[WEB4LIB] Large/Small Print Web Page Viewers

[Robert J. Tiess]

BIGtext and smallText have been upgraded and
now support multiple web page accesses without
any need to return to the original URL entry
page:

   http://www.domaindlx.com/expansearch

Most URLs are recoded to route all http links
back through the BIG/smallText viewers.  An
extra link is also now included at the bottom
of the newly generated page so users may view
it in its original state.

Apologies to anyone who accessed the scripts
between 8pm last night and 2am this morning
(EST) and may have encountered some odd CGI
errors. These two scripts underwent massive
renovation in that period, doubling in
size--hopefully for the better ;-)  Although
these scripts are still not by any means
perfect, they have performed well with pages
coded in accordance with W3.org standards.

The primary goal of these services is to extend
viewing flexibilities to patrons working on
preset ("locked-down") workstations or at
access points where browser prefence-alteration
is disallowed or impractical.  SmallTEXT has
already helped users squeeze pages of text into
a page or two to help conserve paper and greatly
reduce print costs.

I'm happy to make these revised Perl scripts
freely available for noncommercial local
applications upon request.  These scripts may be
customized to suit your needs and the parsing
routines may be used to derive other web page
processing services.  If you plan to use BIG/
smallText, please consider installing the
scripts locally to preserve bandwith at my end.

The "other goal" here is to demonstrate the
power and flexibility of HTML, JavaScript, CGI,
etc., especially with regards to their
specialized applications in library services.

Thank you again to all those of you who have
reviewed these services.  As always, any
constructive feedback is welcome.

Robert Tiess

rjtiess at warwick.net
http://members.tripod.com/~rtiess