Jabago - Black Google and Blackify the Web

Add “blackify” and “enlargify” tools to your browser in 2 easy steps (12 steps if you use IE)

The internet has clearly become the most sensible medium for keeping up with the news, technology, and, well, everything. While some people are content to read small black text from a computer monitor all day long, most find that it makes their eyes sore. I’ve found that reading light colored text with a black background (like what you’re reading) greatly reduces the strain on my eyes. Unfortunately, most of the best sites on the web are formatted with black text on a white background. To fix this, I’ve created a couple buttons that will "blackify" and "enlargify" any website.

If you’re using Firefox, Safari, Opera, or Netscape (Internet Explorer users click here), simply drag each of these buttons up to your bookmarks toolbar. If you don’t like them, you can right click on them on your toolbar and select delete. They won’t harm, track, or spy on your computer.

Now browse to any website (or click here to go to wikipedia), then click them one at a time. Voila! The blackify button will render the page black with light text, and the enlargify button will enlarge all the text and convert it to an easy to read font.

If you want your blackify and enlargify buttons to include these icons , you will need to add them to your browser slightly differently. For instructions, click here for blackify and here for enlargify.

 

How do they work? These buttons each call a JavaScript function that imports a new cascading style sheet (CSS) from the jabago.com server. The blackify style sheet replaces all background images and colors with black, all text with light grey text, and all links with light orange. The enlargify style sheet increases all text to 24 pixels tall and replaces the all fonts with arial for easy reading. Feel free to download and modify the style sheets and scripts.

I’m also working on some custom blackify and enlarfify buttons that reformat some of my favorite web sites. You can find all of the web tools I create listed here.

15 comments February 16th, 2007

blackify and enlargify initiatives

One of my priorities is to create a “blackify” button for various web sites. A blackify button causes the background of the page to turn black and the text to become light. I find that this greatly increases my ability to read from a page without tiring my eyes. Similarly, I create “enlargify” buttons that increase the font size so that the user can read from the screen in a more comfortable posture (perhaps reclined).

If you frequently read from a particular web site and you find it hurts your eyes, feel free to request a custom blackify or enlargify button for that site by posting a comment on the requests page.

Add comment February 13th, 2007

welcome

As a web developer, I’m constantly learning to solve new problems. I have benefited greatly from the open source community, and I am very grateful. This blog is intended to give back to that community. I will be posting solutions on various topics, from web design to the ergonomics of sitting in front of a computer screen all day. I hope you find the information useful and I thank you for visiting.

Add comment February 13th, 2007