Contents
- what microsummaries are
- integration into Firefox
- how to add a microsummary to your site
- how to add a microsummary to someone else's site
- future plans
- your questions (welcome anytime!)
What's a microsummary?
a regularly-updated, succinct compilation
of the most important and timely information
on a web page
of the most important and timely information
on a web page
Example #1 - Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day
Example #1 - Microsummary of It
conquian
Example #2 - eBay Auction Item
Example #2 - Microsummary of It
Firefox: US $2.30, 14 hours 3 mins
Microsummaries in Firefox
- Firefox 2.0: bookmark labels
- benefits for users
- quick and simple access to useful information
- regular updates (every half hour by default)
- advantages for web sites
- keep users informed of the latest updates
- entice them to revisit the site
Demo!
Demo!
Adding a Microsummary to Your Site
- generate a microsummary and put it at some URL
- stick a <link rel="microsummary"> tag into your page
- point it at your microsummary
Example - woot.com
Example - woot.com Source
<html>
<head id="ctl00_Head1">
...
<link rel='microsummary' ... href='DefaultMicrosummary.ashx' />
...
</head>
...
Example - woot.com/DefaultMicrosummary.ashx
$49.99 : Toshiba Docking Station/USB Hub with Dolby Digital
Adding a Microsummary to Someone Else's Site
- create a simple addon called a microsummary generator
- easier than extensions!
- search engine plugin installation model
- users install the generator
- generator builds microsummaries
Microsummary Generator
- instructions for extracting a microsummary from a page
- simple XML grammar
- single XML file
- XSLT stylesheet for extracting the microsummary
- regular expressions for matching URIs to summarize
- XPath expressions for determining update frequency
Outline of a Generator
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<generator xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/microsummaries/0.1"
name="Firefox Download Count">
<template>
...
</template>
<pages>
...
</pages>
<update>
...
</update>
</generator>
<template> Element
<template>
<transform xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
version="1.0">
<output method="text"/>
<template match="/">
<value-of select="id('download-count')"/>
<text> Fx downloads</text>
</template>
</transform>
</template>
<pages> Element
- identifies URIs that can be summarized by the generator
- include/exclude list of regular expressions
- by default, all URIs are excluded
- <include> includes URIs, <exclude> excludes them
- a page can be summarized if its URI matches an <include> expression and doesn't match any <exclude> expressions
- example:
<pages> <include>^http://(www\.)?spreadfirefox\.com/</include> <exclude>^http://(www\.)?spreadfirefox\.com/.*\?</exclude> </pages>
<update> Element
- how often to update the microsummary
- default update interval is 30 minutes
- minimum interval is one minute
- can either specify an constant interval or a conditional one
- constant example:
<update interval="30"/> - conditional example:
<update> <condition expression="..." interval="15"/> <condition expression="..." interval="45"/> </update> - first matching conditional determines interval
Distributing a Generator
- put it somewhere on the web
- link to it from a web page
- call window.sidebar.addMicrosummaryGenerator() when a user clicks the link
- example:
<a href="#" onclick="window.sidebar.addMicrosummaryGenerator( 'http://www.example.com/microsummary-generator.xml' )">install</a>
Demo!
Demo!
The Future
- plaintext microsummaries in upcoming Firefox 2.0
- rich text microsummaries (HTML, images) in Firefox 3.0?
- other applications
- simplifying pages for blind users
- reordering pages for small devices
- widgets?
- standardization (WHATWG, microformats.org, W3C?)
- user-defined microsummaries
Demo!
Demo!
More Info
- proposal:
- http://wiki.mozilla.org/Microsummaries
- Firefox 2.0 beta 1:
- http://www.mozilla.org/projects/bonecho/
- sample generators:
- http://people.mozilla.com/~myk/microsummaries/generators/
- my email address:
- myk@mozilla.org