How do _YOU_ capture Daz Forum Threads?
HeavyRay
Posts: 186
I'm wondering what method/strategy others use to capture the content of the forum threads here. I can capture a page at a time with (Techsmith) SnagIt, convert each page to a PDF, and finally concatenate the individual pages (where there are more than one page) into a single document. I've also tried using (Evernote) WebClipper, but that gets confused sometimes and captures garbage...
So how is everyone ELSE managing this task?
Thanks in advance for any/all input!
Ray
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Comments
I have just saved page as full html when needed
There are a couple of easy ways if you use Firefox. If you want to stick with PDFs, there are several add-ons that allow you to copy multiple tabs simultaneously into a single PDF. I use Fireshot Pro, as it also allows saving to jpg, pngs, bitmaps, and lets you crop pages before conversion. If you're only going to be viewing on your computer, though, an even more efficient way of storing things is to use MAFs (Mozilla Archive Format) http://maf.mozdev.org/ ; which basically let you copy everything on a page in a single gulp and then pull them back up off-line for viewing in Firefox. I use ScrapBook X, which lets me grab multiple pages on multiple tabs in a single MAF.
I wouldn't want to capture entire pages, there's too many fluff / not contributing anything comments. I use the print screen and CTRL-V to paste into a graphics program and crop the comments which actually give insight. Then I put the images into folders labeled with the content topic.
The nice thing with MAFF is that it technically is a simple zip file of the html, images and javescript that is stored together with a link to original page and timestamp, which appear at top of the page when opened in browser later. You can even use 7-zip to open and see what's inside maf files. Nice for quick snapshots of pages, that scroll down on your screen and wouldn't work with screenshots for that reason.
https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/mozilla-archive-format/
I'm using Evernote with Evernote Web Clipper (Chrome extension).
I used to do that kind of thing but hated how much time it took, especially for things that I just wanted to be able to read later on a plane. Finally I came to the conclusion that it was just more efficent to grab the whole thing and save as MAFFs unless there's a specific tutorial or article that I want to isolate. In those cases I grab the page in Fireshot, crop it down and print it out as a PDF, which only takes a few seconds. I've pretty much come to realize that if I'm thinking that there must be a faster way to do something, someone's probably already made it as a plug-in for Firefox.
It's never occurred to me to try and capture an entire thread. However, those with MS Onenote (it came free with my Surface RT a few years ago). can send a page at a time. It can then be edited as it saves the HTML not a snapshot. I use OneNote for storyboarding, and story notes, recipies, etc.
I'm using this one, by far the best I've come across yet:
https://metaproducts.com/mp/Inquiry_Standard_Edition.htm
It captures any page, or selected part of a page, with a single click, and stores them in a folder hierarchy in a pane in the browser, for easy browsing. Pages can be exported to CHM (Windows Help format), single page or multiple pages in one file, as well as HTML and other formats. Good search options etc.. There are also plugins for Chrome and Firefox and a few other browsers, but only for capturing pages.
I've been using it for over 10 years, unfortunately several recent Microsoft updates have broken the IE plugin (dialog boxes (including export) become irresponsive). I've asked the company to fix it but they don't respond (they use to have great support) so I suspect they have abandoned the program. There's a browser (IE clone) included with the program though, export and everything else that requires opening dialogs works allright here, but it hasn't been updated recently so you need to set browser compatibility for it to make it work with the DAZ forums. There's a tool here that can do that:
http://taosoft.dk/software/freeware/wbcm/
Run the app as administrator, then type "inquiry.exe" (without the quotes) in the input field, and click "Set Selected mode".
But like I said, I suspect the company has abandoned the program, so it may be a risky investment. You could try to contact their support and say you're using the trial but that the dialog boxes for export etc. are not working in the IE plugin and see what they say. If they don't respond, I wouldn't expect a fix, but who knows. I'd guess though that the included browser will keep working without being broken by MS updates, possibly for years (seems to work fine in Win 10 here). I'll keep using it as long as I can for it's a really good tool.
Many download accelerators (e.g. IDM) provide a feature called site grabbing which basically allows you to crawl and store the pages (including links at specified depths) and associated content as html. Very helpful while following links to multipage forum threads as you can limit the crawling to pages which contain the thread id in the URL instead of crawling the entire site.
I use web clippers from Evernote or OneNote.
Evernote here too. The web clipper is great (when it cooperates).
I'm just starting to play with Nimbus Note. It has one major advantage over both Evernote and Onenote - you only have to connect to the internet long enough to authenticate and from that point on it can be used on a stand-alone system. Up to now I've been printing select pages to pdf.
the scrapbook plugin for firefox rocks.
also great for saving a shopping cart you know you're going to have to cull later. :)
I use Evernotes when it is only a few lines (it is easy to search within the program) and PrintFriendly & PDF add-on to Firefox to get full pages.
Yep, same here, never had the idea to do it either, Have a couple bookmarked, but that's it.
I stopped using Evernote since they started limiting the number of devices in their free plan. Also they tend to limit the bandwidth a lot. Have been using MS OneNote instead as it provides most of the functionality (that I use, and much more) and is also free.
But for tasks like website crawling and site grabbing I would always recommend to go for specialized tools like the ones I mentioned in earlier post (I personally use IDM for this) or the free HTTrack (step by step instructions: https://www.httrack.com/html/step.html). You may not know what you are missing unless you have seen the flexibility and features those tools provide. For example, if the thread contains dozens of pages would you rather manually navigate each one to store it?