How to filter webpage contents?

[crystalliser]

Hi, I'm a newbie here and would like to post a question if anyone kind enough could help me. I was wondering if there's a software/solution to filter out webpage contents whenever I'm refreshing it? For example, there are heaps of information on a webpage which I find it wasting time and bandwidth to download from a site, but I don't want it to display in my screen, just the important information I need to see. I know I can't edit the webpage since it comes from a site source, but in my client side, can I filter out the text/pics I don't want to see before displaying on my screen? I hope you all understand what I'm trying to describe. Thanks!

[Staffa]

Have a look at your browser settings it should give you the option not to download the pictures on a page. That should help cut the download time and only show the text on the page.

[R1chard]

Is this a website you've created yourself? If so, then put in a few classes, and give some of them {display:none}. You can then hit a switch that sets one of them to visible, and leaves the rest as they are.

Oh, and how do you determine what's "important"?

Of course, the bandwidth will still be the same, since you'd need to download it even if it's not displayed.

[photon]

And by the way, welcome to WebmasterWorld crystalliser!

[crystalliser]

No, it's not a website created by me. Why I said it's important is because there are only a few "sections" of text+graphics that I need to see on my screen, though all of the contents/"section" are downloaded anyway, which I don't want it to clutter in my screen. I can view and edit the source in text format but it won't change anything after I refresh the website.

I know disabling the pics can load my page faster, but that's not my objective. The whole content has to be downloaded from the website, but can a program automatically filter out the HTML stuffs that I don't want to see before displaying those I want to see on the screen? Thanks.

[flashfan]

You may use perl to retrieve and render the webpage from othersite. It's easy to strip image/flash...

[R1chard]

The criteria is still too vague. Is it a mixture of lines of text, paragraphs, images and animation?

In one sentence, how would you describe the stuff you want to see (or remove)?

[crystalliser]

Yes, it comprises of lines of text, paragraphs and images.

Ok, from the source, it starts with <form action>, ends with </form>, and <tr>, ends with </tr>. I'm really an idiot in HTML stuffs, sorry I don't really know how to describe to you guys.

PERL? How do you use it? Does it work in the background while my opera automatically refresh the website? I'm interested in this.

Thanks

[mincklerstraat]

PERL is probably something you want to avoid if you haven't heard of it already, unless you want to learn a programming language and everything that that entails.

You're probably looking for more of an application that strips out the part you want to see and shows you that. I haven't heard of any, and I don't think there's really enough demand for word to get around on it.

One thing you could do is create a custom stylesheet which you then ask your browser to use instead of the regular stylesheet that looks like * {display: none;
}
and then finds the specific succession of HTML tags which surround the content that you are looking for, create a selector based on this succssion with {
display: inline;
}
(or else display: block;)
for example, if the content displayed always began like this:
<Some HTML>And even<More HTML>
<p class="blieblie">
<table class="blabla"><tr><td>Some Content</td><td>That interests you</td></tr></table>
your css sheet would look like:

* { display: none; }
p.blieblie table.blabla {
display: inline;
}

Opera allows you to use your own stylesheets. Not 100% sure this would work since I've never used my own stylesheets for another webpage, but in theory I think it should.

If you can post a fragment of the HTML that comes before the part you want, maybe some nice person here will try a shot at making a stylesheet for you ;) (or maybe I'll try if I'm still here)

[flashfan]

Firefox allows you to use your own css as well. You may overwrite the site css to hide some unwanted images.. It really depends on how the orignal page was coded.

[crystalliser]

Hi minklerstraat,

Thanks for your post. I noticed there's CSS stylesheets that you can create in OPERA. I've sent you a stickymail for you to look at. Please let me know the outcome. Really appreciate your help on this.

regards

[mincklerstraat]

Looked, but unfortunately it doesn't look like the html and class selectors are unique enough to allow for what you want to do with css in this case.

[crystalliser]

Hi minklerstraat,

I've received your stickymail and I don't understand what you meant by selector. Is it like some blocks or sections? OK, I made a CSS with just the * {display: none; } and applied on the webpage, it just made everything blank. So it apparently works? How to make a selector? Is it to be saved as a CSS too?

Many thanks.