chinese-novel-word-reductor

Some people don't know how to type paragraphs, instead, using either very short sentences or only partial sentences. These bad practices should be omitted from Chinese novels. This extension tries to remove all such text in a particular website.

There are 2 types: "length only" and "length + speech". The former will only preserve length >= Len Min; while the latter will preserve the former AND include all the speech where speech >= Speech Min. The defaults are 47 for Len Min, which is about 1.5 lines on 32px font on computer device (width larger than 720px).

Both will preserve anything starting with 【, as it's usually include for 系统。Of course, some writers don't open with 【 , in which case it'll be removed and you'll have to turn it off to check it. It only works in this two cases:

 【姓名：陈衍】
 【境界：凡人】 
 【功德：一百】

and

 【姓名：陈衍
  境界：凡人   
  功德：一百】

Both, in usual case, can be detected; unless it's put on top of the page as the first line, which one haven't test if it'll work or not.

Of course, it has additionally other stuffs, like change the background color of ddxs and 31xiaoshuo site to match what one wants; but that isn't supported for the main functionality, just a sidetracked stuff that you can ignore.

Beside the title, there is a red button on the LHS. That button is for resubscription. Note, when your computer shut off unexpectedly, either due to computer have problems (like mine does), or power trip, or computer too hot it shut off automatically, etc. The extension will fail. The failure sometimes are minor, like it cannot reinitialize itself back, therefore you can either use this red button, or go to your browser's Extension -> then find the extension and press refresh.

Note, the refresh above will clear your storage, that's why we have the red button. However, unexpected shut down can clear your storage without warning, as tested, so in that case, you might need to set back your settings again.

As for the white button on the right side, sometimes, your target doesn't do its work in first stage, so you can click again to redo it second time.

That's it for the introduction. Next, let's discuss

Difference between dynamic-extension and static extension

Here are the comparisons

Dynamic	Static
Can choose between length only and length + speech for each XiaoShuo	Cannot ...
Manual choose length only and length + speech	Auto, where you can set breakpoints
Can change website name if 69xinshu changed	Cannot ...
You need to click on the extension every time your browser sleeps/restart computer	It run automatically without clicking browser extension
If your computer fail unexpectedly, like power trip, saved state might be gone	Haven't met a situation where it will be gone.
Turned off by default, and can be turned off	Turned on by default, and cannot be turned off

How To Install (Both Dynamic and Static)

Easy. First, you'd need to clone this repo (or for those non-git user, click download zip):

Unpacked the zip file (don't need me to teach you how, right?) Then, you need to allow import this either the dynamic-extension or the static-extension into your browser. In Brave browser, that's going to "manage your extension"

Activate developer mode

Load unpacked

Then just choose the folder where you'd unzip your file just now, probably a folder named chinese-novel-word-reductor. If your folder have another layer, that is, this file is inside, say, chinese-novel-word-reductor/chinese-novel-word-reductor/README.md, then you should open the inner chinese-novel-word-reductor folder instead of the outer one.

Then, choose, whether you want dynamic-extension or static-extension. Click the folder whichever you choose. Violà!

How To Use (Dynamic)

When you visit a page like https://www.69xinshu.com/txt/54562/36854717, you can open the extension and click whether you want length only or length with speech. Reload the page after updating your choice. (If it doesn't work, check that it is ticked again. If it isn't, do it again, close the extension window, and reload again.) Now, you should see it work.

If you restart your computer, unfortunately, the extension doesn't immediately work. You have to open the extension window, then close it, to trigger the content script. NOTE: this error only exist in dynamic content scripts like 69shu; but for static content script like ddxs and 31xiaoshuo, this isn't required nor reset by restarting computer normally.

NOTE: the setting is site specific. E.g. going to https://www.69xinshu.com/txt/54562/36854717 will set the setting for book 54562 (see the hyperlink for this code). If you want to turn it off, you'd have to visit 54562 or meddle with extension's console (pro only) from await chrome.storage.local.get(['length', 'len_speech']).

You can change how long you want for length min (7 - 150 characters), and speech min (0 - 150 characters); and since 69shu has been changing site name frequently (from 69shu to 69shuba to 69xinshu), we allowed for you to change site name too!

Finally, note that this doesn't include all cases. There are some cases where the extension will fail; and certainly the extension isn't perfect in cancelling all, esp. at the starting of the page and ending of page, so you'll have to bear with the imperfection (or don't use the extension if you need perfection, for your sake). If you note any large problems, do write an issue in github issue.

How To Use (Static)

It'll run automatically. Though, you can make manual change to the preference setting. However, if you computer keep crashing, like mine does, it's best recommended that you change the setting not from the extension popup, but from the source code static-extension/background.js value. In that case:

• Len Min is brklen.
• Speech Min is brkspch.
• % Speech is p_spch.
• % Length is p_len.

Understanding "% Speech" and "% Length" (Static)

Let's say, your Len Min is 47, "% Speech" = 70%, "% Length" = 50%. So this is how it works. Length here means words, and also means characters. That's because unlike English where one word has multiple characters, Chinese is one word equals one character.

1. Check, for all paragraphs, whether at least 71% of the paragraphs has length >= 47. If yes, it'll return the original passage.
2. If no, (70% or less of original text has length >= 47), it'll generate the speech text.
3. After generate the speech text, it'll check whether the speech text has at least 51% paragraphs length >= 47. Note, this isn't compared with original text, but compared with the generated speech text. if yes, it'll return the speech text.
4. If no, (50% or less of speech text has length >= 47), it'll generate and return the length text.

That's how it works. Some people will be confused thinking this is how it works.

1. If original text > 70% has more than 47 characters, return speech text.
2. Else if original text > 50% has more than 47 characters, return length text. Wrong! Absolutely wrong! It isn't that simple. It has a more complicated logic.

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Learnings

Fetch tabs

Of course one can't fetch tabs with window.location.href as it'll get the tab for extension. Then, one use chrome.tabs.query instead; with one caveat: The original asked to pass in lastFocusedWindow, which always return undefined. Instead, we pass in currentWindow to deal with it correctly.