A somewhat common problem I have is that I will go to the website of a web comic, wait for the site (and all of its flash widgets, bells, whistles, etc) to load, and then have to navigate to 3 days ago and wait by the same amount.
I propose a universally adapted URL shortcut mechanism for sites that display daily content: affix the number of days you want to go back at the end of the URL.
So, for example, if I want the Dilbert cartoon for Monday,and today is Thursday, I would type:
www.dilbert.com-3
in my browser
(The delimiter could be a question mark, etc.)-- cowtamer, Aug 27 2009 Fast version http://www.dilbert.com/fastPeople complained when the site changed; this loads slightly faster. [dbmag9, Aug 30 2009] [-] just as useful to type in www.dilbert.com!800x600 or dilbert.com!textonly or dilbert.com18+filter or dilbert.com!mute etc.
now if you want to generically pass a parameter string then I'll very happily bun it, but the http protocol is muddy enough without one-off switches.-- FlyingToaster, Aug 27 2009 I am not proposing an extension to the HTTP protocol or generic "winding back the clock."
What I am proposing is an easy-to-remember CGI argument that is honored by websites that already have links to their previous versions (such as dilbert.com, anything on comics.com, etc.)-- cowtamer, Aug 27 2009 //easy to remember cgi argument//doesn't that require a .cgi file to execute in the first place ?-- FlyingToaster, Aug 27 2009 I think he means MyComic.com/-3 That will get executed by CGI if the server has request rewriting enabled correctly. As for the idea [-] ... for same reason as above comments.-- ixnaum, Aug 28 2009 Nice idea - I'd use it.
Although I'm not sure I'd always remember when the last time I checked it was.
For comics I don't check that often, I tend to save the last one I read as a favourite including the date/number, and then use that to continue reading (changing the favourite once I'm up-to-date).-- dbmag9, Aug 30 2009 random, halfbakery