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Reviews for Tranquility Reader

Tranquility Reader by arunk

4.6 Stars out of 5
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280 reviews
  • by maDC0w, 7 years ago
  • by FFUser2017, 7 years ago
    Complete fail. Yet another FF dud. I was looking for a FF version of the excellent Chrome extension 'Just Read', but didn't find one. This was one of only two readers available for FF and it is just as bad as 'Reader'.

    Cons:

    • no keyboard shortcut
    • fewer images than original
    • no videos
    • small text harder to read than original

    Chrome 'Just Read':

    • keyboard shortcut activates AND deactivates extension
    • all images and videos included
    • single page that scrolls without having to click on it
    • easy-to-read formatted text

    Someone PLEASE port 'Just Read' to FF.

    Developer response

    posted 7 years ago
    Thanks for the feedback.

    (1) Keyboard shortcut --> webextensions on Firefox have very limited choices for keyboard shortcuts, many of which are already used for standard browser functionality; and are not user customizable like in chrome; so I've had to give up the keyboard shortcut after porting my extension to use the new webextensions API on Firefox

    (2) Text size --> go to about:addons and click on the extension. There are several preferences/options that can be customized by the user.

    (3) Images and videos --> I try not to worry about them much in my extension because my focus is only on reading text. Other extensions surely do a better job and I don't plan on competing with them on this front. You may want to try the built in reader in Firefox (just click on the reader icon within the address bar).

    (4) Porting "Just Read" to Firefox --> you should definitely contact the author. Mozilla has made it very easy to port Chrome webextensions to Firefox with minimal changes. There are several help pages and guides.

    There is also a Firefox extension that will allow you to directly install a chrome extension from the chrome store: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chrome-store-foxified/

    You may want to experiment trying to install "Just Read" on Firefox yourself using the above extension without waiting for the author to port to Firefox.

    All the best in your search for finding an extension that meets your needs.
  • by Firefox user 12552652, 7 years ago
    Disadvantages over standard Firefox Reader:

    Doesn't link to the original webpage. If the page is saved, then it's hard to find the original webpage.
    Inaccurate extraction of main text compared to standard Firefox reader, leaving extraneous objects lying around like "skip to content" links. Firefox's reader mode has continuously refined its detection algorithm for the main text, and it seems this addon has fallen behind.
    (+) menu stops working after page is saved, although I'd rather my pages didn't have any (+) menu to start with.
    No ability to keep images.

    Advantages over standard Firefox Reader:

    Firefox's standard reader has extraneous crap like "19-24 minutes" and a sidebar full of buttons that makes saving pages hard. Whereas in this addon, options are kept in the addon menu which keeps the webpages clean, other than the (+) menu.
    Configuration of font color.
    Not an about:url, which means that other webextensions addons can interact with tranquility pages, such as Save Page WE.

    The developer replied:

    ---------------

    Thanks for the feedback.

    (1) If you click on the Tranquility Reader icon again, it should return you to the original page; just like clicking on the built in reader icon returns you to the original page. This will also work for saved pages; after loading a saved page from the "Offline Content" list, you can click on the icon to go to the original page. Let me know if that does not work for you.

    (2) The (+) menu works fine for me even on saved pages. So, I am unable to reproduce this problem; maybe it is specific to some pages. Please leave a note with you OS/Firefox version and I can see if this is an OS specific problem. If you are consistently able to reproduce this on certain web pages, then please send me a sample link.

    (3) The built in Reader does better than Tranquility Reader on several pages - and including the handling of images. In fact, for over a year, I had a note in my addon description page that people must try out the built in reader first and switch to this addon only if they find some of the other features I offer so useful that they want to switch. I have seriously considered stopping development and/or removing the addon from the addon store after the built in reader came out - the addon was created when there was no built in reader. I welcome the day when the built in reader replaces all readability addons including Tranquility Reader.

    -----------

    Sorry, by "save page" I meant saving it as html, using either Save Page WE or Firefox's native save behavior. I don't use the "Offline Content" behavior, because my goal is to create permanently storeable archives.

    The developer is correct that saved pages can go back to the original page, I was wrong. Even if Tranquility is not installed, the original page can still be found, in a comment in the source code.

    The (+) javascript doesn't work after saving as an html file. This is not a big deal since I don't have any use for the (+) menu anyway.

    Firefox's built-in reader seems to be moving as a glacial pace, maybe it will become the replacement you seek in a few years: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1371786 Unfortunately nothing can interact with it for a few more months at minimum. I'm just browsing around for an addon that can create saveable reader-style webpages.

    The disadvantages of this add-on are purely technical, but its design is better than the built-in version.

    Developer response

    posted 7 years ago
    Hi Anonymous,

    Thanks for the feedback.

    (1) If you click on the Tranquility Reader icon again, it should return you to the original page; just like clicking on the built in reader icon returns you to the original page. This will also work for saved pages; after loading a saved page from the "Offline Content" list, you can click on the icon to go to the original page. Let me know if that does not work for you.

    (2) The (+) menu works fine for me even on saved pages. So, I am unable to reproduce this problem; maybe it is specific to some pages. Please leave a note with you OS/Firefox version and I can see if this is an OS specific problem. If you are consistently able to reproduce this on certain web pages, then please send me a sample link.

    (3) The built in Reader does better than Tranquility Reader on several pages - and including the handling of images. I had a note in my addon description page starting version 1.2 (sometime in 2015 and until 2017 when I switched to webextensions) that people must try out the built in reader first and switch to this addon only if they find some of the other features I offer so useful that they want to switch. For example:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20151110215507/https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tranquility-1/

    I have seriously considered stopping development and/or removing the addon from the addon store after the built in reader came out - the addon was created when there was no built in reader. I welcome the day when the built in reader replaces all readability addons including Tranquility Reader.

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Update based on the updated comments by Anonymous:

    Thanks for the clarifications on saved pages. When you save a page using "Save Page As" from the Firefox File Menu with the "Web Page, complete" option , it saves a html page and a folder (with a suitable name) with all the supporting files (css, javascript, images etc.)

    However, when I tested out the "Save Page As" after running Tranquility Reader, this folder contains only tranquility.css; so you get the look and feel of the transformed page but none of the javascript is saved to this folder - as a result the (+) menu and associated functionality will also not work. If you need the addon related javascript and other supporting files to also be saved into this folder and used, that is something that the browser must natively support - I don't believe there is anything I can do as the addon developer - you need to file a bug/enhancement request with Firefox.

    You may simply want to "Ctrl+P" and print to a PDF file if you don't care about the format in which you save; that would be just a portable as saving the html file.
  • by Firefox user 12564644, 7 years ago
    Questo addon è formidabile: stabile, personalizzabile e migliore del lettore standard di Firefox
  • by DevilishVicious, 7 years ago
    Of all the similar add-ons that I've tested, this is the best one so far. Thanks and keep up the good work.