Control the aesthetics and improve the navigability of HTML IETF RFC documents. Optional automatic redirects from TXT docs.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: THIS EXTENSION WILL NO LONGER BE UPDATED.
TL;DR: I can't be bothered.
The IETF continuously alter their delivery of RFCs (URLs and content), and every time, this extension needs to be altered to account for those changes. Some functionality is already lost/broken and, as time goes on, I expect incremental loss/breakage of functionality until, at some point in the future, it will cease to function entirely.
I built the first draft of this extension nearly a decade ago and have updated and improved it many, many times since, but actually hardly ever need it myself. The average approximate user base for years has hovered around 1000, so although that's 1000 people who'll experience minor inconvenience, it's hardly the end of the world. Feel free to take the copyleft open source code and build your own from it, or something.
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This extension will be initiated when viewing a selection of ietf.org and rfc-editor.org pages.
Although its primary purpose is to restyle HTML RFCs in accordance with the user's preferences, it will also:
• Read HTML RFC pages and, from what it finds, create a Table of Contents (ToC) containing links to all page sections and place it in a fixed position at the top-right corner of the window. It's accessible by click, tap or the accesskey "T".
• Unearths a color coded legend present in all HTML RFC pages to make it more accessible by the addition of some new HTML, styling, and scripting. Its accesskey is "L" and can also be accessed with a click or tap.
• Optionally (disabled by default) automatically redirect from plain text RFCs to their HTML versions.
The restyling is mostly color oriented but includes:
• Optional (enabled by default) hiding of chunks of white space and "page separators" featured as headers and footers when printing the documents.
• An adjustable (from none to shampooed-and-blow-dried-puppy) fuzzy border around the text content to reduce tunnel vision when reading long documents.
OPTIONS:
• Left clicking the RFCRestyle extension icon will usher forth the options pop-up. This pop-up includes all the controls for setting the options using native Chrome form inputs. Changes to the options are saved automatically.
• Up to 5 separate, fully customisable profiles, each with its own unique settings, may be stored for immediate access. The last used profile will be used when next visiting an RFC or Draft. Changes made to the settings of one profile will not affect the settings in other profiles.
• Settings can be optionally (disabled by default) set to "sync" across all instances of Chrome the user is logged in to (if the user also has Chrome's sync enabled). Unlike all other settings, this is a global option that affects every profile; it's all-or-nothing! When unchecking the option, synced data will be cleared but the henceforth unsynchronised profiles will remain stored on the local machines previously synced.
· Learn more about Chrome sync: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/165139
ACCESSIBILITY:
• All aspects of the extension have been built with accessibility in mind, and no features should be hard to use for anyone. Keyboard and mouse access has been well tested but touch screen access hasn't (although it should be fine).
• accesskey access for the ToC and Legend ("T" and "L") is dependant on operating system. On Linux and Windows "alt+<key>" and on Mac "control+option+<key>" or "control+option+shift+<key>" should work. The implementation is in accordance with web standards, so however you normally access web-app functionality via accesskeys will be how to access the ToC and Legend on RFCs while using this extension. For more info please see: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Global_attributes/accesskey
NOTE REGARDING PRINTING:
• Due to the multiple changes made to the styling and structure of the affected documents; before printing any document, uncheck the "Restyle" option to temporarily revert to the document's default state, then re-enable the option when finished.
PRIVACY:
• This extension does not collect or process any personal data or communicate its activity with any external application. Settings are stored locally or optionally synced. If the option to sync the settings to all instances of Chrome the user is logged in to is checked, the settings will be shared with other devices where the user has Chrome's sync enabled, opens Chrome and logs in to their account.
OPEN SOURCE & COPYLEFT LICENSED:
• The entire GNU GPL v3.0 licensed extension code and other files can be found on GitHub at https://github.com/FredGandt/RFCRestyle
• Change-Log from June 8, 2013 available at GitHub
Latest reviews
- (2023-03-09) Al Sto: Does not work
- (2022-11-26) dumbasPL (nezu): Now reading RFCs is enjoyable again.
- (2022-05-29) wenbin wei: 超棒
- (2021-05-24) Nadzeya Hutsko: Great extension! Thank you so much for your work!
- (2021-05-16) Sinan Emre Kutlu: Great! But "Table of content" section doesn't work. (checked on RFC854)
- (2021-05-14) Mustapha Hadid: Great extension, but doesn't work anymore!
- (2021-01-08) Alex Lei: 优秀的RFC格式化工具,添加浮动目录的功能很好用
- (2020-06-25) Madhu Gururajen: Brilliant tool to make reading RFCs painless!
- (2019-06-08) Kia Raad: Nice minimal tool. Good job 👍
- (2019-05-06) Zhaoxuan Zhai: It's so great
- (2018-09-15) Rahul Sundaresan: Does a great job in making RFCs more readable
- (2018-07-13) Rick Bowen: Exactly what I was looking for. Works perfectly, very easy to use out of the box. Thank you!!
- (2017-09-12) Grey Li: Thanks!
- (2017-06-02) Micah Lyle: Awesome thanks!!
- (2016-10-16) ruben klink: Makes it much easier to read RFC's, just plain simple.
- (2015-11-05) Thanks. I want to change the background color, is that possible?
- (2015-02-10) Bouni: I would like to be able to modify the CSS to my personal needs. Is that possible? I don't like that it just uses the center 50% of my screen but with some modification definitely a great extension!
- (2015-01-21) Sakthi Kumar Chandrabose: reading RFC turns cool :P
- (2014-05-06) Mike Sergio: A very nice way to read what otherwise would be hard to quickly parse by eye. One request, is it possible to add an option to remove the header and footers (gray spans) on each page? That way, it looks like your reading something that was meant for web rather than to be published on paper?
- (2014-04-24) Ted Feng: Great extension.
- (2014-01-22) Alek Ratzloff: Very nice way to prettify RFC. Keep up the good work.