Collapse and Expand HTML Elements

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domCollapse is a Javascript that enables you to have collapsible elements in an HTML document. The collapsing and expanding of the elements is done using the DOM. The script is very simple to use, and degrades nicely in browsers that do not support the DOM. A demo is available online. Some non-technical people reading this have made use of domCollapse without even realizing it.

In terms of user interface considerations, it helps to keep a single webpage from getting too unwieldy and unreadable especially if it extends for 50 or hundred paragraphs. The idea is that rather than showing the entire article or document by default, it can be collapsed to show only the major headings of the document and this in my opinion actually makes  the overall purpose of the document clear to the reader.

Firefox Screen Reader Emulator

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Fangs is a Firefox extension that emulates a screen reader. It creates a textual representation of a web page similar to how the page would be read by one of the modern screen readers. I don’t know about you but I don’t particularly enjoy reading long articles on a computer screen that was never made for the job in the first place.

We really do need ways to consume long-form articles of more than 1000 words or so. Rest assured that there will be many attempts over the coming years to produced software and most likely hardware as well that will bring the basic human experience of reading for hours rather than minutes into the 21st century. A this is an interesting Firefox extension that begins to move us down the right road.