Web Slice
Web feed technology
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Web Slices are a web feed technology based on the hAtom Microformat[1] that allows users to subscribe to portions of a web page.[2][3][4][5] Microsoft developed the Web Slice format, and published a specification under their Open Specification Promise.[1] The specification is not published by any independent standards body. Introduced in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1, Web Slices can be previewed in a fly-out window.[6] As of 2012,[update] Internet Explorer 8 and 9 were the only browsers to support Web Slices natively, although Mozilla Firefox had support via an add-on called webchunks.[7]
| Web Slice | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developed by | Microsoft |
| Latest release | 0.9 |
| Type of format | Web syndication, Screen scraping |
| Extended from | hAtom Microformat |
| Open format? | Yes, As part of Microsoft Open Specification Promise |
| Website | Web Slice Format Specification - Version 0.9 |
Implementation
A Web Slice has 9 properties: the Web Slice id, entry title, entry content, end time, alternative display source, alternative navigation, alternative update source, and time to live.[1] The 3 required properties are: the Web Slice id, entry title, and entry content.
To disable Web Slices on a web page, add:[8]
<meta name="slice" scheme="IE" content="off"/>
To specify the default web slice on a page with multiple web slices, add:[8]
<link
rel="default-slice"
<!-- Must be "default-slice" -->
type="application/x-hatom"
<!-- Must be "application/x-hatom" -->
href="id of webslice"
<!-- The ID of the web slice -->
/>
Sample Webslice
<div class="hslice" id = "hslice-id goes here">
<!-- The ID of the hSlice -->
<div style="display:none" class=<"entry-title">Title goes here</div>
<-- The title -->
<span class="ttl" style="display:none">360</span>
<!-- How often to refresh in minutes -->
<abbr class="endtime" title="10 Jan 2020 00:00:00 UTC"></abbr>
<!-- When the link expires -->
<div class="entry-content">
The content goes here
</div>
Support
Mozilla Firefox
While Firefox does not have built in support for web slices, extensions have been created to give the ability to read web slices.
WebChunks
WebChunks is a Mozilla Firefox 3 implementation of Microsoft Webslices. It allows you to "follow" an area of a web page through a dedicated feed bookmarked in a new toolbar. With Greasemonkey, WebChunks can insert webchunks or webslices markup into any web page so the Webchunks extension handles it.[7][9][10][11][12][13]
Fireclip
Fireclip is a Firefox addon that lets you "clip out" parts of a website and watch them for changes. It lets you track specific parts of a website in a similar manner to web slices.[14][15][16][17][18][19]
PageSlices
Pageslices was another Firefox addon that allowed not only storing parts of websites but also organizing them by adding on custom pages.[20]
Google Chrome
Google Chrome, like Firefox, does not have built in support for web slices. However, the extension API new to Chrome 4 allows extensions to be created to give the ability to relatively simply create arbitrary webslices[21] of any content from any page.
Opera
Although it was rumored that Opera 10 would have support for web slices, this did not come to pass.[22][23] Opera does have a "widgetize" feature likened to web slices which allows web pages to be displayed on a user's desktop.[24]
See also
- Live bookmarks