Web Slices are a web feed technology based on the hAtom Microformat[1] that allows users to subscribe to portions of a web page.[2][3][4][5]Microsoft developed the Web Slice format, and published a specification under their Open Specification Promise.[1] The specification is not published by any independent standards body. Introduced in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1, Web Slices can be previewed in a fly-out window.[6] As of 2012,[update] Internet Explorer 8 and 9 were the only browsers to support Web Slices natively, although Mozilla Firefox had support via an add-on called webchunks.[7]
Implementation
A Web Slice has 9 properties: the Web Slice id, entry title, entry content, end time, alternative display source, alternative navigation, alternative update source, and time to live.[1]
The 3 required properties are: the Web Slice id, entry title, and entry content.
To specify the default web slice on a page with multiple web slices, add:[8]
<linkrel="default-slice"<!--Mustbe"default-slice"-->
type="application/x-hatom"
<!-- Must be "application/x-hatom" -->
href="id of webslice"
<!-- The ID of the web slice -->
/>
Sample Webslice
<divclass="hslice"id ="hslice-id goes here"><!-- The ID of the hSlice --><divstyle="display:none"class=<"entry-title">Title goes here</div><--Thetitle--><spanclass="ttl"style="display:none">360</span><!-- How often to refresh in minutes --><abbrclass="endtime"title="10 Jan 2020 00:00:00 UTC"></abbr><!-- When the link expires --><divclass="entry-content">
The content goes here
</div>
Support
Mozilla Firefox
While Firefox does not have built in support for web slices, extensions have been created to give the ability to read web slices.
WebChunks
WebChunks is a Mozilla Firefox 3 implementation of Microsoft Webslices. It allows you to "follow" an area of a web page through a dedicated feed bookmarked in a new toolbar. With Greasemonkey, WebChunks can insert webchunks or webslices markup into any web page so the Webchunks extension handles it.[7][9][10][11][12][13]
Fireclip
Fireclip is a Firefox addon that lets you "clip out" parts of a website and watch them for changes. It lets you track specific parts of a website in a similar manner to web slices.[14][15][16][17][18][19]
PageSlices
Pageslices was another Firefox addon that allowed not only storing parts of websites but also organizing them by adding on custom pages.[20]
Google Chrome
Google Chrome, like Firefox, does not have built in support for web slices. However, the extension API new to Chrome 4 allows extensions to be created to give the ability to relatively simply create arbitrary webslices[21] of any content from any page.
Opera
Although it was rumored that Opera 10 would have support for web slices, this did not come to pass.[22][23] Opera does have a "widgetize" feature likened to web slices which allows web pages to be displayed on a user's desktop.[24]