Windows XP Hacks [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Hack 35 Read Web Pages Offline

Take the Web with you wherever you go, and put
it into an easily searchable database on your PC.

One of the main problems with
doing research on the Web is that there's no easy
way to save all the information you find and no simple way to read
web pages when you're offline.
Internet Explorer includes some
basic tools for saving web pages and reading through them when
you're not connected to the Internet. If you need to
save only occasional pages and don't need to do
searches through those pages, then these tools will work reasonably
well for you. But if you want to store pages in categories and
folders and need to do full-text searches, then
you'll need a third-party program. This hack shows
you how to do both.

4.4.1 Reading Web Pages Offline Using IE

To save your current web page
to your hard disk so you can read it again in Internet Explorer when
you're not connected to the Internet, choose File
Save As. You'll be given several options
for how to save it. If you're not planning to edit
the HTML of the file, your best bet is to save it as a
Web "Archive,
single file" (.mht). That way,
you don't clutter up your hard disk with extra
folders and files stored in different locations; everything is saved
to a single file. Saving it as a "Web Page,
complete" stores the HTML file as well as associated
graphics, in a folder structure. Saving it as a "Web
Page, HTML only" saves just the HTML file itself,
with no associated graphics and no folder structure. You can also
save it as a text file, but if you do, expect to spend time cleaning
it up, because it saves all the text on the page, often in an
unstructured way. To read the page after you've
saved it to your disk, choose File Open, browse to the
directory where you've saved the page, and open it.

There are times when you want to save
not just the page you're on, but also the pages
linked off it. To do that, you'll have to save your
pages another way. First, save the page to your Favorites list by
pressing Ctrl-D or choosing Favorites Add to Favorites.
Then, right-click on the page where it's listed in
Favorites and choose Make Available
Offline. A wizard will appear. Follow its instructions, and when you
get to the screen shown in Figure 4-6, tell it how
many links deep you want pages saved. Be very careful when doing
this, because even choosing to keep one link level can take up a
substantial amount of hard disk space.

Figure 4-6. Saving web pages offline several links deep using the Offline Favorite Wizard

When you finish the wizard, you're asked how you
want to synchronize the page or pages you've chosen
to save to disk. When you
synchronize a web page, IE
grabs the latest version of the page or pages, and overwrites your
existing page or pages. If you want to keep a permanent copy of the
page or pages, and don't want them updated, choose
"Only when I choose Synchronize from the Tools
menu." Then, simply don't
synchronize the page. If you instead do want to synchronize the page
so that a more current version is available on your hard disk, choose
"I would like to create a new
schedule," and follow the instructions for creating
a schedule.

4.4.2 Save Web Pages in an Offline Database with SurfSaver

If you need to save
many web pages and want to be able to search through them by
full-text or keyword searches, you'll have to use a
third-party program. My favorite is SurfSaver, available from http://www.surfsaver.com (see Figure 4-7). It integrates directly into Internet
Explorer and lets you save pages in separate folders within the
program. You can add keywords and notes to each page, and then search
by keyword or full text, or browse by folder.

When you visit a web page you want to save locally, right-click on
the page, choose SurfSaver Save, and choose which SurfSaver folder
you want to save it in. You can save the page with or without
graphics. When you want to search, right-click on the page, choose
SurfSaver Search, and then search by keyword, through notes, or
through the full text on the page to easily find the page and
information you want. SurfSaver also integrates directly with
the
freeform askSam database.

Figure 4-7. Saving web pages in a database with SurfSaver