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Tip: this Help file is one page. Print it out for easy reading and reference. Select from the menu to see how it will look and how many pages will print.
There are 2 help files, Quick Help and Help & Tutorial, which is this file. Quick Help has the most essential features to allow a new user to use WebSpeedReader effectively as quickly as possible. This file is the complete help. Because both are single files, you can print either or both of them. When you load this file in WebSpeedReader, all of the headings will be displayed in the sidebar. Click any heading in the sidebar to go to that heading immediately. (The Headings sidebar is a feature of WebSpeedReader that allows you to display the headings of ANY document, not just the help files!) You can also use the table of content links directly above this section.
Tip: The table of contents can be accessed anywhere within this document by pressing the Home key. If you are reading this in WebSpeedReader, then you can click the § tab to display the table of contents in the sidebar.
So that you can read these files as quickly and as easily as possible, a convention is used to show the command options to access any particular feature. Here is an example: ( | F | F6).
The text in is the menu option. To view Favorites, for instance, select from the top menu, then select from the submenu. F is the toolbar button that corresponds to that function, and F6 is the key that you can press to access the same command. The vertical bars between the options means "or". Thus, to view Favorites, you can select from the menu or click the F toolbar button or press the F6 key.
The numeric keypad is also used for numerous functions, which is designated by the abbreviation Numpad. Thus, to page down: Numpad 0, that is, press the 0 key on the numeric keypad to page down; to move to the next document: Numpad ., press the decimal key on the numeric keypad to go to the next window, and so on. If you are in a textbox or textarea then the numeric keypad will insert the usual characters associated with each key.
Tip: You can page down by pressing Numpad 0 with your index finger and move to the next document by pressing Numpad . with your middle finger; a very convenient combination. Try it!
Note: Any keyboard shortcut that involves single keys requires that the document have focus, and that WebSpeedReader receives the keystrokes. Sometimes, as with PDF files or Flash animations, the plug-in receives the keystrokes. In these cases, use the equivalent toolbar button, the function keys, or the menu.
The New Feature Help displays the help for each new feature in inverse chronological order, with the newest features at the top of the file. It is designed for users of WebSpeedReader who have updated from a previous version. Just read the New Feature Help until you reach features that you are already familiar with; thus eliminating the need to scan through this Help file looking for information about the new features.
WebSpeedReader requires Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 5.5 or above, and Windows 98 or above, and scripting must be enabled.
Although WebSpeedReader uses the full power of Internet Explorer 5.5 or above, it doesn't make any changes to IE.
WebSpeedReader maintains separate options and files for each user, thus each member of a household can use WebSpeedReader without interfering with anyone else.
Because WebSpeedReader uses Internet Explorer as its rendering engine, the options set in Internet Explorer (in IE or WebSpeedReader, select from the top menu) apply to WebSpeedReader. This includes security and cookie settings.
The shortcut menu, which is brought up by right-clicking on a web page in Internet Explorer is the same, but in WebSpeedReader, you must Ctrl + right-click to get the context menu. In WebSpeedReader, right-clicking a document is a mouse command that displays the next document.
WebSpeedReader creates a number of files that the user creates by using it, such as the Favorites or History database, and data to fill forms, for instance. Most of this data is saved in the Application Data\WebSpeedReader folder. For instance, in Windows XP, the full path might be "C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\WebSpeedReader\". If, like most people, you are backing up to a CD, then you are probably not backing up the whole disk, but backing up the My Documents folder, where most of the user-created files are stored, and where WebSpeedReader stores files saved by using its Quick Save feature, in the "My Documents\wsr" folder. Because most applications save data in the Application Data folder, both in the user's particular folder and in the All Users\Application Data folder (typical location: "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data"), it is a good idea to back up these 2 folders, as well.
If you find any bugs, please report them by selecting from the menu. Also, bug fixes and upgrades are always posted in the What's New page, which can be accessed by selecting . From this page, you can upgrade WebSpeedReader by downloading the upgrade file, which is much smaller than the original download. The upgrade can be downloaded and installed in literally less than 2 minutes. If you encounter a bug, always check here first for any bug fixes, even if you have just downloaded WebSpeedReader.
The following is a known list of potential problems that can occur when using WebSpeedReader.
Sometimes the current window can be unresponsive to keystrokes, even though it seems to have the focus. Background operations can sometimes take that focus away, especially when downloading numerous documents simultaneously. Either click on the document to regain focus, or if that doesn't work, then minimize, then maximize the application. If a document has frames, then you will need to click on the frame to select it, so that it can be scrolled. This is true even for other browsers, because each frame scrolls independently.
If you click on a submit button to submit a form, and it does nothing, then you must change a security setting. Select , click on the Security tab, then click on the Custom Level command button near the bottom of the form. Scroll down to nearly the bottom of the Security Settings form, and select Enable for the Submit nonencrypted form data. Don't select Prompt because, although WebSpeedReader uses Internet Explorer for the rendering engine, it doesn't automate Internet Explorer, and thus, can't prompt you for the submission. Besides, you probably wouldn't want to be prompted for every form submission, since the vast majority of form submissions are nonencrypted. Only those websites using the https protocol are encrypted. However, there is very little risk in submitting nonencrypted form data. Statistically, it is highly unlikely that anyone will capture your data. If the information is vital, then the website should use the https protocol which is secure. You can easily tell if the website is using the protocol just by looking at its URL in the address bar. It will look something like this: https://www.example.com/. Note the "s" after the "http". This is the secure protocol. Most forms aren't encrypted because the information usually is not vital. A good example is doing a search on Google.com. Even if someone tried to go through the hassle of capturing your form submission, they would only know what term was being searched for. They wouldn't know who you are, or any other personal information; just what is submitted in the form. To maintain absolute security, don't submit any personal information to any website that isn't using the https protocol. Submitting nonencrypted form data is the same whether you are using WebSpeedReader or Internet Explorer, or any other browser, for that matter, because this is dictated by Internet standards.
Internet Explorer can take considerable time responding to keystrokes when a very large document (400K or more) is loaded, and this affects WebSpeedReader also.
Please read the section right below this one about the Adobe Acrobat Reader displaying dialog boxes when first loaded, which can cause WebSpeedReader to hang if they appear on a hidden window, which is usually the case.
WebSpeedReader, like Internet Explorer, has the ability to load PDF (Portable Document Format) files in a browser window just like HTML files. The files, however, are actually displayed by a plug-in, which runs the Adobe Acrobat Reader in the browser window. However, you can have all PDF files loaded directly into the Acrobat Reader program by unchecking Edit - Preferences - Internet - Display PDF in Browser in the Adobe Acrobat Reader, Version 6. In Version 5, uncheck the same box in Edit - Preferences - Options. After the first PDF file is downloaded, this will load Acrobat Reader, and give it focus. You can switch back to WebSpeedReader, and continuing reading. If you click on more PDF documents, then each will be loaded in the same instance of the Reader program, but keeping all of the documents in memory.
The advantages to loading PDF files in the Reader directly, rather than in the browser window, is that you have more options available for PDF files, and WebSpeedReader will not hang if the Acrobat Reader displays a dialog box in a hidden browser window. The disadvantages are you have to wait until the PDF document downloads completely before clicking another link, and when it does, the Acrobat Reader will grab the focus. This is true for each and every PDF link that you click. If you click on another link before the PDF file is downloaded completely, the download will be canceled. You will know it has been downloaded completely when the Acrobat Reader grabs the focus.
Viewing PDF documents in WebSpeedReader - If you want to view PDF documents in WebSpeedReader, then you should check the Display PDF in Browser and uncheck the following boxes, all under menu in the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Under the Startup section, uncheck Display Splash Screen and Show Messages and automatically update. Under Updates section, select Check for Updates Manually, and uncheck Show Auto-Update confirmation dialog and Display notification dialog at startup. If you don't do this, Acrobat Reader may display dialog messages when it is first loaded, and cause WebSpeedReader to hang if it is from a hidden window, which it will be in most cases. The main advantage to viewing PDF files in WebSpeedReader is that you can click on any number of links, whether PDF or not, and each will download in the background for instant viewing later on.
Tip: Also under in Adobe Acrobat, check for easier reading.
Note: most keyboard shortcuts will not work when a PDF document is the current document, because the Adobe Acrobat Reader receives the keystrokes. You will have to use the function keys or click on the toolbar buttons.
If you have a modem connection, WebSpeedReader can connect to the Internet automatically when needed. Every time WebSpeedReader is started, it will automatically load any home pages, unless you press the Shift key while WebSpeedReader is loading, in which case, it will load the Start page. (This is analogous to pressing the Shift key to prevent a CD from running automatically.) The Start page consists of numerous options, such as downloading scheduled links or the last session, check Favorites links, view history, and view or organize Favorites. The options on the Start page can also be selected from the menu or toolbar, but this makes it more convenient.
You can also have WebSpeedReader load scheduled pages or unread pages from the previous session at startup by checking the appropriate boxes in WebSpeedReader Options.
It is important that you read at least this section to understand how WebSpeedReader works, since it works a bit differently than most other browsers.
WebSpeedReader downloads most pages in the background. WebSpeedReader automatically downloads all pages in the background so that you can keep reading the current page. Then when you go to the next page, in most cases, it will display instantly, images and all.
To conserve memory, WebSpeedReader limits the number of windows to a maximum. The default is 50, but you can specify a different number that must be => 4, by selecting | Alt+T,W from the menu. Open the WebSpeedReader Options dialog box now to see what it looks like.
If you click on more links or schedule more pages than the maximum number of windows, WebSpeedReader will queue the links for later downloading, thereby removing any limitation on the number of links you can click, or the number of pages that you can schedule. As you read each document, and move to the next, the next queued link will be downloaded in the window that you just read unless you selected Keep in Memory for that window. This conserves memory.
Although clicked links generally download in the background, there are 3 exceptions to this.
Clicked links in framed pages will cause navigation to occur in the targeted frame, which is usually the same frame as the clicked link, but sometimes can be another frame, or to a new window. A frame is a web page consisting of several documents. If a page has frames, WebSpeedReader will show this in the 3rd panel of the status bar. If you want the links in a frame to download in background windows, then shift + click them (hold the Shift key down while you click the link). This will open the link unframed in its own window, thereby enabling you to save it as a Favorite or to schedule it, since framed pages don't display their own URL. If you want to scroll in a particular frame and if it doesn't already have the focus, then click the frame first to select it.
Secure transactions, which use the https protocol, will download in the same window if the current document is also using the secure protocol. This is necessary to prevent errors. WebSpeedReader will automatically download secure requests to the same browser window that submitted the requests, unless the target window specified by the link is to a new window. Bank transactions, for instance, frequently open new windows. If you don't want to wait for the downloads, you can continue reading other documents, if you have any, and come back to the results later. Cycling through the windows will eventually return you to the results page. Or you can select the window by clicking on its link in the sidebar. When it is fully downloaded, it will turn blue.
Any form submission that is submitted by a POST transaction. These are submissions where the form data is uploaded as part of the body rather than as part of the URL, which is known as a GET submission. Submitting a search term to Google, for instance, is a GET operation, where you can see your search embedded in the URL. POST transactions that don't download in the submitting window sometimes results in errors, which is why it is done this way. However, you can download a POST transaction in a background window by pressing the Shift key while submitting the form.
The results of submitted forms, where the form variables are appended to the URL as they are in most search engine searches, are also downloaded in a background window for each submitted request, unless you select | S | F2.
To go back to a previous document in the current session that is no longer loaded, select or click the ▼ tab next to the address box. While you can click the Back toolbar button to go back through the history list of any given window, this will only take you through the history of the current window. Generally, you will not know which document appeared in which window, so the back button will not be useful in most cases. By loading the WebSpeedReader Report, you can look at the history of all windows, and see all currently loaded documents, and all queued documents. To return to a document no longer in memory, just click the link, and it will be reloaded in a background window. If you click on a link that is already loaded, you will be taken to that window immediately. If you anticipate that you will be returning to a page, you can keep that page in memory by selecting | K | F3 | numpad: 4. This will keep the current document in memory, then display the next document. Any page can also be displayed by clicking on its title in the submenu, which maintains a list of all loaded documents.
As you cycle through the windows to read each document, WebSpeedReader will load the next URL in the queue to replace the one you have just read. By loading URLs this way, you can click as many links as you like, or schedule any number of pages without worrying about running out of memory or bandwidth.
Open In Same Window ( | S | F2 ) will cause all form submissions and clicked links to download in the same window, unless the target frame of the link is a new window or the link is Shift + clicked, in which case it will download in a background window. Open In Same Window is a toggle that is either in the on or off state. It is turned off when you move to another browser window.
Holding the Ctrl key down as you click a link, or right-clicking it, will also cause that link to download in the same window.
When you want to keep a page in memory, to prevent it from being replaced by other downloaded pages after it was read, toggle on Keep in Memory ( | K | F3 | keypad: 4). This is a good way to quickly go back to any document, or to have several documents loaded that you can quickly cycle through, for research, for instance. Note that when Keep in Memory is toggled, it will also display the next document, so don't toggle this property unless you are done with the document for the time being.
Now that you have learned how WebSpeedReader generally works, which is called WebSpeedReader mode, which is the most efficient mode for reading and searching, there are 2 other modes that are more expedient for different tasks.
The mode is changed by clicking a tab in the top toolbar. Each click of the tab moves to the next mode, and the modes are arranged circularly thus: WebSpeedReader mode → Research mode → Tabbed Browser mode → WebSpeedReader mode. The mode is indicated by the letter in the tab: W R T. The mode can also be changed by pressing Numpad 9.
In WebSpeedReader mode, you rarely have to close windows, because the windows are re-used as the documents in the windows are read. Research mode and Tabbed Browser mode will generally require more closings of windows, and so 2 shortcuts make it easier.
Mnemonic: Remember that in WebSpeedReader mode and Research mode, clicking a link downloads that link in the background, and right-clicking a link downloads the link in the same window. The opposite is true for Tabbed Browser mode—clicking a link downloads the link in the same window; right-clicking it downloads the link in the background. This may seem confusing at first, but you will see—if you take the time to learn it and become accustomed to it—that the different modes are most expedient for different situations. Open in Same Window and Keep in Memory work the same in WebSpeedReader mode and Research mode, but these 2 features are unnecessary in Tabbed Browser mode.
The mouse is used differently in WebSpeedReader than in Internet Explorer. The functions have been changed to associate the most commonly used functions with the simplest mouse commands. This may be confusing at first, but you will see that this makes browsing a much better experience. Thus, right-clicking the mouse in WebSpeedReader displays the next window rather than showing the context menu. Scrolling with the mouse wheel pages up and down rather than moving 3 lines up or down at a time, which is the Window's default. To scroll using Window's default, press the right mouse button while you turn the wheel. To get Internet Explorer's default action, just press the Ctrl key as you right-click. Pressing Ctrl while turning the mouse wheel changes the sizes of both fonts and images; turning the wheel toward you increases sizes; turning it away from you decreases sizes. There are a few more functions that you can do with the mouse in WebSpeedReader, which will be covered later. When you right-click selected text, you will get WebSpeedReader's context menu.
Pressing the Ctrl key while right-clicking, shows IE's context menu. More will be said about how to use the mouse in WebSpeedReader, but here is a quick summary of the functions in IE's context menus:
Back - move back in the window's history for documents that you visited earlier in the same session in the same window.
Forward - move forward in history. Because of the way WebSpeedReader works, the Back and Forward functions will not be as useful as they are in other browsers, because WebSpeedReader minimizes the need to go back and forward in history. More on this later.
Save Background As... - If a document has a background image, you can save this image to disk by selecting this option. However, this option will disabled if the document does not have a background image.
Set as Background - Sets the background image of the current document as the background image of your desktop. The background image becomes the current wallpaper for your desktop. To change it, or remove it, right-click on your desktop, select Properties, select Desktop, then choose the wallpaper you want, or None, if you just want to remove it. Note that the wallpaper you choose with Set as Background will be listed as Internet Explorer Wallpaper in the wallpaper list. Thus, you can select this wallpaper at any time.
Copy Background - Presumably this copies the background, but you can't paste it in anything, not even an editable document, so it's not very useful.
Set as Desktop Item - This copies the image used for the document background to your desktop. The difference between this option and the Set as Background option is that this option shows the image as its actual size, is not listed as wallpaper, and is removed or moved by hovering the mouse over the top of the image until the title bar is displayed. You move the image by dragging the title bar. You can close the image by clicking the X in the upper right-hand corner, just like a form. Because the image doesn't cover the whole background—unless it is really large or you have a low-resolution monitor—you can have various images displayed on your desktop as a collage.
Select All - This selects everything on the web page for copying.
Paste - This option will usually be grayed, because most web pages aren't editable, and thus, nothing can be pasted on them.
Create Shortcut - Creates a shortcut to the current document on your desktop. Just click the shortcut to go there again.
Add to Favorites - This adds the current document to Internet Explorer's Favorites. Note that WebSpeedReader, though it imports IE's Favorites, uses a database to store Favorites, which makes it much more usable (more on this later). Select | A | Shift+F6 to add to WebSpeedReader's Favorites.
View Source - WebSpeedReader has its own View Source feature that is color-coded and shows the source of all frames in 1 document. However, if you want a plain text view, or you want to copy code to paste into something else, then select this option. If the document has frames, then this option will show the source code for the right-clicked frame.
Encoding... - This option allows you to change the character set used to display the document.
Print... - Prints the current document.
Refresh - Refreshes the current document by downloading the document again.
Properties - This shows such properties as title, URL, the created and modified date.
A link may be a hyperlink text or an image.
Open Link or Open Link in New Window - These options aren't very useful in WebSpeedReader. All links that are normally clicked download in the background anyway, so just clicking the link is much faster.
Save Target As... - Presents the File Save dialog box to save the target of a link. In most cases, you will probably want to see what the target of the link is before you save it. There are various ways to save the current document under the menu.
Print Target As... - Prints the target file. Again, in most cases, you'll probably want to see the document first before printing it. The menu has options for Page Setup, Print Preview, and Printing the current document.
Show Picture - In this case, you would be Ctrl + right-clicking the icon for the picture rather than the picture itself. This option shows the picture if the Display Images option in Internet Options has been turned off.
Save Picture As... - Displays a Windows dialog box that allows you to save the image to a file.
Email Picture - Opens your email client with a new message, adding the picture as an attachment.
Print Picture - Guess what this does!
Go To My Pictures - This opens Windows Explorer to display the My Pictures directory.
Set as Background, Set as Desktop Item - This is the same feature mentioned earlier, but uses the selected picture instead of the background image. Set as Background expands the image to cover the entire desktop, whereas Set as Desktop Item shows the picture in its original dimensions.
Copy - Copies the picture to the clipboard so that it can be pasted into another editable document. The document will usually be from another application because most documents displayed in the browser are not editable.
Copy Shortcut - Copies the URL to the picture to the clipboard, so that it can be pasted elsewhere.
Add to Favorites - This adds the URL of the picture to Internet Explorer's Favorites.
Properties - This shows the picture's size and dimensions, in addition to the other properties listed above.
Copy - If you want to copy selected HTML or text, then select this option.
Print - Print the selected text.
Cut, Paste - These options aren't very useful in a browser because most pages are not editable.
Select All - Selects everything on the web page, but you probably don't want this command if you have already selected text, so it's not very useful in this context.
Tip: You can delete any local file directly in WebSpeedReader by selecting | Ctrl+D. This option will not be enabled if the document in the current browser window is not from your computer. Also note that, because only the file is deleted, the document will still be loaded in the browser window until it is replaced with another document or WebSpeedReader is closed. If you change your mind, you can always restore it from the Recycle Bin, unless you set the Windows option not to save any deleted files to the Recycle Bin.
If you are having any problems that might be due to WebSpeedReader, or you want to take advantage of 3rd-party software that only works in Internet Explorer, you can easily load any current page into Internet Explorer quickly ( | F8 | L ). This command always opens the page in a new copy of Internet Explorer.
The opens all links on the current page. This is a great way to explore someone else's world, to see what they link to, what interests them. This a great way to explore blogger's pages. Image links are links that are images rather than text. Although most image links link to larger images of themselves, they can also link to text. By selecting you get a slide show without any programming. Just keep selecting | F12 to go from one image to the next, instantly. opens all links in the current domain. opens all links outside of the current domain. Use your mouse to select any part of a web page, then you can open all links within that selection by . This is a fast way to open multi-part web pages. You can also open the home page of any site by selecting or if you are navigating using the numeric keypad, then you can accomplish the same thing by pressing 7. This is easy to remember because when the Numlock is turned off, then the 7 key becomes the Home key.
If you open the Favorites form ( | F | F6 ), you can download all links in any folder by clicking on the folder, not including subfolders. If you Ctrl + click a folder, then all links in that folder and all subfolders will be downloaded.
On the Favorites form, right-click on any folder, and select from the context menu. This folder will then be displayed in the sidebar by clicking 0 at the top of the toolbar. Keep a list of your Favorite folders here. Just click on any or all of them, and each link in that folder will download in the background. Links can removed or added simply by selecting , to open the Favorites form in Organize mode, where adding, copying, or moving links is done as it is for any folder. (For more information, simply click the Favorites section of this Help file in the sidebar to go to that section.)
With Quick Folders displayed in the sidebar, you can right-click any folder, and from the context menu, you can select to add the page currently displayed in WebSpeedReader, or select to remove the folder from the Quick Folder List. Note that this does NOT delete the folder. It just removes it from the list. You can still access the folder on the Favorites form, where you can actually delete the folder there, if you want.
Sometimes you read about web sites in print publications, or hear about sites from friends, that interest you. These URLs must be typed, either in the address bar or the Open box ( | Alt+O,O | Ctrl+O), just as in Internet Explorer. WebSpeedReader also has a Multi-Open box ( | Alt+O,M) where multiple URLs can be quickly typed in and downloaded. The box stays open after each URL is submitted until you press ENTER twice, or press Esc, or click the Cancel button on the form box. Each URL submitted starts downloading while you type in additional URLs. When you're ready to start reading them, select Next from the top menu or the toolbar, and you will see the first loaded document. You may also type the URL directly in the address box. These URLs will open in the same window.
Tip: If you are going to .com site, just type in the name. If there are no periods in the typed text, then http://www. will be prefixed and .com/ will be suffixed to complete the URL. Thus, to go to http://www.example.com/, just type example, then submit. Even if you are going to a site with a different extension, such as .net or .org, there is never any need to type http://www. prefix. Thus, to go to http://www.example.net, just type example.net. To go to http://www.thisMatter.com/WhatsNew.htm, just type thisMatter.com/whatsnew.htm. Note in the latter example that case doesn't matter, so save yourself the inconvenience of pressing the Shift key. Capitalization is often used to delimit the different parts of the URL into words for easier recognition, because spaces are not allowed in URLs, but the URL is case-insensitive. This same tip applies equally to the main address box in WebSpeedReader. You may find that typing the addresses in this box is actually faster than searching and clicking the links in your Favorites. Example: type cnn + Enter, pcmag + Enter, pcworld + Enter, usatoday + Enter, and the following sites will be downloaded in the background. http://www.cnn.com/, http://www.pcmag.com/, http://www.pcworld.com/, and http://www.usatoday.com/. Press Enter again to close the form. You can try this right now if you like.
If you want to go to a page in the current window that is one of your Favorites, you can type any part of the URL in the address box, and the autocomplete window will show you any matches. Select any of the matches to load the URL in the current window. If there are no matches, just continue typing, and the window will disappear after there are no matches. You can also continue typing to reduce the number of matches for quicker access. To select a match, you can press Tab or ↓ to select the 1st entry. If there is only 1 entry, then WebSpeedReader will navigate to that URL right away. If there are more entries, you can continue to press either key to go down 1 line at a time. You can also press Page Up or Home to go to the 1st entry, or Page Down or End to go to the last entry. Press ↑ to move up 1 line at a time. Once the desired entry is highlighted, just press Enter, ←, or → to navigate to that page. You can also click the desired URL.
The autocomplete window will display a maximum of 25 entries to make it easier to choose. If there are more than 25 matches, then the autocomplete window will not be displayed.
Tip: Type that part of the URL that will yield the fewest matches for quicker choosing. If there is only 1 match, just press Tab to go to that page.
Contrast: You can also filter Favorites in the sidebar by typing in the Filter box above the sidebar with the F tab selected. The advantages to doing it this way, is that all matches will be displayed, clicking the links will download the URLs in the background, and you can click as many links as you like. The Favorites list will stay open until you replace it with something else. Also the typed characters are matched not only against the URL, but also against the title, document keywords, and document description. Because this takes increased processing power, the list will only be displayed after you press Enter.
There are many ways to open links in WebSpeedReader, most of which are under the menu. opens all pages that are scheduled for today. opens all pages that were scheduled within 6 days of the last scheduled download. If the last scheduled download was more than 6 days, then this option still limits the scheduled downloads to the last 6 days; otherwise, there may be too many pages to catch up on. If today is Thursday, and your last scheduled download was Monday, then this option will download all pages that were scheduled for Thursday, Wednesday, and Tuesday--in that order--and any monthly schedules that were valid on those dates. However, pages that are scheduled daily or weekday are only downloaded once, since these pages presumably change every day or every weekday, and thus, need only be downloaded once for each. The weekday schedule will also be downloaded if the current day is Saturday or Sunday, and the last scheduled download was on Thursday, or before.
. Sometimes, you download more pages than you have time to read. If you don't finish all of the pages in 1 session, you can simply close WebSpeedReader, and WebSpeedReader will save all of the unread links that were either scheduled or clicked on. If you want to read these pages, simply select either of the 2 menu options, and the pages that you didn't read will be downloaded again. The difference between the 2 options is that finishes the last session and also downloads all scheduled pages since your last scheduled download. These options will remain available until you choose either one of these options. However, once one of these options is chosen, neither will be enabled again until you close WebSpeedReader with pages that you didn't finish reading. Note, however, that if you close WebSpeedReader with unread pages, and you had a previous session with unread pages, then the new batch of unread pages will replace the last batch.
Sometimes you don't have time to finish a long article. By selecting , WebSpeedReader will reload the page the next time you start WebSpeedReader, and will scroll to your last position, so that you can continue reading where you left off. However, the pages will not reload if you press the Shift key while starting WebSpeedReader, in which case, only the Start page loads. However, the pages will reload when you start WebSpeedReader normally. Once they are reloaded, the pages will not reload again unless you mark them again.
You can scroll with the usual keys: Page Up, Page Down, the arrow keys, Home to go to the beginning of the document, End to go to the end of the document. You can also scroll down using the Space Bar. If the document has focus, and you are not entering something in a form element, then you can also page up by pressing C or M, go to the top of the document by pressing V or N, and go to the bottom of the document by pressing B.
Mnemonic: The arrangement of keys for scrolling and moving to the next or previous documents are close to each other so that you can easily scroll or move to another document with either the right or the left hand. This is particularly useful on notebook computers that don't have a numeric keypad. This also helps if you use the one hand for document navigation and the other to move the mouse. Think B for bottom, and the go-to-top-of-the-document keys are on either side of the B key. Page up is beside each of the Home equivalent keys.
Rotating mouse wheel over the document scrolls the page up or down 1 page for each notch (requires Internet Explorer 6).
Holding the right mouse button down while turning mouse wheel scrolls the page the default number of lines, which is usually Window's default value, 3, although this can be changed in the control panel for the mouse.
While holding the right mouse button down, click the document to go to the top of the document or double click it to go to the end of the document.
Alt + mouse wheel scrolls the page a few lines at a time up or down.
Mouse wheel Panning - Quickly scroll a document in any direction, even horizontally or diagonally, by pressing the mouse wheel, and moving the mouse in the desired direction. When you want to stop scrolling, simply release the mouse wheel. Tip: You can also pan the sidebar.
Auto-scroll - Click mouse wheel on blank area of document to turn on auto-scroll, which scrolls the document continuously until it reaches the top or bottom. Auto-scroll has 2 marks, a center mark and a scrolling mark. Dragging the scrolling mark up, scrolls up; dragging it down, scrolls down. The farther the scrolling mark is moved from the center mark, the faster it scrolls. Clicking any mouse button stops it.
Tip: With the mouse only, you can scroll up or down 1 page at a time, a few lines at a time, go to the top of the document, or go to the end of the document. You can move to the next document by right-clicking the mouse, if the document doesn't have selected text, and the focus isn't a textbox.
Note: In a document that consists of multiple frames, the focus moves with the mouse pointer; thus, if you hover the mouse over a frame that cannot be scrolled, you won't be able to scroll in the main frame until you move the mouse pointer over the document that you want to scroll, or click the frame.
On the numeric keypad (the 1st column shows the numeric keys as they appear on most keyboards, a close simulation, anyway):
| 0 Ins | Page down. |
| Ÿ Del | Go to the next document. |
| 1 End | Page up. |
| 2 ¤ | Go to top of document. |
| 3 PgDn | Go to bottom of document. |
| 4 | Go to next document, but keep current one in memory. (Keep in Memory) |
| 6 ’ | Hide the Links Bar and show only open windows in the sidebar. |
| 7 Home | Go to the home page of the current URL. |
Note: It may appear incongruous to designate a key such as the 1 key which is usually the End key when NumLock is off as the Page Up key, but it is done this way for the greatest convenience. Because most of the time you will be paging down and going to the next document, it is most comfortable to have those 2 keys at the bottom of the keypad, the 0 and the decimal key next to it to page down and go to the next document respectively. Try it!
Occasional Problem: Sometimes, because of background operations, the current browser window loses focus, and using the keypad keys doesn't work. Just click in the document to give it focus again.
| t | Z | < , | Shift + F12 | ||
| u | X | > . | F12 | Ÿ Del | |
You can move from window to window in various ways, all shown on the right. Selecting Keep in Memory, which will preserve the current document in memory, will also display the next document. Although you can, DO NOT CLOSE WINDOWS to move to the next document, unless a document is giving you a problem, because WebSpeedReader reuses the windows to conserve memory. After you finish reading a page and move to the next document, WebSpeedReader downloads a new document in the window that you have just left. As you continue selecting , you will eventually come back to the same window, but it may have a new document. There are 2 important points to remember: (1) WebSpeedReader takes you to fully downloaded documents first, which may not be in the order that you clicked them, since some documents download faster than others. However, priority is given to clicked links over scheduled pages, or multiple download options such as . If all windows are already loaded with unread pages, then clicked links will be at the top of the queue. They will be loaded next as each window becomes available, in the order that you clicked them. If you Shift + click a link, then those links will be displayed before any others, regardless of download status. (2) You don't have to wait until pages are downloaded to go to the next document. If no document is finished downloading, then WebSpeedReader will simply present the next document.
Mnemonic: Next Window is a frequent command, so there are several keys that select it. The X and > have been selected because they are close to the space bar. Thus, you can easily page down with the space bar and select next by pressing the X or the., depending on whether you want to use your left or right hand. This feature is particularly useful if you are using a notebook computer without a numeric keypad. Naturally, the keys to go to the previous window are to the left of the Next Window keys. If you have a numeric keypad, you will probably find it most convenient to use the 0 to page down and the. to move to the next document.
If you have a lot of documents downloading in the background, the space bar sometimes doesn't page down—click the document to regain focus, or just press the Space Bar again.
The headings tab is a toggle and is symbolized by the special mark for sections: §. Headings divide up a document into sections, so this makes sense and is easily remembered. If you do forget, just hover the mouse over it momentarily to read the tool tip. By clicking on this tab, all of the headings in the current document will be displayed. You can click on any heading, and the current document will scroll to that place in the document. New headings will show if other documents are loaded or by moving to different windows, until you click § again, to turn it off. You can see a demonstration of this simply by pressing F1 for Help. You will see the headings in the sidebar automatically. This is a great way to navigate a long document, or to get an overview of a document.
Note: The headings that are displayed are enclosed with the H1-H6 HTML tags. This is usually the way headings are formed in web pages; however, it is easy to make a short paragraph look like a heading by formatting it as larger, centered text, but this is isn't a real heading in HTML, and thus, won't be displayed in the sidebar. Also, the sidebar will not display any documents that have frames. Most framed documents are short, and those that are long, generally have their own sidebar for navigating the document, which is a common use for frames. This feature is best for long documents that have headings.
As you click on more links and download more documents, WebSpeedReader opens more windows. Eventually, as you read the documents, the windows containing read documents will be reused to download other documents. This is how WebSpeedReader conserves memory. However, any window where you have toggled will not be re-used.
The following items can be selected from the menu under submenu or from the context menu by right-clicking on any window in the sidebar.
Windows can also be managed from the sidebar by combining key presses and mouse clicks:
Window history is the list of URLs that have been downloaded in a particular window. Browser history is the list of all URLs downloaded in WebSpeedReader.
Although each window in WebSpeedReader has its own history, and can be navigated the same way as it is done in Internet Explorer, by pressing the Back or Forward toolbar buttons (located leftmost on the top toolbar), this feature is not as useful in WebSpeedReader because you will rarely know which window held which documents. However, you can use the drop-down list of the address bar to display all history entries for the current session. The WebSpeedReader Report is even more useful in giving a complete overview of all of the documents.
The WebSpeedReader Report ( | F4) is a document that consists of 5 sections.
The history database stores the date, title, and URL of every visited site, and if the document has them, the description and keywords, if the Maintain History of Visited Websites is checked in the WebSpeedReader Options dialog box ( ). A subset of the history can be displayed in the sidebar by entering some characters in the history filter textbox in the sidebar, and clicking the H tab; if the H tab is already selected, then press Enter. The links will be displayed in the sidebar below. You can view history in the current window by selecting . A history menu will appear in the sidebar. When the history is displayed in the current window, you can filter this list with the history filter box in the sidebar.
Example: type "nytimes" in the filter box, then press Enter to display every history link that has nytimes in the title, URL, document keywords or description.
The history menu in the sidebar includes:
The history menu and the sidebar links will be replaced by the Window links when you move to the next window.
The sidebar displays all of the open windows. There are numerous tabs at the top of the sidebar. The default tab is the Links. This tab has the same entries as the links bar that sits at the top of Internet Explorer. This lists all of the links in the Links subfolder of the Favorites directory. However, with WebSpeedReader's new bookmark manager (see details below), you can now set any Favorites for display in the Links tab by simply checking Quick Links in the Add to Favorites ( | A | Shift+F6) dialog box. For links that you already have saved as Favorites, simply select Organize Favorites (), select the links that you want to edit, then select Edit. A new dialog box will be loaded with all of the links that you selected, allowing you to edit each entry easily.
Resize the sidebar by clicking in the sidebar to select it, then pressing Alt+Right Arrow to increase its width or Alt+Left Arrow to decrease it, and WebSpeedReader will retain the width that you have chosen. You can also close the window by unchecking from the menu. Show the sidebar again by checking the menu item.Quick Links is shown in the sidebar under the ∞ tab. This displays the links that show up on the link bar in Internet Explorer. Keep your most commonly clicked links, that aren't scheduled, here. You can also view Quick Links in the Favorites form by right-clicking on an empty part of the tree view, and select Quick Links from the context menu.
Sidebar - Quickly Filter Favorites or History to Display in Sidebar - In the Search, Filter, or Highlight textbox at the top of the sidebar, you can type in a few characters, then click the F tab to filter your list of Favorites, which will be displayed below, in the sidebar. This selects all Favorites that have the typed characters in the title, URL, or keywords. Some tips: (1) type in a domain to select all Favorites with that domain; (2) enter "file://" or "c:\" to select all files on your disk; (3) enter "foldername\subfoldername" to display all links in that subfolder. Remember to press Enter after typing in your letters to display the new list.
Special Filters - There are special filters that can be applied to the filter box to select particular links. All the special filters start with a letter, which is case insensitive and designates the type of filter to apply, followed by a space.
Links - If you filter the links in the links bar, but you want to redisplay your Quick Links, then click the ∞ tab (Mnemonic: the infinity symbol looks like 2 links of a chain, thus "links"). If you want to remove a link from the Quick Links bar, just right-click on the link, and select Remove from Quick Links from the context menu.
Scheduled Links - Click the ¸ to show all links that are scheduled. If you don't want to read all the links scheduled for today, then the next best thing is to show all scheduled links, and click on the ones that you want. If you want to unschedule any links, simply right-click the link, and select Unschedule from the context menu.
RSS Feeds - Click the X to show all RSS feeds in the sidebar. Each feed clicked will load in a background page. When an RSS feed is added as a Favorite, you must check RSS Feed to indicate that the bookmark is an RSS feed.
Tip: If you want to schedule a link or add a link to the Quick Links list, then simply select from the context menu. You can also delete any link from the same menu.
Favorites - You can filter your Favorites to display in the sidebar only those that have the characters that you typed in the textbox in the keywords, title, or URL. Thus, entering "blog" in the textbox, then clicking the F tab will display all links with blog in the title, URL, or keywords. Enter "science\history" to display all links in your science\history subfolder, assuming that you have such a folder. Remember to press Enter after typing in your letters to display the new list if the F tab is already selected.
History - Click the H tab to display all links in your history list—if you maintain history—in the sidebar that have the characters you enter in the textbox in the title, URL, document description or keywords. Thus, typing "law", then clicking the H tab (or pressing Enter if the History tab is already selected) will show all history entries that have law in the title, URL, document description or keywords. Entering yahoo.com will show all of your history entries that have the domain yahoo.com. Note that maintaining history is on by default, but you can turn it off, and it will erase all history entries. However, if you do this, then the history filter will obviously have no effect.
Note: WebSpeedReader maintains its own history list. Therefore, filtering the history list will show few or no results when you first start using it.
Note: The headings that are displayed are enclosed with the H1-H6 HTML tabs. This is usually the way headings are formed in web pages; however, it is easy to make a short paragraph look like a heading by formatting it as larger, centered text, but this is isn't a real heading in HTML, and thus, won't be displayed in the sidebar. Also, the sidebar will not display any documents that have frames. Most framed documents are short, and those that are long, generally have their own sidebar for navigating the document, which is a common use for frames. This feature is best for long documents that have headings.
Overview - The bookmark manager stores your Favorites in a database, instead of using the lame file system approach that Internet Explorer uses. Much more information can be stored in it than would otherwise be possible. Additional information that can be saved includes document keywords, description, posted data, and notes. Bookmarks can also be scheduled in the Edit form, including being able to set more than 1 home page.
View Favorites ( | F | F6) displays your favorites in a separate form. The Favorites form has 2 modes, download mode and organize mode, which you can toggle by clicking on the top command button. When you select , download mode will be in effect. You can click as many links as you like; each link will download in a separate browser window for instant access. You can download links by:
Clicking on them individually.
Click on a folder to download all links in that folder, but not subfolders.
CTRL+click to download all links in that folder and all subfolders.
SHIFT+click a link to download all links between it and a previously downloaded link in the same folder, or if there isn't any, then it will download all links from the top of the folder to the clicked link.
To see only RSS feeds, select from the Favorites menu or from the context menu (right-click on an empty part of the tree view), or press Ctrl+F4.
Note: when only a part of the Favorites list is displayed, for instance, feeds, downloading multiple links by clicking on a folder, for instance, will download only those links that are currently displayed, not all links in that folder, unless all links are displayed. So, if you are only looking at feeds, clicking a folder will only download feeds in that folder, not regular web pages.
Right-click on a folder to rename, edit, delete, or add a new favorite. Right-click a link to rename, edit, or delete the link. Right-clicking anywhere else brings up more options.
Organize Favorites - Organize mode allows you to move, copy, rename, and delete links and folders. Because folders are nothing more than a group of links with the same keywords, any action on a folder is simply an action on all of the links with the same keywords. The available commands can be accessed by clicking on the command buttons on the right, or right-click on an empty part of the tree view for the context menu. You can access commands in the context menu either by clicking on the desired command, or after the right-click, continue holding down the right mouse button, highlight the desired command, then release the right mouse button. To move, copy, or delete links, you must first select links. Select links by:
Clicking on them individually.
Click on a folder to select all links in that folder, but not subfolders.
CTRL+click to select all links in that folder and all subfolders.
SHIFT+click a link to select all links between it and a previously selected link in the same folder, or if there isn't any, then it will select all links from the top of the folder to the clicked link.
When 1 or more links are selected, then the copy, move, edit, and delete commands are enabled. If copy or move is selected, then click the folder where you want the links moved or copied. After this is done, then all selected links are deselected. If you want to copy or move to a new folder, then after selecting copy or move, select the New Folder command, then click the folder where you want to place the new folder. You'll be placed in edit mode. Type in the name of the new folder, press ENTER, and the files will be copied or moved, depending on which command you selected prior to selecting the New Folder command.
Undeleting links - When links are deleted, they are moved to a special folder in Favorites called Delete. You can restore any deleted link by selecting 1 or more in this folder, then moving them to another folder. When WebSpeedReader is closed, then the links in this folder will be deleted permanently.
Quick Links is shown in the sidebar under the Links tab. This displays the links that show up on the link bar in Internet Explorer. Keep your most commonly clicked links, that aren't scheduled, here. You can also view Quick Links in the Favorites form by right-clicking on an empty part of the tree view, and select Quick Links from the context menu.
Filtering the display of links - In either download mode or organize mode, you can filter the links by typing in letters in the text box in the upper-right corner of the Favorites form. Thus, typing in law will show all links that have law in the keywords, title, or URL. You can either download the links or organize them.
Creating New Folders - To create a new folder, you can either type in new keywords when you add a favorite, or you can select a number of files, then select copy or move, then select New Folder, then click on the folder in the tree view where you want to add the new folder. You'll be placed in edit mode, so you can type in the new name of the new folder. Note that you must have links selected for copy or move in order to create a new folder. This is because, the so-called folders are not really folders in the file system, but rather hierarchies of keywords. Thus, if there are no records corresponding to a new folder, then that new folder cannot be created. Therefore, if you delete the last link in a folder, then that folder will also be deleted. The term folders is used because it works basically the same way, and most people are familiar with the folder terminology. Note that any changes made to the Favorites in WebSpeedReader will NOT be reflected in Internet Explorer's favorites. An export option will be added in the near future.
Add to Favorites ( | A | shift+F6) - Add the current page to Favorites. This form will load with the title and URL of the link, and also the document keywords and description if available. If it is not available, then you can add your own. You can also select a category from the tree view on the left side of the form, or you can create a new category simply by typing in the keywords textbox. Use the backslash (\) to create different levels of categories. Examples: Typing Science in the keywords box creates the Science category if it doesn't already exist; entering Science\Biology creates a Science category with a subcategory of Biology. If the Science category already exists, then it will simply create the subcategory Biology if it doesn't already exist. If it does exist, then your new Favorite will be stored in that subcategory. Of course, if the category already exists, you can select it from the tree view on the left instead of typing it, or select the category from the drop-down list that will display any categories currently available that contain the typed characters.
Click on the Feed Folders command button to show only the folders or categories that have XML feeds. Click it again to show all folders.
Also, with the Add to Favorites form:
Notes - You can add notes for each bookmark.
Home Pages - You can add the page as a home page. WebSpeedReader allows any number of home pages. These are pages that load up every time you start WebSpeedReader. If you have home pages, but want to prevent them from loading, simply press the Shift key while the program is loading. WebSpeedReader will then load a blank page. If you have a dial-up connection, WebSpeedReader will automatically dial the connection, which can be canceled, if you are not already online.
Scheduling - Any page can be scheduled for every day, every weekday, any day of the week, and for any week of the month. Thus, to schedule a page for every Monday, click on the Monday checkbox; to schedule a page for Tuesday and Thursday, check the boxes for Tuesday and Thursday; to schedule a page for the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month, check the Wednesday box, then check the 1 and 3 boxes of the Week-of-Month frame. If you want to schedule a page for every week, then do NOT check any Week-of-Month checkbox. Week of month is only checked if you want to restrict the downloads to specific weeks of the month. To download the scheduled web pages, just select | Shift+F2.
Quick Link - Add any page to the Quick Links sidebar by checking the Quick Links box.
Add to Favorites Form Submissions - Because WebSpeedReader stores Favorites in a database, it is now possible to not only save links as Favorites, but also any type of form submission, including password logons. Thus, any kind of form submission can easily be automated with WebSpeedReader. Now submitting data or logging onto password-protected sites is just a click on a Favorite. However, a warning: anyone who has access to your computer can also access your password-protected sites, effectively logging on as you. Therefore, do not use this feature if security is a potential problem! Saving these Favorites requires a special procedure.
Set Capture by selecting .
Fill in the form, then submit it.
When you press the submit button, the Add to Favorites form will load. At least 2 textboxes will be filled with the information from the form submission. This includes the URL and the post data. It is very important not to change either the URL or the post data unless you know what you are doing; otherwise the submission will not work properly!
Also keep in mind, that web pages do change, and sometimes it may be necessary to recapture the information. You can add any other information to the record, including a category, adding it to your Quick Links list, or scheduling the page.
Edit or delete a favorite without opening a form - Another great time-saver with WebSpeedReader's bookmark manager is the ability to edit or delete a Favorite without opening the Favorites form at all. When you are viewing a web page that you downloaded by selecting a link in the Favorites form, then you can either edit or delete that Favorite simply by selecting or clicking the respective toolbar buttons:
| ! | r |
If the current page was not downloaded by clicking on a Favorite, then these 2 options will not be enabled, nor will the toolbar buttons be visible. Select Edit this Favorite to add a note, or to change its title, description, keywords, or anything else in the Favorites properties. If you click Delete this Favorite, then the next document will also be displayed.
Tip: an easy way to get rid of Favorites that you never use is to View Favorites, then click a folder to download all Favorites in that folder, or Ctrl + click a folder to download all Favorites in that folder and all subfolders. Then view each page in WebSpeedReader. If you want to keep the Favorite, just select the next document. If you don't want it, simply Delete this Favorite by clicking on the toolbar button, and this will move you to the next document automatically. You can continue to do this until you have reviewed all of the Favorites that you downloaded. Note, however, that only the Favorites are deleted. The documents will remain in place until they are replaced by other documents or you close the application.
You can now save all open windows as a group, or session, by selecting from the menu. You can list all groups in the sidebar by clicking the G tab at the top of the sidebar or selecting . Groups will also be displayed in the submenu. Simply load the group by clicking it. Groups are saved as a special folder in Favorites—!wsr\Groups. Therefore, you can rename either the group or the individual URLs in each group, delete the group or individual URLs in the group, move them around, or add to them by selecting from the menu. You can also look at only the groups by entering "\Groups\" in the filter box at the top of the Organize Favorites form. As with any Favorite, a deleted group is stored in the Delete folder. To undelete it, just move it to another folder. Remember, anything in the Delete folder will actually be deleted when the WebSpeedReader application ends.
More than 1 group can be loaded, and individual Favorites can also be loaded along with the groups. Actually, any Favorite folder can be considered a group, because clicking the folder in the form downloads all of the links in that folder. What makes groups more convenient is that they can be saved as Favorites without prompting to add to Favorites for each link, and each folder can be quickly displayed in the sidebar.
Sometimes a document is too long to read in one sitting. Select , to not only load the current page automatically when WebSpeedReader is started again, but to have it scrolled to the exact page position when you selected the command. If you don't want it scrolled, just select the command before scrolling down. The document will only be loaded once, unless the Shift key was pressed when starting WebSpeedReader, in which case, only the Start page will be loaded. When WebSpeedReader is started normally, the marked pages will be reloaded, but only once. Think of it as a temporary home page. If you want to have it reloaded again, just select again. To load in every session, make it a home page.
Favorite links oftentimes go bad. Now you can check which links are good or bad by selecting √ (check mark) tab in the toolbar. If you are reading this because you clicked the Check Links tab, then you should see 3 menu entries at the top of the sidebar: Check All Links, Check Questionable Links, and Close This Check Links Menu. The last menu item closes the section of the sidebar display the Check Links menu. The first time you run this, select Check All Links. Note that it can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 1 hour to check 1,000 links regardless of your connection speed, because it mostly depends on how fast servers respond, although a faster connection speed does speed up the process somewhat. However, when things go smoothly, it can check about 50 links per minute. Do not use WebSpeedReader until it is finished completely, or until you click Stop on the sidebar.
Note that there will be times when it seems to be stuck on a link, and will be unresponsive. It can sometimes take 10 minutes for a single link, waiting for the server to respond, even if you click Stop. Just let it go until it starts responding again. You can minimize WebSpeedReader or just switch to another application and work on something else in the meantime. If you do minimize WebSpeedReader after starting the link checking, it may not respond when you click on its icon in the Windows taskbar right away. If this happens, just wait a few minutes, then click on it again.
As the program checks links, it will display the information on each link as it is checked. It is color-coded so that it is easy to recognize links with different status codes. You can delete the links individually, or you can click on them to go to the site for verification. When you have the page displayed in WebSpeedReader, you can easily edit or delete the Favorite right there by selecting .
Local links (Favorites pointing to files that are on your computer) are also tested, however they do not return a status code. If a local link is good, it is displayed in black along with the rest of the links. If it is not good, it is automatically deleted. It is automatically deleted because a link pointing to a nonexistent file will never be good. All links that were automatically deleted will be presented at the end of the link checking document. Any Favorites that does not have an URL is deleted automatically and not reported, because a link without an URL can't possibly be good, and could just be a blank record.
The codes range from 200 to a little over 500. Generally, 2xx and 3xx are good links, 4xx are errors and 5xx are server errors. There will be some status codes = 0. Just ignore these, for it doesn't mean anything. The main error that corresponds to a page not found is the 404 error. The other errors are usually temporary or don't indicate that the page is not there, so generally, you shouldn't delete these links unless you want to because you don't want them anymore. This is a good place to decide whether you want to keep a Favorite. Although a 404 error generally means the page no longer exists, oftentimes, it will simply mean that it is not available at the moment. That's why there is an option to Recheck Questionable Links. Do this at a later time, preferably at least a couple of days later, and recheck it. Any link that yields a 404 again probably is gone for good, although this isn't always the case. The decision is yours. If you do delete links, you can always undelete them by going to the Favorites form ( ) and moving the links out of the Delete folder. Note, however, that when WebSpeedReader is closed, then the links will be deleted permanently.
WebSpeedReader can prevent many popups automatically in Windows 98 and above. However, there are certain popups that can only be prevented in special cases. This has changed with the availability of Service Pack 2 for Windows XP.
WebSpeedReader now implements the Windows XP Service Pack 2 popup blocker, which can block many popups that couldn't be blocked before, most of which were HTML Dialog windows. When a popup is blocked you will hear the characteristic sound that IE makes when blocking a popup. WebSpeedReader uses the same settings as Internet Explorer. The popup blocker is on by default, but can be changed by selecting . Set the popup settings by selecting the Settings command button. The Popup Blocker Settings dialog box is self-explanatory. The default setting is to block most automatic popups, that are created by script, but allows popups that you specifically click. This is the best setting. You probably don't want to set it at the highest level, which would block all popups, including links that you click on. There are many links on the web that are targeted to new windows, and these would be prevented unless you press the Ctrl key while clicking the link, and you wouldn't know to press the Ctrl key until you click the link and see that there is no navigation and you hear the sound (the sound can be turned off in the Popup Blocker Settings dialog box.) Thus, the highest setting would be a great inconvenience.
Notes can be displayed by clicking on the notes tab ¯ on the 2nd toolbar. The ¯ is a toggle. Clicking it either displays—at the top of the sidebar—or hides the notes area, depending on its current visibility. It consists of a textarea containing the current note, a series of tabs below the textarea, and the links of any saved notes. These tabs consist of the following:
| ¦ | Append current date to note. |
| T | Append title of current document. |
| U | Append URL of current document. |
| Ã | Append new line to note. |
| ¥ | New note. Save the current note, if any. Right-click this button to save note to research file. |
| 1 | Full-screen mode for editing, page setup, print preview, and printing. |
| . | Copy current note to clipboard. |
| r | Delete note. |
| 56 | Hide or show links. |
New notes are saved when you select a new note, or when you exit WebSpeedReader. The length limit of any note is 32K. The text of any link to a note is simply the 1st 50 characters of that note.
An additional feature is the capability of copying any text in the displayed web page, by selecting the text, right-clicking the document to bring up the context menu, then selecting . This will append the text to whatever else is in the textarea.
Suggestions for using notes:
Tip: you can append any selected text to the current note even if the notes area is not displayed! So, if you're doing research, you can hide the note area to see the window list, for instance, and still be able to copy text to the note. You can also use the Windows shortcuts for copying and pasting text. So you can select some text, press Ctrl+C to copy, then click anywhere in the textarea, and press Ctrl+V to paste.
See also how to submit forms or log onto password-protected sites with 1 click: Add to Favorites Forms Submissions.
Besides being able to log on or submit forms automatically by clicking on a bookmark (see Add to Favorites Form Submissions above.), you can now save a list of items that can be entered into any textbox by right-clicking inside the textbox, and selecting the text that you want to add from the popup menu. The item will replace anything already there.
To create the menu, just select . In the textbox type any sort of information that you wish to have available in separate lines. The first 80 characters of each line will appear as a caption in the menu, but you can store any amount of information on any given line, and it will be inserted if it is not limited by the textbox or textarea itself. You might want to include such info as first name, last name, full name, etc. You can also easily include multiple identities, when you want to stay anonymous. However, if a number of people are using WebSpeedReader in your household, there is no need to add their identities, since the file that stores the information is different for each user.
Warning: The information is not encrypted, so you should not store sensitive information if security is a potential problem. Also, for security reasons, text for file upload textboxes cannot be entered this way.
Note: For security reasons, any form containing a file upload textbox must be entered manually. Forms containing file upload textboxes allow you to upload a file on your computer to a server. It has what looks like a textbox with a Browse button next to it. Very few forms upload files, so this shouldn't be much of a problem.
There are 3 toolbar buttons at the top concerning forms: The 1st button—0 | Ctrl + 0—resets all of the forms on the current document. The 2nd button—- | Ctrl + -— saves the form data to a database. This data is NOT ENCRYPTED presently! So don't save any confidential information if security is a concern! Thus, you can fill out the information that you want to save, then save the data, then fill out any more fields that you didn't want saved, or that changes with each submission. The 3rd button—= | Ctrl + =—will fill any form field that it recognizes. If you click this button, and nothing was filled in, then it didn't recognize any of the form fields. It works by first comparing the document's URL with any in its database. If it recognizes any fields associated with the current URL, it fills it in with that information. If the URL is new, then it will search its records for any form field name that it has stored previously. It will fill any fields where it can find a match. If it happens to fill in a field with the wrong information, then you can double-click it to clear it and set focus to it to enter what you want. The advantage of associating the URL with the form data is not only better accuracy, but also allows you to use aliases and passwords on different sites, which some people do to protect their privacy and increase their security. As you use it more, it should become more accurate, even on new sites. This will continually be improved, so look for updates.
Clicking the P tab right above the sidebar displays some information about the current page, which includes the document title, URL; the number of links, images, forms, and frames; the number of readable characters, words, and the approximate time to read them, and the cookie associated with the document's domain. This information will be displayed for each page downloaded in the current browser window or for each page as it becomes activated. Turn Page Info off by clicking one of the other sidebar tabs.
View Source ( | V ) shows the source code for the current HTML page, including ALL FRAMES, in color-coded format so that you can quickly identify the various elements that make up a web page, such as the head, forms, scripts, styles, and tables. HTML tags are coded blue to provide contrast to the black text that is actually displayed in the browser when just browsing.
Additional information that is presented in the 1st section includes the numbers of frames, iframes, links, images, and forms. It also shows when the document was last modified, and whether the document has a security certificate.
If there is a cookie associated with the document, then this will be shown. Sometimes cookies are readable, but oftentimes they have cryptic codes that are processed by the website's server. Cookies usually store identifying information. You can delete all cookies by selecting , then clicking the Delete Cookies command button. Note, however, that many sites that require registration, store the registration information in a cookie. If you delete these cookies, then you will be prompted to enter a user name and password at each site, every time you access these sites.
You can manage cookies by selecting the Privacy tab of . You can accept all cookies, no cookies, or you can accept 1st-party cookies, but not 3rd-party cookies. 3rd parties are usually advertisers with banner ads that are downloaded from websites other than the main document website. If you specify the maximum privacy setting by accepting no cookies, then this will NOT delete any cookies, but no website will be able to read any cookie on your computer. You can set different settings for cookies for different sites, by selecting the Edit command button on the Privacy tab.
By using WebSpeedReader's View Source, you will never get that annoying message box that IE displays to tell you that "This file is too large for Notepad to open? Would you like to use WordPad to read this file?"
After viewing the source, click the Left arrow for the history list in the toolbar (the 1st button on the toolbar) to return to the document.
View the source code of all style sheets. By selecting , you can view the source code of all style sheets of the current document, including imported, external, and embedded style sheets. This is a great way to learn about style sheets, so when you see a web page with a great format, you can see how it was done. Some external style sheets are not viewable because the web host doesn't allow it. In this case, you will see a Permission Denied statement after the filename.
As in IE, you can select text sizes, from the submenu, which range from for smallest text to for largest. However, this will only affect text sizes that are formatted as relative sizes in HTML code. Many web pages specify precise text sizes rather than relative sizes, so this setting will not affect much of the text on the Web today.
You can, however, make the text size selection (zoom setting) work all of the time by accessing - General tab - Accessibility command button at the bottom of the property page, and checking Ignore font sizes specified on Web pages. In most cases, you will see most of the text sizes increase, even at the medium-size setting. However, some text, especially headlines on some pages, will be scrunched, although in most cases, still readable. If the text is too scrunched, then select a smaller zoom setting. This will still be more readable than the original text. When you change the text-size setting it will affect all browser windows that are loaded hence, and it will also affect Internet Explorer. On the same property page, you can specify your own style sheet. The accessibility features will make some pages look different from what the web designer intended, but for people who have high-resolution screens, or who have visual impairments, a larger font size is almost a necessity. Even websites that you would think would know better, such as pcmag.com, uses font sizes too small to read comfortably on high-resolution screens. Accessibility options also apply to the Outlook mail client.
Another method to make text more readable without changing or ignoring specified sizes is to select a new font for web pages and plain text that will be displayed whenever a specific font is not specified, which is frequently. Click on the command button Fonts ( - General tab - Fonts command button at the bottom of the property page). This will present a dialog box that will allow you to select a new font for web pages and plain text.
Tip: select Verdana for web pages that will be displayed whenever a specific font is not specified in the source code. Verdana, which you are reading right now, is one of the most legible fonts for small text sizes, and so is the best choice for readability. This setting will also be in effect for Internet Explorer.
WebSpeedReader has yet another option for increasing text and image sizes.
The zoom setting will remain in effect until it is changed. WebSpeedReader retains the value between sessions. Individual pages can also be zoomed temporarily by 1.4 times by selecting , or press the + key on the numeric keypad. The Temporary Zoom Setting can also be set in the Options form.
Use Ctrl + mouse wheel to change text and image sizes. Turn the wheel toward you to increase both font and image sizes; turn it away to decrease size. Click the wheel while pressing the Ctrl key to return the document to normal size.
| Alt+T, W
WebSpeedReader now has the complete help for options directly on the Options page. Load the Options page for more information.
To change the width of the sidebar, click on the sidebar, then press Alt+Left Arrow to decrease its width or Alt+Right Arrow to increase it. Be sure that the mouse cursor stays inside the sidebar while changing width; otherwise the width will stop changing. If you narrow the sidebar so that the mouse cursor goes outside the sidebar, just click it again near the left edge, and then press Alt+Left Arrow again.
Select text in the document, then right-click and select Google Search from the context menu.
Toolbar Search Box - A search box is always at the top of the sidebar. Just enter your search terms and press Enter to submit search. By default the G&nbs