Exercise: Next time you read an article or anything other text-based on the web, go ahead and count the number of bracket pairs of the content. Also, decide for each info that is wrapped into brackets, if it actually helps you understand the context and meaning, or not. What I noticed is, that most stuff we write into brackets is completely unnecessary when it comes to understand the content. Either because that extra piece of information is just off-topic, not helpful, irrelevant or even so long that we forgot the actual meaning of the sentence. So why not turn these static brackets into something interactive, something that hides this extra info by default, and only when we want that extra, we can expand the brackets individually to reveal it. That is what the concept of brktfldg, bracket foiling, is all about. I created it as a browser extension that collapses all brackets on any website, so we can stay focused reading less and understanding more. Besides this, you got indicators, how many words are collapse with each pair, so you can decide: “do I really want to read over these extra 20 words or not, well only one word there, let me see …” Quick view functionality is also bundled in, you can define a custom number of words, for which you want the brackets to open directly on mouseover, so you don't have to click to unfold. You can even make your brackets look as fancy as something like “⦓ … ⦔” or “⎨ … ⎬”. And yeah, if you don't feel it – just head over to Wikipedia: without brackets it's a whole new experience, trust me. Hope the extension helps you as much as me on the way trying to get simplicity into our digital overload again. Let me know.

brktfldg · Bracket Folding

Get rid of all these brackets: Read less, understand more.

Get rid of all these brackets: Read less, understand more.