gHacks technology news » mashlogic http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:29:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Add Text Link Information To Websites http://www.ghacks.net/2009/06/02/add-text-link-information-to-websites/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/06/02/add-text-link-information-to-websites/#comments Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:29:11 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2009/06/02/add-text-link-information-to-websites/ mashlogic1Mashlogic is a popular Firefox add-on that adds text links that display information when hovered over. What makes the add-on interesting is the ability to customize what kind of information are provided. This ranges from usual sources such as Wikipedia, IMDB or Twitter to niche information such as a currency converter, job search, document search or vocabulary lookup. Some or all of these can be configured in the options of the add-on so that only links are provided that suite the user’s needs.

Mashlogic will load its contents after the page has been loaded fully. It has been designed this way to avoid delays or lags while loading the website. The links are displayed as dotted light blue links which can be easily distinguished to the normal links that are displayed on websites. It is even possible to remove the original links on a website and replace them with only those provided by the add-on.

text link information

Hovering over a link will open a popup window right next to the text link that displays information from the sources selected during configuration of the web browser add-on.

information

There are two major problems that become obvious after using Mashlogic for a while. The first is that a lot of links will be added to websites if the user selects a lot of different information providers. Selecting many service providers results in dozens of additional links on websites which can really turn out to be confusing.

The second problem becomes only obvious if the NoScript add-on is installed in the web browser. The Mashlogic add-on will only work if scripts are allowed to run on the active website which can really reduce the usefulness of the add-on.

Mashlogic offers an interesting concept that works if only a few information providers are selected. Users who prefer a less active approach and those with the NoScript add-on installed might want to check out Hyperwords instead.

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