XPost: comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html

When HTML was new, I thought that I should prefer it over
PS/PDF for my own internal usage, because HTML was »open« and
text-file based, while PS/PDF was »closed« or at least it felt
this way because it was binary-file based and came from a
single company.

But today I observe that I convert more and more larger
documents into PDF for my own convenience!

Why?

A minor reason was that I observed that one browser was
very slow when it had to display large HTML pages.

But the major point is, when I read large documents,
I want to take a note of some bookmark within the document
to continue to read there after an interruption.

When a document is split into pages, this is easy. I just
write down the /page number/. (I do not want to rely on
in-program bookmarking tools, because I might continue to
read the same file with a different reader later.)

But when I have a large HTML file, it is impossible for
me to find any reference that I could write down as an
indication of where exactly in this large document I left
off so that I then can continue to read it at the same
position later (possibly even with another browser).

Actually this is not a deficiency of HTML, but of browsers.
A browser simply could display that the first character
fully displayed on the screen is at »position 23.3111841427 %«
of the document (the percent indication should refer to the
HTML source code so as to be independent of display settings
and CSS). But browsers usually do /not/ do this.

Actually HTML makes /more/ sense when one is reading on a
screen, because an artificial pagination has no use on a
screen, where on is scrolling the document. But a position
indicator would still help.

So it seems that browser manufacturers do not think of
people who want to use an HTML browser to read a large
file in more than one sessions and thus need a way to
later find where they left off in the previous session!

Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html,comp.infosystems.www.browsers.misc

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XPost: comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html

In article <HTML-20160512103507@ram.dialup.fu-berlin.de>,
ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) wrote:
...

So it seems that browser manufacturers do not think of
people who want to use an HTML browser to read a large
file in more than one sessions and thus need a way to
later find where they left off in the previous session!

I am reminded of the convenience of a Kindle, where one is always
returned after an interruption reading a book to where one left off.
Even when changing a device on which you are reading (like an iPad
with a Kindle app), if you are on wifi, you will be invited to go to
where you last read. All this is coordinated at remote servers.

Browsers are usually not used in the way you use them. They might
acquire the capabilities if it was more needed. Certainly an *author*, independently of a browser manufacturer, could put in facilities to
make this easier for a reader, in all sorts of ways.

In the meantime how about a simple copy of a phrase or sentence you
are up to, next time you return to the *very long* document, you
search for the phrase or sentence. This is where you, not the browser
or the author, are in control.

--
dorayme

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XPost: comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html

On 5/12/2016 3:02 AM, Stefan Ram wrote:

When HTML was new, I thought that I should prefer it over
PS/PDF for my own internal usage, because HTML was »open« and
text-file based, while PS/PDF was »closed« or at least it felt
this way because it was binary-file based and came from a
single company.

But today I observe that I convert more and more larger
documents into PDF for my own convenience!

Why?

A minor reason was that I observed that one browser was
very slow when it had to display large HTML pages.

But the major point is, when I read large documents,
I want to take a note of some bookmark within the document
to continue to read there after an interruption.

When a document is split into pages, this is easy. I just
write down the /page number/. (I do not want to rely on
in-program bookmarking tools, because I might continue to
read the same file with a different reader later.)

But when I have a large HTML file, it is impossible for
me to find any reference that I could write down as an
indication of where exactly in this large document I left
off so that I then can continue to read it at the same
position later (possibly even with another browser).

Actually this is not a deficiency of HTML, but of browsers.
A browser simply could display that the first character
fully displayed on the screen is at »position 23.3111841427 %«
of the document (the percent indication should refer to the
HTML source code so as to be independent of display settings
and CSS). But browsers usually do /not/ do this.

Actually HTML makes /more/ sense when one is reading on a
screen, because an artificial pagination has no use on a
screen, where on is scrolling the document. But a position
indicator would still help.

So it seems that browser manufacturers do not think of
people who want to use an HTML browser to read a large
file in more than one sessions and thus need a way to
later find where they left off in the previous session!

Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html,comp.infosystems.www.browsers.misc

I often read very large Web pages. If I need to interrupt, I open a new plain-text file (.txt on Windows). I copy the URI from my browser and
paste it into the file. Then I copy part of a line of text and paste
that into the file. I save the file, using the title of the Web page as
the file name. Then I can terminate my browser and shut down my PC.
The next day, I can return directly to where I left off.

--
David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>.

Donald Trump claims everyone likes him. Does that
include his ex-wives? How about the students who
discovered that their education at Trump University
was worthless?

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