The Project
This is a simple Chrome Extension that allows you to hover over a link to see an excerpt (first 200 characters) from that links page.
This extension uses a hover event to trigger an AJAX request and changes the “title” attribute of the link to the excerpt. Thus Chrome will show a dialogue box with the excerpt in it.
Reflection
I created this project in 2017 at the request of some friends in medical school who believed it would make studying from Wikipedia easier. The ability to preview links by hovering significantly enhanced the user experience, and even the Wikipedia web team agreed. Since then, Wikipedia has adopted this “hover preview” as a native feature on the site.
