I tried googling and I got a lot of hits for what reader mode does and how to enable it, but nobody can explain what the browser is actually doing.

Do sites have pared-down versions of their pages specifically for reader mode? Or does the browser just scan for particular HTML tags?

  • Melllvar@startrek.websiteEnglish
    281·
    3 days ago

    A web page is a combination of a structured document and a separate stylesheet. The same structured document can be styled in radically different ways just by changing the stylesheet. This is how a website can offer different skins, light/dark mode, etc.

    Consider this basic HTML document:

    <html>
   <head><title>Test Page</title></head>
   <body>
      <p>This is a paragraph.</p>
      <ul>
         <li>This is an unordered bullet-point list item</li>
         <li>This is also a list item</li>
      </ul>
   </body>
</html>

    And here’s a stylesheet to make the bullet points square:

    ul {
  list-style-type: square;
}

    Change the stylesheet and you change how the document is rendered. “Reader mode” is just a minimalist stylesheet built into the browser.

    • AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works
      9·
      3 days ago

      I think OP is asking how the browser figures out what is the important content to display in reader mode and what’s the cruft that can be dropped.