How-To Geek
The xkcd Alt Text Extension Takes Half the Fun Out of Reading xkcd
If you didn’t already know that hovering your mouse over any xkcd comic will show you some funny alternate text about the image, you are officially living under a rock.
The xkcd Alt Text extension for Google Chrome moves the alt text right below the image so you don’t have to hover your mouse to read it. Personally I think this ruins half of the fun of reading and finding the hidden text, but if you’d prefer it, here you are.
Also, xkcd is great.
XKCD Alt Text [Google Chrome Extensions]
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Comments (5)
Programmer by day, geek by night, The Geek, also known as Lowell Heddings, spends all his free time bringing you fresh geekery on a daily basis. You can follow him on Google+ if you'd like.
- Published 09/6/10
That’s cool, but I agree with what you said. I love the alt-text because it’s hidden. Dunno why.
I’m living under a rock :(
firefox version? although I’m not sure if I’d use it as it would be a pretty pointless extention to slow firefox down with when I could just move my mouse…
Hi, I’m the author of this extension. After reading your post, I’d like to let you know that I have modified my extension.
The main purpose of my extension was to make the alt-text more accessible. After realizing that you may unintentionally read the alt text before finishing the comic, I’ve added the option (in the Options page) to hide the alt text by default (similar to a spoiler alert).
I’ve also added an option to keep the XKCD header on top.
Well, I kind of forgot how I stumbled upon XKCD. I think I was reading some CNET newsletter which recommended XKCD, UserFriendly, PHD Comics, Penny Arcade and a few others as “geeky” comics. I checked out the XKCD comic for that day after reading the newsletter and coincidentally that day’s strip has been my favorite one till date – One about a guy having difficulty because of his loud-in-bed neighbours. Then the guy brings his own girl and a parabolic antenna and arranges it such that the noise that he makes with his girl in bed gets focused bang on his annoying neighbour!
I still love UserFriendly and PHD Comics but could never get myself used to the deep sarcastic and gaming related humour of Penny Arcade though…