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PAGETAILOR

For your desktop
For your mobile
Support
Developers
To Do
Disclaimer

PageTailor is an extension for Mozilla Firefox and Minimo web browsers that lets you easily personalize web pages so they look just the way you like. By simply clicking on images and text on a web page, you can remove unwanted content, increase text and image sizes, and reposition items on the page -- for example you can move your favourite photo to the top of the page.

Once you customize a web page, PageTailor remembers your customizations so in future visits to the page you will be shown the personalized version of the page. If the page is updated the new content will appear the way you like. In addition, when you visit a page that is similar to one that you customized before, PageTailor will automatically customize the new page for you, according to your preferences.

We have made two versions of PageTailor available. One for Mozilla Firefox and another for Mozilla Minimo-- the Windows Mobile version of Firefox. PageTailor is particularly helpful when accessing Web pages from mobile devices with small screens since it can reduce the need to scroll.

PageTailor was developed by Nilton Bila with the guidance of Eyal de Lara and Khai Truong.

If you have questions or sugesstions please use our discussion group.
For more details on PageTailor checkout the project page.

You will find below two versions of PageTailor, one for your mobile device (Windows Mobile only) and the other for your desktop or laptop. You can use the desktop version on any system capable of running the Mozilla Firefox browser, including Windows XP/Vista/etc, Linux, MacOS, BSDs and so on.

Try it out and post your reviews on the Mozilla's Add-ons site.

FOR YOUR DESKTOP

The desktop (or laptop/tablet PC, what have you) version of PageTailor requires Mozilla Firefox. I recommend version 3.0.

Installation and Usage Instructions

  1. Download and install Mozilla Firefox from here.
  2. Download and install PageTailor from here or from Mozilla's Add-ons site. Firefox may warn you about the installation, you should accept the installation, if you wish to use PageTailor. You can learn more about installing extensions on Firefox here
  3. Exit Firefox.
  4. Start Firefox. If the installation went well you should see a status bar at the bottom of the browser window informing you that PagTailor is running.

    You can access most functions of PageTailor from the context menu that appears when you right-click on a web page as follows:

    • Customize This Page - turns on editing mode of PageTailor, which allows you to customize the page displayed on the browser. The customization toolbar appears at the bottom of the screen.
      To customize a page select an element of the page by taping on it or select multiple elements by drawing a line over them. Then, on the customization toolbar tap on the operation you would like to perform to the element.
    • Manage Customizations - opens up the Customizations Manager. You can enable or disable a customization by tapping on the icon to the left of the customzation's URL (a disabled customization is not applied to pages you visit). You may also edit the URLs to which customizations are applied by default (you can even use simple regular expressions here, such as an asterisk [*] to match multiple characters) or remve a customization altogether.

To Configure PageTailor go to Tools->Add-ons select PageTailor and select the Options/Preferences button.
The Preferences dialog allows you to enable or disable PageTailor, choose whether PageTailor should automatically discover whether it can apply existing customizations to new pages you visit, and it allows you to hide the status bar. When disabled, PageTailor will not apply any of your customizations to pages you visit.

FOR YOUR MOBILE

The mobile version of PageTailor requires the Gecko-based Minimo Web browser. Minimo runs on many Windows Mobile devices such as PDAs and some smart phones. For a list of supported devices go here and here.

Installation and Usage Instructions

  1. Download Minimo version 0.016 from here and install it on your device (I recommend downloading the CAB version directly to your device and installing it from there.) BE SURE TO DOWNLOAD VERSION 0.016 as PageTailor does NOT support Minimo version 0.2 at present.
    Make sure Minimo has installed properly (try running it and browsing a couple of pages).
  2. If Minimo is running exit the program by using the Quit option on the navigation menu to the left of the address bar.
  3. Download the files pagetailor.mm.jar and pagetailor.manifest, and copy them to the following folder on your mobile device: \Program Files\Minimo\chrome. This folder should already exist on the device.
  4. Start Minimo. If the installation went well, a status bar at the bottom of the window should inform you that PageTailor is running. You should be able to access its functionality from the navigation menu to the left of the address bar.
    For usage instructions see step 4 from the instructions for Desktop computer above.

SUPPORT

If you encounter issues with PageTailor please post them to our Google group. You can also e-mail the group at: pagetailor-at-googlegroups-com. Avoid sending an email directly to me if you want help, as I may not be able to respond for days, or at all, depending on my availability. By mailing the group your questions are exposed to many more eyes and hopefully, a pair of them will be able to help you quickly.

Additional resources for troubleshooting the Minimo Web browser and Mozilla extensions in general can be found at the Minimo forums and Mozilla extensions forums (e.g. here).

If you would have ideas for new features or find a bug you may want to go the route described next.

DEVELOPERS

You can contribute to development of PageTailor. The installation files provided are Zip archives which include the source code of PageTailor. For Minimo, rename the file pagetailor.mm.jar provided above into pagetailor.mm.zip and you will be able to access the program source.

For the desktop version, rename the file pagetailor.xpi provided above into pagetailor.zip. Extract all files, and the program source is found in chrome/pagetailor.jar (also a Zip archive).

To get started on Mozilla extension development go here.

If you implement a useful feature or fix an issue with PageTailor, I would appreciate if you send me your changes so I can incorporate them to the original PageTailor.

Make use of our Google group to discuss ideas or issues relating to development of PageTailor.

TO DO

  • Selectively download only wanted content. At the moment all page content is downloaded and unwanted content hidden.
  • A mechanism to select flash animations for removal reliably.

DISCLAIMER

This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. The author is NOT LIABLE for any damage or loss arising out of use of this software even if the author has been advised of the possibility of such damages.