td[@width='468']|//td[@width='468']/descendant::*[@width='468']",
232c232
< thisElement.setAttribute("width","760");
---
> thisElement.setAttribute("width","588");
 
Oct 22, 2006
mar 1 Scriptwright

Sorry, I'm logged in through BugMeNot

Here is an example article that doesn't get patched:
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/776414.html

I haven't noticed if all articles are like this, or only the article above which I wanted.

I've solved this, and here is the diff:

65c65
< var reListPrintEdition = /^http:\/\/www\.haaretz\.co\.il\/hasite\/spages/;
---
> var reListPrintEdition = /^http:\/\/www\.haaretz\.co\.il\/hasite\/pages\/LiArtPE/;
215c215
< "//td[@width='280']",
---
> "//td[@width='120']",
228c228
< "//td[@width='470']|//td[@width='470']/descendant::*[@width='470']",
---
> "//td[@width='468']|//td[@width='468']/descendant::*[@width='468']",
232c232
< thisElement.setAttribute("width","760");
---
> thisElement.setAttribute("width","588");
 
Jun 15, 2006
Yuval Hager User

This is an amazing script. It actually makes this site readable!

Very good work.

I install this on every computer I arrive, and if I get to view haaretz' site using explorer.. baah..

I think that these kind initiatives shows the power of having an extendible, open-source browser.

Yishar Koah!
 
Jun 13, 2006
Eyal User

Hi Lior! Thanks for the script. Works fine so far. My only problem is that the pages other than the main page are opened with wrong encoding (Hebrew Visual instead of Hebrew (Windows - 1255)), so numbers and words get a bit mixed up.
Haven't had any problems with Haaretz, by the way, with FF 1.0.7.
Keep up with the good work!
 
Jan 22, 2006
mishu User

Anak!!! :))
This script makes Haaretz so much nicer and easier to read! I'll spread the word ;)

by the way, the first article had this message: "Sorry, there was a problem loading the article. Please try again, or try another link. If you conclude the script has broken, report to me." All the other articles were ok!
Also, sometimes the site opens as a blank page. But again, the idea is great :)
 
Jan 22, 2006
Lior Zur Script's author

Hi mishu, thanks for informing me. It seems the script wasn't compatible with the new Firefox 1.5 and its new greasemonkey. I tried to update it, and should work now. It's still in beta, so tell me of any further problems. You should note that Haaretz's site is a bit messy, so some problems in Firefox 1.5 are its own fault.
 
Jan 21, 2006
mishu User

Hey there, came across your script here that looks really promising- but unfortunately apart of expanding the columns of the main page, for some reason it doesn't work, and I'd love to see the outcome. the idea of reading articles in the body of the main page is great!!!
Any ideas what may be the problem? I have tried saving the script on my comp. and then opened it in the monkey (in edit) and replaced with the one I saved- still it doesn't work... :(

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