WebTracer2 for website structure visualization

I periodically review web sites. And when I do, I like to be able to see graphical illustrations of their structures. In the past I've created these using aharef. The graphs this site creates are helpful, but there's no interactivity - you can't point to a node and find out what page on the website it represents, you can't click on a node to be taken to the page, etc.

Well, I've just found a software app that takes this concept to the next level. Called WebTracer2, you run the "spider" program to create a map file of your site, and then you run the "visualizer" program to see the illustration. WebTracer2 has 3 advantages over aharef:

• When you hover your mouse over a node, it displays the url of the page the node represents.


• When you click on a node, the page represented by that node is displayed in your web browser.


• You can use your arrow keys to zoom in and out and rotate the graph.

It's not perfect - it requires a lot of horsepower, and you can't make it display the url's for all of the nodes simultaneously; but it is a big jump in the right direction.

Vyser RoamAbout - browser widgets

Do you every find yourself looking at a web page containing an address that you want to map, but there's no map on the page and no link to have it mapped? So you open another page to display Google Maps, MSN Maps, or Mapquest, go back to the original page, cut the first line of the address, go to the map page, paste the text into the search field, go back to the original page, cut the second line of the address, go back to the map page, and paste the rest of the text into the search field, and then click on the button to display the address on the map - whew!

Or you are reading about a company, and you decide you want to look up the company's stock price, or get other information about the company. So you cut the company's name, then go to one of the myriad of business sites (e.g., Yahoo Finance, MSN Money, Google Finance, SmartMoney, etc.), paste the name of the company into the search box, and then click the button to display information about the company.

How would you like to display an address on a map just by selecting it and clicking a button? Or display information about a company just by selecting it and clicking a button? You can do these things and more with Vyser RoamAbout (though admittedly -for now - only if you are using Firefox).

RoamAbout puts an icon in the lower right corner of your browser window. You click on it to open or close a sliding icon bar displaying icons for the functions it provides. The picture below shows what your browser window looks like after you select an address and click on the "map" icon:

The picture below shows what your browser window looks like when you select a company name and click on the "stock quotes" icon:

Google mashup - polluters

If you want to scare yourself.