Ask HN: Anyone highlight text as they read? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Anyone highlight text as they read?

84 pointssour-taste60 comments

I don't know what it is but when I read things on a screen I tend to click and drag, highlighting the text that I'm reading, or double clicking the paragraph to select all of it. Anyone else do this?

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I do.

Except on sites like Medium where if you click anything it highjacks the selection and gives you a bunch of nonsense. For example this article on the front page right now:

https://medium.com/enzymit-log/why-enzymit-decided-to-build-...

Try selecting text.

I use the Stylus browser extension to write and automatically apply CSS to websites I visit often.

Just add:

#root ~ div { display: none !important; }

.. to your custom stylesheet for medium.com (and all their crappy subdomains and clones) to get rid of that super irritating social media popup thing.

Either that or use Firefox's underrated "reader view" by pressing F9. It's totally worth it.

Stylus for Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/styl-us/ Stylus for Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylus/clngdbkpkpe...

Hate hate hate that pattern so much.

If it’s a hyperlink, make it look like one.

If it doesn’t behave like hypertext, GTFO MAH HTTPZZ

I've solved that problem by not going to any articles on Medium

I get a tiny popup on top of the selection but that's about it. Is it because I have an adblocker? What do you see?

I will highlight once in a while, but only a particular sentence or phrase that I want to sit back and focus on for a moment.

Another quirk I've noticed is that I always scroll more than necessary while reading. It feels odd to have the text I've just read sitting at the top of the screen, so I scroll down to get it out of my view. Maybe it's an ergonomic preference; it feels better to look at the top of the screen rather of the lower half (I work on a laptop with no stand). Whenever I am sharing focus on a screen with someone and I notice they are reading all of the visible text on the screen before scrolling, I realize how particular my habit is.

Yes. I usually triple click to select the line/paragraph I'm on. If some site fucks with that setting, I try to disable most of their javascript with the "Absolute Enable Right Click And Copy" add-on's "Absolute Mode" and if that doesn't work I close the site.

Thanks for the add-on recommendation. I tend to select paragraphs and sentences as I read articles just like OP, so this should do nicely to neuter sites that try to override selection behavior.

No problem.

For those potentially interested, the add-on will remember your settings on a domain by domain basis.

Also beware, if you turn on absolute mode on a site and forget you have, it may break javascript-based custom text fields and controls for videos, and you may end up confused for awhile until you remember why.

This is common among people with ADHD or visual tracking issues. Highlighting text helps focus your attention, and it provides a visual guide as you move between adjacent lines.

If you find highlighting to be useful, check out BeeLine Reader. [1] It offers a similar benefit, and also improves reading speed for many people. Disclosure: I am the creator (and am happy to give an extended free pass to any HNers who reach out!).

1: https://www.beelinereader.com

I see multiple platform clients. Is there sync across platforms?

There’s not much in the way of preferences (basically just color choice), so currently there’s no sync.

Earlier HN poll: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4839436

I had no idea so many people did this, as I can't imagine wasting the time mousing around like that; so you can imagine how surprised I was at the first bug reports on gwern.net from people having problems with highlights (from the link-underlining using drop shadows, usually). "I'm amazed you noticed such a subtle bug! ...you what"

I don't highlight in real time what I'm reading but I use it as a bookmark if I need to take my eyes away from the screen or step away from my computer. I also sometimes highlight as I go in a long article proactively so if I need to look away I've "saved my spot". I hate when sites pop up a share UI or similar when I highlight, I never want to do that and if I do want to share I'll just copy/paste it, not use your "tools".

Yes, I triple click constantly to keep track of where I am at.

Also, I'll scroll up the paragraph I am currently reading to the top of the browser window, which gets really annoying with some sites sticky header implementation where the smallest upward scroll causes the header to re-appear and cover the exact text I am trying to focus on.

I am a highlight reader. Going through this thread, I thought it would be nice to automate it, as it's a triple-click to highlight a paragraph in safari.

What if instead, it was just on hover? I'd like to opt into this for just pages with long text, and so I created a bookmarklet.

Using this page:

https://mcdlr.com/css-inject/

I added this naive css:

  p:hover {
    background-color: Highlight;
  }

It works ok, if any fellow highlight readers want to give it a try, but does anyone with any sort of css-fu know how to make it more robust? I tried adding other tag:hovers, but nesting quickly makes this weird. Is there a way to select parents of text nodes?

I do it all the time and have been doing it as long as I can remember. I couldn't tell you why, but as others have pointed out it annoys the crap out of people when they're trying to read with me.

Yea and I use my tool Yawas Highlighter to highlight web pages on my browser or iOS https://www.appblit.com/yawas

Yeah I always tripple click things I read, always have. Drove a coworker of mine nuts because he just hears clickerclickclick all the time. I just do it mindlessly. I think it helps me focus? I tried to abstain from it for the sake of the coworker but it was really hard to focus.

Edit: This is also why I don't read articles on medium. Before I know it I've shared half a sentence or a word to twitter or some shit.

A quiet mouse can help a lot with that, makes the click much more tolerable.

Yes. All the time. My co workers probably find me maddening in a collaborative google doc.

That's actually what made me post this. My boss was presenting a Google Doc that I was reading during a meeting. I realized that I was repeatedly highlighting the line he was reading and it must have been super distracting.

I do the same thing. It annoys the hell out of people if they’re reading with me.

Funny enough tho, I hate highlighting actual paper text, i never understood the point of that

I regularly underline in the books I read, with ruler and pencil. When it comes to instructions and rules, I underline and highlight.

Sorry for this question. Is it possible to highlight a part of a text somewhere in a web page, copy it, paste it somewhere else in a word processor as a quote/hyperlink and when you click on it you end up exactly where the quote is on the web page ?

This feature is built into Chrome.

Search Google for 'chrome copy link to highlight'.

I have the same habit too and went as far as making a highlighter for myself to use [1]. (Sorry for the shameless plug)

[1]: https://github.com/huytd/highl.it

I do it, but only for annotating text, and then recalling it (sometimes by tags) on my Hypothesis profile: https://hypothes.is/users/pyxelr

I do it all the time or just move the page slightly if I'm reading a PDF. Don't know why but some who it helps makes reading quicker

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1271/

Yep, very much.

I think it's a fidget of sorts, to generate stimulation. I guess in order to help stay focused reading blocks of text. If I'm not randomly selecting bits as I read I might be reading it aloud. Otherwise I might loose my focus, resulting in rereading bits more than I need to, or just falling off finishing it.

I have to, in many cases. Too many sites blazing white, like staring into a monitor-sized car headlight, with faint spidery gray text unresolvable among the glare.

This used to be taught as "good UI design." I disagree strongly...

Yes, but I prefer hl-line-mode in emacs or some other ‘moving ruler’. The pdf reader Sioyek has one and it works really well. I sometimes have trouble skipping lines when I look for the next one, so a visual guide helps.

Yup, all the time. Recently I've been using reader mode in Edge and it has a "line focus" which highlights 1, 3, or 5 lines as you scroll. I'm finding works just as well for me, but I still highlight outside of that.

I fidget with the trackpad the entire time. On chrome this does nothing except scroll and highlight. When i try it on edge the whole page moves for no reason (use it and see what i mean) which is the main reason i prefer Chrome.

I don't. But I find reading longer, complicated texts on a vertical screen tiring and not good for understanding it. Reading books or somewhat surprisingly also on my small mobile phone feels just better.

Sometimes when I use multiple monitors and have several windows open, I select text so I don't lose my place when reading. I wish the colors of the letters would not change color when selected.

You can create a custom global CSS style for that using a browser extension like Stylus. The rule would look something like this:

  *::selection {
    background: yellow;
    color: inherit;
  }

I've never actually thought to do this but its kind of genius.

I promise, it's not :D

It's more of a fidget/habit than any kind of reading comprehension hack.

My partner does it and it irritates me but she gets me back for it when I’m mindlessly clicking the mouse as I read things - which I think is from my days of playing StarCraft and Warcraft 3.

Yes!! And I use it with three finger drag on the Mac trackpad

Yep. I constantly highlight and unhighlight paragraphs by triple-clicking as I read them. No idea why, it's something of a 'tick'.

I do it, usually when I'm focused and really trying to understand the text. Don't know when I started, feels like it's always been like this.

Out of context but reminds me of the painfully missing feature in outlook to highlight key information . How can this feature be not there ?

I do that sometimes when my DarkReader-extension is giving me bad colors. Ctrl-A for the most lazy contrast quick fix I could think of :)

I made a mac tool to do this for both web pages and files. Every time I mention it's name on HN, my account gets deleted. Sigh!

Yeah it's really satisfying. Even though I'll never refer to it later on. I think it helps with memorizing key points

I literally did that as I was scrolling my eyes down and read your post. So...stop watching me, creep.

I do that sometimes. If a sentence is hard to understand then I select it. And read it few times.

yes, I do, sometimes continually "dragging drown" from the line I am currently on, there's not much system in it, but it keeps me focused on the text. Maybe it's a kind of fidgeting.

Can someone recomend a good Chrome plugin for highlighting web content?

i use it as a way to mark my current position.

I also highlight the middle part of a paragraph so it looks a bit like a striped background. That makes it more readable for me

I do often select text to nôt to lose my progres

I don’t but I know plenty of people who do.

Yes, we are called selection readers

Triple click.

Yes! All the damn time

Definitely. Especially if the text has too low of contrast in the browser, and highlighting makes it easier on my old eyeballs.

(Or, as xkcd suggests, sometimes as an idle sort of finger-twiddling.)

Constantly

Yep - a visual guide makes one read faster.

I learned to use a piece of paper to cover up what I have already read to avoid the eyes to ‘backtrack’. For reading on paper that is. I find highlighting on screen a little similar …

This was on a speed reading class I attended in the 90’ies

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