Mouse pointer text line highlighter?

[DJR96]

I doubt this would be a feature within Windows, or even an internet browser, but what I am hoping someone might be able to direct me to is a program/app/widget that will achieve the sort of behaviour seen here:- http://jsbin.com/avuku/15

Hopefully, whenever a mouse pointer is over a block of text, a right-click menu item (or double right-click) can toggle the highlighter on/off. The highlighter highlights the line of text nearest to the mouse pointer.

Does anyone know of such a thing? It sure would be handy and make reading long blocks of text easier.

 

[MilesAhead]

EditPad Lite 7 has settings to highlight the active line. It doesn't work on mouse hover. It works on the caret position. But you can also set it to keep the highlight even when you click another window.

Of course this only works for text inside the editor.

 

[DJR96]

Thanks, but not what I had in mind.

 

[A Guy]

Usually that is written into a page with CSS. This is as close as I could find, web pages only.

markkit.net - the web highlighter

A Guy

 

[DJR96]

Thank you too.

Given the link I posted in the first post, I'm thinking it may need to be a javascript code embedded into web pages for it to work. I hope not though. I know very little about any such coding and wouldn't have a clue how to go about it.
That markkit is clever, adding it's functionality to any other web page. But it's not just hovering with the mouse pointer though.
I wonder if MS would be interested in the concept to add to it's accessibility options?

 

[MilesAhead]

Given the link I posted in the first post, I'm thinking it may need to be a javascript code embedded into web pages for it to work.

Going on the assumption the web server will not let just anybody modify pages, then the highlighter works on the pages in the cache/memory. Try refresh page and see if it goes away.

 

[A Guy]

As I mentioned, most web pages would use CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) to do it

Text Rollovers: What's Good and What is Just Plain Bad

That web page must just be a go between between you and the web pages it highlights. There was a site (s) where you can highlight pages and send a link to others, but the site gives it a new url that has the highlighting. I could see where an OS might have that ability in it's Ease of access area, with various colors based on background/text color on the page. But they don't have it currently/ A Guy

 

[MilesAhead]

There was a site (s) where you can highlight pages and send a link to others

I wonder if the past tense was due to content infringement issues? Seems like just for hot tracking the cursor there should be a way to do it. Probably browser extension would br simplest. Even with css you have to identify the area to apply the css attribute somehow.

 

[MilesAhead]

This shows how it was done using JavaScript and css:
JS Bin - Collaborative JavaScript Debugging

 

[A Guy]

Oh, the sites are still there. I just meant there was a site when searching. There are actually many:

Top Web Annotation and Markup Tools

I found this too:

Highlight web with Marker.to - best marker, highlighter, annotator!

A Guy

 

[MilesAhead]

Yeah. Most likely they dynamically generate new modified pages. There must be a JS variable or function that gets the current line under mouse pointer. Anything I learned of JavaScript was far enough back that I've forgotten. It wasn't much to start with.

 

[DJR96]

To A Guy, yes there are quite a number of highlighting tools available. They serve a purpose no doubt. But they're simply not a tool to make it easier to read large blocks of text. They're a traditional highlighter.

MilesAhead, I think you understand what I'm after. And yes, it would be best if it were a feature of the operating system so that it could be used on any block of text in any program. Whether it be in a word-processor or on a webpage in a browser, or even in Windows help files.

Interestingly, in that JS bin example, if you use your scroll wheel to move down the block of text, the highlight line doesn't follow the pointer. It becomes out of sync. Which would be problem.
But again, this is only a means of embedding the feature into a webpage. Not system wide.

Good discussion guys. Thank you.