firefox isolation extension

January 26, 2009 1:33 AM

I'm looking for an extension that on any web page will allow you to click on a frame and black out everything else on the page, kind of like Pages 09 does when you go to full screen mode. One of the nice features of Safari on the iphone is that double tapping on any frame will zoom in, filling the window with just that frame. On my iMac zooming in would be unneeded, but blacking out everything except that frame would be fantastic. Anyone know of any that does anything similar?
posted by dbooster to technology (4 comments total)

I'm not sure if there is a firefox extension that does what you seek (I couldn't dig one up). However, there is a mac app that does: Isolator. For people reading this interested in doing the same thing in windows there is also Dropcloth and Ghoster.
posted by JFitzpatrick at 4:18 AM on January 26

Firefox does this (sort of) without an extension: Context-click --> This frame --> Show only this frame (or, Open frame in new tab/window)

Navigate back one page (or close tab/window) to get the rest of it up again.
posted by caution live frogs at 5:38 AM on January 26

I'm pretty sure you don't mean "frames" specifically -- the iphone zooms to any block-level html element, not just frames.

In safari you can right-click on any element in the page and select "Inspect element" -- this will open up a web inspector window and will also dim out everything except the element you selected; this ends up being very similar to the iphone's zoom feature, but with dimming instead of zooming. (You can adjust which element is highlit by choosing different bits inside that web inspector window -- so if it's highlit only a paragraph but you want the whole group of text that paragraph is part of, you can click the parent element in the crumbtrail-like thing at the bottom of the inspector window.)

(You may need to turn on Developer mode (Preferences -> Advanced -> "Show Develop Menu" first for this to work.)
posted by ook at 11:00 AM on January 26

Not exactly what you're after (and like look ook I wonder if you really do mean frames), but the Aardvark extension enables you to select and isolate elements on any web page via a keyboard shortcut.
posted by amestoy at 1:02 PM on January 26