Widget Ideas for Online Surfing
Over the 27 years since the first web browser was created, the World Wide Web has been transformed several times. Standards changed, entire classes of services appeared and went into oblivion. Changed and users. Following the scientists and the military, the network was inhabited by geeks. To their great indignation, schoolchildren burst in a noisy crowd. With carols and music, colorful carts were rolled out by merchants. Weighed marble signs of the corporation. Behind them housewives minted and hobbled up vigorous pensioners. Then all of them and overtook the clatter of the hoofs of politicians of all stripes. And in the browsers themselves during this time there were tabs. Very handy thing. I don’t know how to use all this magnificence without them.
Tabs are all that we have, because the back button, magazine and bookmarks have not worked for a long time. After one hour of active surfing, the magazine looks so frightening that it will forever discourage you from looking there. Bookmarks for this are required from the week, if you just save everything to your favorites, up to several years, if you create an elaborate folder structure in advance and always try to follow it. The irony is that when something becomes necessary, even if we recall the bookmark, it is easier to find the site again in a search engine than to develop trash deposits. Well, with the "Back" button, the complexity began even with the appearance of the first dynamic pages, and AJAX finally made it useless.
Of course, we have both search, and tags, and taxonomies, and recommendation services, and social network feeds. However, all these tools are tied to specific services, and I would like to have something right at hand, regardless of the site you visit.
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Summarizing my own user habits, I tried to imagine tools that would make it easier for me to use the browser.
The widget is based on the script for viewing videos on Youtube: enter a search query, open the list, select the appropriate video, then watch the suggested related videos. The main task of the widget is to simplify this scenario, get rid of the need to open several tabs and use the “back” button to work with the results of the initial search and view all the interesting objects suggested on the opened pages.
Procrastination is the godmother of the user segment of the Internet, from news, anecdotes, and searching for critical goods in Ali-Express to everyday life, to an article about the Congo Constitution in Wikipedia or 10 useless facts about mating weevils.
We simply must erect in its honor, if not a temple, then at least a pagoda.
The widget is predestined for endless surfing on objects of the same type: pictures, videos, goods. It is also suitable for a deep search, when there is little quality information on the topic of interest and it is necessary to sort through the mountains of informational garbage in order to select worthwhile resources.
At the top of the widget, which serves as the roof of our pagoda, is placed the original information request or filtering parameters.
Below are two rows of thumbnails with selected resources.
In the lower part there is a wide viewing area of ​​the selected resource.
If you click on any thumbnail, the resource opens in the viewing area. Viewed thumbnails are graphically highlighted. If it was a miniature from the top row, the row is shifted down, replacing the bottom row, and the search query forms a new row of objects. If we clicked on the bottom row - everything remains in place. This is necessary so that the user can view all objects of interest to him without using tabs or the back key.
Under the main area can be located the history of viewed objects, in the form of a ruler of thumbnails.
In addition to a direct search query, a family of additional queries can be used to select resources, each of which has its own weight. The weight of the algorithm depends on the proportion of resources falling into the output from this algorithm. The weight itself may vary, depending on what resources the user chose to view. As additional requests, requests of similar objects to the resources previously selected by the user are used, and an algorithm that attempts to summarize the themes of the entire set of selectable resources and form a new request based on them.
Useful / useless buttons can be used to enhance the learning of algorithms. They also form additional tags for filtering browsing history.
Tired of procrastination in free flight, sometimes you want to head in the opposite direction, examine in chronological order the deposits of the public left by generations of moderators.
A regular vertical scrolling page would be enough if it were not for two problems: incremental brakes as AJAX loads new items at the bottom of the page and difficulty dragging to yourself or sending something at that moment working for both of you to your colleague .
Therefore, this widget will not visually differ from the normal public page with posts in chronological order, but technically, objects will be loaded into the widget one by one and removed from memory as it scrolls. In addition, we will be very useful tools for assessing, saving and sending, embedded in our browser and not dependent on the mercy of the platform or social network on which the public was created.
The content of the widget can receive parsed existing publics on typical engines and platforms. However, if one of the big players undertakes the implementation of the widget, it can get data from social networks and directly, through the API, or create a new one.
It is unlikely that the ancient philosopher suggested how his concept of metaphysical unity of command would be useful to us for comparing the prices of gadgets, air travel or finding the source of fake news.
In the center of the widget is the display area of ​​the object of interest. Around him are miniatures of selected alternatives, for example, the same product in other online stores. As an option, additional miniatures loaded in incognito mode can be generated.
When you hover on one of the thumbnails, it expands to the size of the main area, and when you move the mouse pointer out of its limits - it returns to its place. The user can delete the thumbnails that are not interested from the widget (by clicking on the “cross” icon, dragging the widget's area or using the “reset” button) and they are replaced with a new set.
Having found a more suitable option, the user can shift the focus to him, then the widget will pick up alternatives to it, given the previously scanned and rejected resources.
For additional convenience, you can extract key parameters from the page, for example, the price or the date of publication of the news and place them in the form of a sticker on the thumbnail.
At the thought of saving something in bookmarks, many users begin to nag their wrists and twitch their eyes: even the simple addition of a resource to favorites requires sharply moving the mouse away from the workspace and precisely hitting the “asterisk”. And saving to the right directory implies a fairly large number of precise movements and clicks, where any error at best will make everything start from the beginning, and at worst - you will have to switch to the edit mode of bookmarks and get the link from the wrong category. And to edit the categories will also have to use the keyboard.
Looking into the archive created by such works, we find it annoying to see how strange, sometimes, the resources are titled and how difficult it is to find the desired page under these headings “I remember, there were such frames on a green background”.
I would just like to take and drag a page thumbnail onto the “bookshelf”. To save space, miniatures can be rotated into the screen, like jackets hung on a bar in a closet. This is enough to recognize the page visually. Name and other parameters can be displayed on hover.
In normal mode, the bar is displayed without additional items.
When the bar is in focus, you can display the sorting options above it. The user can change their priority by dragging.
Under the bar you can display the time filtering scale and the tag cloud. A single click on the tag turns the tags off and on. Resources marked only with disabled tags are not included in the selection. Double click on the tag, on the contrary, leaves only the objects marked with this tag in the selection. To add a tag to a page, just drag its thumbnail to the tag or vice versa. In addition to the dependence of the tag size in the cloud on the frequency of its use, the color of the tag may depend on the time since the last application of the tag: as soon as we mark an object with a new tag, the tag turns blue and gradually cools to the brown spectrum.
Sometimes a miniature is just a miniature.
Web links are a great invention. But in the GUI we need more. Save the page's screenshot into the object, its text content for local search, meta-information, and the history of accessing the object. Now Seagate will not remain without work.
The received objects can be not only saved in history, but also sent by e-mail or in instant messengers in order to get rid of the dialogs once and for all: “What is there? - Yes, open it already - the coolest virus just for your browser version! ”. And the developers of privacy protection utilities will have something to include in the feature list.
For compatibility with instant messengers, you can create a cloud service that forms a short link to the transmitted object. If the user does not have a browser that can work with the object's meta-information, the service displays a screenshot and a link to the user.
Probably enough. If you develop or meet something like this, be sure to send the link to the PM.
Tabs are all that we have, because the back button, magazine and bookmarks have not worked for a long time. After one hour of active surfing, the magazine looks so frightening that it will forever discourage you from looking there. Bookmarks for this are required from the week, if you just save everything to your favorites, up to several years, if you create an elaborate folder structure in advance and always try to follow it. The irony is that when something becomes necessary, even if we recall the bookmark, it is easier to find the site again in a search engine than to develop trash deposits. Well, with the "Back" button, the complexity began even with the appearance of the first dynamic pages, and AJAX finally made it useless.
Of course, we have both search, and tags, and taxonomies, and recommendation services, and social network feeds. However, all these tools are tied to specific services, and I would like to have something right at hand, regardless of the site you visit.
')
Summarizing my own user habits, I tried to imagine tools that would make it easier for me to use the browser.
Procrastination pagoda
The widget is based on the script for viewing videos on Youtube: enter a search query, open the list, select the appropriate video, then watch the suggested related videos. The main task of the widget is to simplify this scenario, get rid of the need to open several tabs and use the “back” button to work with the results of the initial search and view all the interesting objects suggested on the opened pages.
Procrastination is the godmother of the user segment of the Internet, from news, anecdotes, and searching for critical goods in Ali-Express to everyday life, to an article about the Congo Constitution in Wikipedia or 10 useless facts about mating weevils.
We simply must erect in its honor, if not a temple, then at least a pagoda.
The widget is predestined for endless surfing on objects of the same type: pictures, videos, goods. It is also suitable for a deep search, when there is little quality information on the topic of interest and it is necessary to sort through the mountains of informational garbage in order to select worthwhile resources.
At the top of the widget, which serves as the roof of our pagoda, is placed the original information request or filtering parameters.
Below are two rows of thumbnails with selected resources.
In the lower part there is a wide viewing area of ​​the selected resource.
If you click on any thumbnail, the resource opens in the viewing area. Viewed thumbnails are graphically highlighted. If it was a miniature from the top row, the row is shifted down, replacing the bottom row, and the search query forms a new row of objects. If we clicked on the bottom row - everything remains in place. This is necessary so that the user can view all objects of interest to him without using tabs or the back key.
Under the main area can be located the history of viewed objects, in the form of a ruler of thumbnails.
In addition to a direct search query, a family of additional queries can be used to select resources, each of which has its own weight. The weight of the algorithm depends on the proportion of resources falling into the output from this algorithm. The weight itself may vary, depending on what resources the user chose to view. As additional requests, requests of similar objects to the resources previously selected by the user are used, and an algorithm that attempts to summarize the themes of the entire set of selectable resources and form a new request based on them.
Useful / useless buttons can be used to enhance the learning of algorithms. They also form additional tags for filtering browsing history.
Dante's Ladder
Tired of procrastination in free flight, sometimes you want to head in the opposite direction, examine in chronological order the deposits of the public left by generations of moderators.
A regular vertical scrolling page would be enough if it were not for two problems: incremental brakes as AJAX loads new items at the bottom of the page and difficulty dragging to yourself or sending something at that moment working for both of you to your colleague .
Therefore, this widget will not visually differ from the normal public page with posts in chronological order, but technically, objects will be loaded into the widget one by one and removed from memory as it scrolls. In addition, we will be very useful tools for assessing, saving and sending, embedded in our browser and not dependent on the mercy of the platform or social network on which the public was created.
The content of the widget can receive parsed existing publics on typical engines and platforms. However, if one of the big players undertakes the implementation of the widget, it can get data from social networks and directly, through the API, or create a new one.
Aristotle's Kaleidoscope
It is unlikely that the ancient philosopher suggested how his concept of metaphysical unity of command would be useful to us for comparing the prices of gadgets, air travel or finding the source of fake news.
In the center of the widget is the display area of ​​the object of interest. Around him are miniatures of selected alternatives, for example, the same product in other online stores. As an option, additional miniatures loaded in incognito mode can be generated.
When you hover on one of the thumbnails, it expands to the size of the main area, and when you move the mouse pointer out of its limits - it returns to its place. The user can delete the thumbnails that are not interested from the widget (by clicking on the “cross” icon, dragging the widget's area or using the “reset” button) and they are replaced with a new set.
Having found a more suitable option, the user can shift the focus to him, then the widget will pick up alternatives to it, given the previously scanned and rejected resources.
For additional convenience, you can extract key parameters from the page, for example, the price or the date of publication of the news and place them in the form of a sticker on the thumbnail.
Kodd's bar
At the thought of saving something in bookmarks, many users begin to nag their wrists and twitch their eyes: even the simple addition of a resource to favorites requires sharply moving the mouse away from the workspace and precisely hitting the “asterisk”. And saving to the right directory implies a fairly large number of precise movements and clicks, where any error at best will make everything start from the beginning, and at worst - you will have to switch to the edit mode of bookmarks and get the link from the wrong category. And to edit the categories will also have to use the keyboard.
Looking into the archive created by such works, we find it annoying to see how strange, sometimes, the resources are titled and how difficult it is to find the desired page under these headings “I remember, there were such frames on a green background”.
I would just like to take and drag a page thumbnail onto the “bookshelf”. To save space, miniatures can be rotated into the screen, like jackets hung on a bar in a closet. This is enough to recognize the page visually. Name and other parameters can be displayed on hover.
In normal mode, the bar is displayed without additional items.
When the bar is in focus, you can display the sorting options above it. The user can change their priority by dragging.
Under the bar you can display the time filtering scale and the tag cloud. A single click on the tag turns the tags off and on. Resources marked only with disabled tags are not included in the selection. Double click on the tag, on the contrary, leaves only the objects marked with this tag in the selection. To add a tag to a page, just drag its thumbnail to the tag or vice versa. In addition to the dependence of the tag size in the cloud on the frequency of its use, the color of the tag may depend on the time since the last application of the tag: as soon as we mark an object with a new tag, the tag turns blue and gradually cools to the brown spectrum.
Page thumbnail
Sometimes a miniature is just a miniature.
Web links are a great invention. But in the GUI we need more. Save the page's screenshot into the object, its text content for local search, meta-information, and the history of accessing the object. Now Seagate will not remain without work.
The received objects can be not only saved in history, but also sent by e-mail or in instant messengers in order to get rid of the dialogs once and for all: “What is there? - Yes, open it already - the coolest virus just for your browser version! ”. And the developers of privacy protection utilities will have something to include in the feature list.
For compatibility with instant messengers, you can create a cloud service that forms a short link to the transmitted object. If the user does not have a browser that can work with the object's meta-information, the service displays a screenshot and a link to the user.
Probably enough. If you develop or meet something like this, be sure to send the link to the PM.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/341432/
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