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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.
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 gray background 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.
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 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.
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 get Internet Explorer's default action, just press the Ctrl key as you right-click or scroll the mouse wheel. When you right-click selected text, you will get WebSpeedReader's context menu; pressing the Ctrl key while right-clicking a selection, shows IE's context menu for a selection. 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:
Ctrl + right-clicking the document yields these options:
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.
Ctrl + right-clicking a link, which 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.
Ctrl + right-clicking a picture:
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.
Ctrl + right-clicking selected text:
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.
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 just loads a blank page. (This is analogous to pressing the Shift key to prevent a CD from running automatically.) 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 uses only a certain number of windows. The default is 25, but you can specify a different number that must be greater than 1 and less than 50, 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 available 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. 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, 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 . While you can click the Back toolbar button to go back through the history list of any given window, or look at the drop-down menu of the address bar, 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 | keypad: 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.
Note: If you click on a link, and WebSpeedReader downloads the page in the background right away, you will generally hear the navigational sound that Internet Explorer makes when a link is clicked, but if the link is queued for later downloading, then you will not hear this sound; unless you have the XP edition of WebSpeedReader for Windows 2000 and XP. You can find the links to an XP upgrade on the What's New page ().
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 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.
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.
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.
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 | Ctrl+F6, 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. If an URL doesn't have a colon or period, then http://www. will be prefixed and .com/ will be suffixed to the URL. This will save you some typing when accessing dot-com sites.
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.
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 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 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) |
| 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 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.
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:
You should not, however, close windows simply to move to the next document, especially if you have queued links, or you are going to download more pages, because WebSpeedReader reuses the windows for the new documents.
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), or using the drop-down address box, this feature is not as useful in WebSpeedReader because you will rarely know which window held which documents. Indeed, the document might even still be loaded. The WebSpeedReader Report solves that problem.
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 ( | Ctrl+F6), 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.
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.
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.
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. 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 now uses a database to store Favorites, 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.
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.
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.
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.
Notes can be displayed by clicking on the notes tab ¯ on the 2nd toolbar. The ¯ is a toggle. Clicking it either displays or hides the note area, depending on its current visibility. The notes area is displayed at the top of the sidebar. It consists of a textarea, where you would type your 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. |
| 8 | Append new line to note. |
| ¥ | New note. Save the current note, if any. |
| 1 | Full-screen mode for editing, page setup, print preview, and printing. |
| 4 | 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.
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, and so this shouldn't be much of a problem.
Remember that you can also log onto password-protected sites automatically by capturing the log on information in a bookmark. With this feature, you can log onto any website automatically by scheduling the page, or you can just click on a bookmark, just as you would any other Favorite.
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 1.4 times by selecting , or press the + key on the numeric keypad if using numeric keypad navigation.
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
All WebSpeedReader options can be specified with this dialog box.
Load Scheduled Web Pages at Startup - Checking this option will automatically load scheduled web pages, if you have any web pages scheduled; otherwise it will do nothing.
Load Unread Web Pages at Startup - If you downloaded numerous pages in your last session, but didn't finish reading them, then checking this option will automatically reload them.
Tip - If you have Windows XP, then you can choose Hibernation when you shut down, while WebSpeedReader is still open. When you log onto Windows again, WebSpeedReader will be open, and all of the pages that were downloaded will still be fully loaded in memory, enabling you to start reading right away. Any queued links will be downloaded as you read more pages.
Maintain History of Visited Websites - If checked, then WebSpeedReader will maintain a history of visited websites. If unchecked, then no history will be saved, and if any history list exists, it will be deleted. Note, however, that only unique sites are saved in the history list. This is because most people use the history list to go back to a site that they didn't bookmark, and so, WebSpeedReader doesn't clutter the history list with duplicate links. The history list shows the date of the last visit, the title of the page, the URL, and if the document has them, a description and keywords. To reload the page, just click on the link, and it will download in the background. To view the history list, just select You can also filter the history list in the sidebar.
Make WebSpeedReader the Default Browser - By doing so, you can click on any number of links in your mail program (if your mail client uses the default browser to launch links) or Windows Explorer, or any other program that uses the default browser, and if WebSpeedReader is already loaded, it will accept those links in the background, and download them while you continue to read your mail, or whatever else you're doing. No need to switch back and forth. WebSpeedReader flashes its window each time it accepts a link that you clicked, to give you feedback that WebSpeedReader has handled it. When you are all done, switch to WebSpeedReader, and all of the links that you clicked on will already be downloaded, ready for your instant viewing. If WebSpeedReader is not already running when you click the first link, then that first click will launch WebSpeedReader and Windows will give it focus. If you want, just minimize WebSpeedReader to continue reading your mail. WebSpeedReader will handle all subsequent links in the background, without taking the focus away from your current program.
Here are some things you can do when WebSpeedReader is the default browser:
Click as many links as you like in your email client. Each link will download in WebSpeedReader as you continue reading your mail.
Use Windows Explorer to look at the files on your disk. Click on any HTML files, one after the other, to load up in WebSpeedReader. Then you can either read them or delete them right from WebSpeedReader.
Maximum Number of Windows - You can specify the maximum number of windows that WebSpeedReader uses for downloading web pages; the default value is 25. Smaller numbers allow getting started faster reading the pages, and use less memory and bandwidth. However, if you are scanning pages rapidly, or if you are viewing images that take time to download, and little time to view them, you will want to raise this number, so that there is sufficient time for a complete download by the time you get to the window. If there are more links or scheduled pages than there are windows, then WebSpeedReader will save the links in a queue, and as you move to the next window, WebSpeedReader will download another page into the window that you have just read. This way, by the time you get back to that window, the document will be fully loaded, images and all. You can increase the number of windows for the current session by shift + clicking a link. Also, the number of windows will automatically increase for the current session, whenever you chose to keep a certain document in memory, or the link opens in a new window. When you restart WebSpeedReader, the number of windows used will go back to what you specified here. You can also increase the number of windows by specifying a different number at any time in the Options box. This value will persist between sessions.
User-Agent String - You can specify part of the User-Agent string for WebSpeedReader. This string, part of the header in the browser request to a server, is recorded in web logs wherever you surf. This is a good way to advertise your website, your blog, a memorable quote, or even your name. Example: Kilroy was here! Of course, only people who look at their web logs will see your message, but that's more people than you probably think, and besides, it costs nothing and you don't have to do anything, other than specifying the string in the text box. Some people post these log files on the Internet for others to read, so this would be another place that people can read your message. The text is limited to 100 characters; when you reach the limit, you won't be able to type any more characters, so there is no need to count them.
Address box search - Type a ? in the address box, with the search terms following it, to display a Google search in the current browser window.
Select text in the document, then right-click and select either Google Search or Vivisimo 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 tab is highlighted, and thus, the search will be submitted to Google. By clicking the V tab, then the search will be submitted to Vivisimo, a search engine that clusters search results into categories. The results will download in a background window. Thus, you can submit searches as you read. Click the _—"_" for underscore; "H" is used for History—tab to highlight those terms in all documents, including all frames.
Search Page - ( | S | F9) Displays a search page of more than 50 search engines of different specialties, allowing you to quickly find just about anything. Enter your search terms in the textbox at the top, then click on any number of search engines; results from each search engine will be downloaded in separate browser windows in the background.
Find text in document - Ctrl+F display a textbox that allows you to search in the current document. This is the same dialog box that Internet Explorer uses.
Find files on your computer - ( | Shift+F3 ) - displays a Windows Explorer dialog box allowing you to search for specific files on your computer.
By entering characters in the textbox at the top of the sidebar, then clicking the _—"_" for underscore; "H" is used for History—tab, all occurrences of the characters will be highlighted, including all occurrences in frames. You can enter multiple terms that are highlighted separately by separately the terms or phrases with the backquote character ` . This is the unshifted tilde key located next to the 1 key on the top row of most keyboards. The backquote key was chosen as a separator because it is rarely used in text. Click the _ tab to highlight the text; click it again to stop highlighting. When highlighting is in effect, the highlighting tab will look like this: _. The text will be highlighted for any active window, and for any downloaded documents in the active window (after the document has downloaded completely). Thus, to search for 2 presidents, you would enter in the textbox: "George Washington`Abraham Lincoln" without the quotes. The current document, if it contained only 1 sentence would look like this: George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were two of the greatest presidents of the United States. Note that case is unimportant; so you could have entered "george washington`abraham lincoln" to get the same highlighting even though the text in the terms are capitalized.
Another option is to select text in the document, right-click and select Highlight Selection from the context menu. To turn highlighting off, just click the _ tab in the sidebar.
If highlighting is in effect, but you want to highlight different terms, you must first turn off highlighting by clicking the _ tab, enter the new terms in the text box, then clicking the _ again to turn it on.
Note: This feature takes some processing power, so if you are highlighting many terms in a long document, or very common terms, it could take several seconds or more to see the effect. So when you are done with highlighting, be sure to turn it off by clicking on the _ tab again.
There are tabs on the second toolbar for more restricted searches. To use this, enter terms in the textbox on the second toolbar, then click one or more of the following tabs.
D - Define the word or phrase.
T - Look up synonyms and antonyms in the thesaurus.
M - Look it up in the Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia.
C - Look it up in the Columbia Encyclopedia.
You can use more than 1 reference at a time for the same terms. Just click the tabs for the information that you want. Each page will download in the background. If you use the same reference for more than 1 word or phrase, then you can just press Enter after typing in the search terms to submit that search.
The textbox can be quickly cleared, either by double-clicking in it, or, if the textbox has focus, by pressing Esc.
Tip: Another feature that can save time is to double-click the textbox to clear it and give it focus, type the letter of the tab, which isn't case-sensitive, followed by a space, then followed by your terms. This allows you to change where something is looked up without lifting your hand from the keyboard to use the mouse. If you want to look up another term in the same reference or use the same search engine, then you can just enter the new terms, then press Enter.
Example: you just did a search using Google, so that tab is the current tab, but now you want to look a word up in the dictionary. Double-click the textbox to give it focus and to clear it, type "d " and then the word that you want defined. Press Enter to submit the results. If you want to look up another word in the dictionary, then double-click the textbox again to clear it, type the word, then press Enter to submit another word to the dictionary.
You can also select any word or phrase in a document, right-click the document to bring up the context menu, which includes most of the options in the second toolbar that uses the textbox.
Tip: If you want to select a word, then double-click it, or press Ctrl + click a word to look it up in any reference in the context menu, or to just highlight by selecting the highlighting command.
The Columbia Encyclopedia has more concise entries than Microsoft's Encarta, but Encarta is more complete and better illustrated. Encyclopedia uses Microsoft's Encarta Encyclopedia. Most of the major articles are available to nonsubscribers (anything with a red asterisk beside it is restricted to subscribers). The Columbia Encyclopedia is not as good as Encarta but all of the articles are available and free of charge.
With this same context menu, you can also open an URL if the selected text is an URL, highlight the selected text, or search for it using either Google or Vivisimo.
Note: If nothing is selected in the document, then right-clicking a document takes you to the next document.
Tip: Enter some terms in the textbox, then click any number of tabs for the specific information you want. Thus, enter "electoral college" in the textbox, then click the tabs to do a Google and Vivisimo search, highlight the term in all documents, define it, and look it up in 2 encyclopedias. Each source of information will be downloaded in a separate page. Very convenient!
Some of the menu items are familiar to Windows users, such as File - Open. Other menu items are self-explanatory, or have been explained previously.
Any current page can be loaded into Internet Explorer by selecting Navigation - Load in IE | F8 | L.
There are 2 toolbars. The top toolbar has buttons for the most commonly used functions. The buttons with letters correspond to the shortcut key used for that option on the submenu, with different colored backgrounds corresponding to the different submenus.
The 2nd toolbar has buttons for functions using the sidebar. The buttons to the left of the black divider, and to the right of the textbox use the textbox for various search functions. To learn the function of any toolbar button, place the mouse cursor over the button for a tool tip description.
The textbox on the 2nd toolbar can be quickly cleared either by double-clicking in it, or, if the textbox has focus, by pressing Esc.
