Adblock Plus and (a little) more
New "Getting Started" page · 2008-11-25 09:41 by Wladimir Palant
I created a new documentation page called Getting Started with Adblock Plus. The idea is to provide an overview for new users with links to all the relevant information. It should replace the Tip Of The Day which never really took off. Of course, some more illustrations (or, more likely, animations) need to be added to the “Solving problems” section. I also want to add “Using Adblock Plus in Thunderbird” to “First steps” because people usually don’t understand what Adblock Plus will do in a mail client. Question is, what else should go onto that page? Suggestions?
Comment [8]
Commenting is closed for this article.
Hamous · 2008-11-25 18:31 · #
Perhaps a short description on how Adblock works; in a user friendly style. e.g.: Adblock searches the pages for addresses/links and blocks the loading of these, if they match a filter. There exist also element hiding rules, which base on CSS and only hides advertisements, that cannot be blocked… etc.
Hamous
Reply from Wladimir Palant:
Done.
Ares2 · 2008-11-25 20:01 · #
What about something like: “Be sure to check out First steps after the installation.” added to the first paragraph?
I think this chapter and ‘Solving problems’ are useful for every user, but they get a bit lost below all those different installation instructions (which shouldn’t be necessary for most users).
Reply from Wladimir Palant:
I restructured the page – hopefully the important information is easier to find now.
Oodles of Noodles · 2008-11-25 22:46 · #
I use ABP + Element Hiding Helper in Thunderbird to strip out most of the junk at the top of pages in the news I receive by RSS, leaving only the article at the top. This better uses screen estate, and sometimes I’ll read from the preview pane which is a bit smaller.
And the usual uses in Fx of course :3
adum · 2008-11-26 19:02 · #
Your restructured version is better, but perhaps it could be improved. When you open the link in a standard-user’s screen you only see installing and unistalling instructions; you must scroll the page in order to see the other instructions.
I would suggest to move the unistalling instuctions to the bottom of the page (I think that a link at the beginning would be enough), and perhaps some similar for installing instructions (links, or paragraph hidden, with a shorter visible description).
I am not sure if some kind of short explanation (with a link for further details) about Element hiding versus blocking would be OK or too much for a general description.
Reply from Wladimir Palant:
I added a general Adblock Plus description at the start – it also mentions element hiding.
Hamous · 2008-11-28 00:29 · #
Will you also change the help menu in Adblock Plus? Even in the newest development builds there is a link to “tips of the day”. Perhaps a link to “Getting Started” would be more useful.
Hamous
Reply from Wladimir Palant:
I will change that but only in the next release – it is too late to change strings now. I will remove “tip of the day” page however and make it redirect to “getting started”.
NGUYỄN Mạnh Hùng · 2008-12-03 09:57 · #
Would you make it localizable? That would be more helpful to user. And I’ll gladly offer my translation for it :)
Reply from Wladimir Palant:
Well, theoretically the entire website can be translated – but making changes is already pretty hard with only three translations. And “Getting Started” only exists in English right now, I need to get it finished before it is translated.
NGUYỄN Mạnh Hùng · 2008-12-03 10:32 · #
Yeah, I think you may want to select the most important pages and make them localizable, so that the community can help you with the translation, and more users will benefit from it. Just notify us when you’re ready :)
By the way, I have made a filters list for Vietnam and put it on Googlecode1 for some time. It is just a supplemental list to Easylist. I and my friends have tested it on over 3,000 sites and we haven’t notice any problems so far. Now I want it to be listed on [2] and [3]. Should I email you directly or have to contact rick752 first?
[1]: http://code.google.com/p/adblockplus-vietnam/
[2]: http://adblockplus.org/en/subscriptions
[3]: http://easylist.adblockplus.org/
Via · 2008-12-17 23:33 · #
I wanted to suggest you add the Getting Started page to the menu, but I see that Hamous has suggested that above. I think I may be a typical user: I’ve been using Adblock+ for a year (after adding filters when I first downloaded it) and only today have spent a few minutes getting familiar with configuration and other issues by reading the blog and getting to the Getting Started page. Everyone needs to read this.
I like the option to enable ads on particular sites, those where the ads are not obnoxious and esp. smaller sites which are ad-supported. This is perfect, and I couldn’t use AdBlock+ without this feature.
thanks. I can’t help with your project, but I’ve passed your creation on to several friends, and all totally dig it and can’t surf without it.