3.11.2006

Does a platypus get perplexed?











Source:
"In 2001, I published a paper about something I called 'Active Browsing':

...In active browsing, the client browser actively modifies content before display. Instead of accepting web pages 'as is', active browsers transparently modify, delete and edit web pages according to specific user needs.

but it wasn't until I saw extensions like Greasemonkey, Aardvark, and Web Developer that I saw how Firefox and Mozilla's technologies supported user mediation in a transparent and useful way.

Platypus is a Firefox extension which lets you modify a Web page from your browser -- 'What You See Is What You Get' -- and then save those changes as a Greasemonkey script so that they'll be repeated the next time you visit the page. Editing pages to suit your needs is dandy -- but making those changes 'permanent' is the real payoff.

Some of the things you can do with Platypus include:

* Remove parts of the page you don't wish to see.
* Move a part of the page to a different location.
* Change the style and format of page elements.
* Modify all the links on the page using a regular expression.
* Insert your own HTML code.

Of course, web pages change all the time, so Platypus doesn't work well on some pages, and your Platypus script might break if a web site changes its format. And some times your changes will break a web page in unexpected ways. But you can always undo your changes by reloading the web page, and if a script breaks, just delete it and create a new one. So play around and enjoy yourself!" [1]

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