My brother Tony Murray developed a firefox extension called Print Hint, More info here. It is a convenience to let the user know if a print version of a webpage exists (as defined in a media=”print” stylesheet). This is good because it makes something which was invisible, visible, and encourages best web design practice.

The legacy solution for provision of a printable version of a web page was to create another version of a page, and include an external link to it from the original page. PrintHint can also pick up the presence of one of these links on a page (using heuristics, i.e. guesswork). The problem with the separate version is that the content can rapidly diverge from the original, and so you end up with three-month out-of-date information on a slice of dead tree.

I’m currently working to update this firefox extension, and a fine line must be trodden between an attempt to penalise the web page designer for doing things the “wrong” way, and castigating the user, which should be avoided at all costs.

Maybe I’ll provide a background warning; “please check that this print version is as up to date as the online version”.

You can download a beta version of Printhint 0.3 here [Download offline for now].