Offline HTML Viewer

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ms

This was mentioned in
"FWT Newsletter - Weekly" - November 3, 2003

Offline HTML Viewer v1.0

The program screen opens, when I key Open to browse to a html file,
nothing happens.

Has anyone else tried this small executable? Results?

I contacted the author, no answer yet.

Mike Sa
 
ms said:
This was mentioned in
"FWT Newsletter - Weekly" - November 3, 2003

Offline HTML Viewer v1.0

The program screen opens, when I key Open to browse to a html file,
nothing happens.

Has anyone else tried this small executable? Results?

I contacted the author, no answer yet.
Click to expand...

Mike, do you feel like posting the download URL for it?


.. . .

(Btw, I've been 90% happy with OffByOne as default *.htm viewer...)
 
omega said:
Mike, do you feel like posting the download URL for it?

. . .

(Btw, I've been 90% happy with OffByOne as default *.htm viewer...)
Click to expand...

Karen, below is the description/ link. I also like OB1, but this (not a
browser)is smaller and (if it works) handier to use on my hard drive. I
plan to use it as an executable, not a shell extension.
------------------
Offline HTML Viewer snipped
v1.0
Offline HTML Viewer displays HTML files without running the browser.
Offline HTML Viewer may improperly display pages that include
sophisticated lay-out and various multimedia effects, but it quickly
loads and displays many *.HTML files which are relatively simple by
their internal structure.
The usage is much the same as that of the Internet Explorer. The only
non-standard option is 'Add to the Shell Context Menu' in the 'Tools'
menu. Once you have selected that option, all your *.htm and *.html
files in the Windows Explorer get the 'View with Offline HTML Viewer'
option added to their right-click context menus, so that you can run
Offline HTML Viewer immediately from the Windows Explorer.
2003 Roman Pivovarov
Contact Information: Web-site: http://roman.stratopoint.com
E-mail: (e-mail address removed)
 
ms said:
Karen, below is the description/ link. I also like OB1, but this (not a
browser)is smaller and (if it works) handier to use on my hard drive. I
plan to use it as an executable, not a shell extension.
------------------

Offline HTML Viewer snipped
v1.0
Contact Information: Web-site: http://roman.stratopoint.com
Click to expand...

You're right. Open is broken. Maybe we're at alpha stage?

The other methods work. If you have it open, you can drag an htm onto it.
Or, in explorer, drag an htm onto either it exe (or onto a .lnk that
points to its exe). Sendto works. And the registry context-menu works.

But no, not Open file. It's good you contacted the author. It seems he'd
want to fix this at the earliest point.
Comments?
Click to expand...

Yes. I was very surprised. I was highly expecting it to be one of the many
that use the MS WebBrowser control. The usual way I check this right away,
is by seeing what happens when I click the context menu of such a program,
when an htm file is loaded, to see if I see the global msie menu. That
menu doesn't appear with this one.

Since the programmer can code to suppress that menu if he wants, while
still using the MS WebBrowser control, I next checked out its dependencies
with Faber Toys.

Notably absent from the list of its loaded modules are shdocvw.dll and
mshtml.dll, the essence of the trident/MSHTML rendering engine.

It does use shlwapi.dll, and I do not know if this signifies that it will
only run on systems with msie installations.

Possible conclusion? It looks to me a rare find. An independent rendering
engine; and /possibly/ an independent browser totally, like OB1. A browser
that doesn't belong to a known family.

For me, then, Mike, I'm glad you posted about this. And I'm leaving it
on my sendto menu, to start watching for how well it could serve for
viewing offline html.

I sure hope the programmer answers and acts upon your email, to get the
normal Open function fixed.
 
(Btw, I've been 90% happy with OffByOne as default *.htm viewer...)


But even with that, my system tries to connect when I try to view an
html file offline. An offline html viewer would be great.
 
(e-mail address removed) (walterbyrd):
But even with that, my system tries to connect when I try to view an
html file offline.
Click to expand...

That's a good point. My net use was down so low for a long time, I hadn't
really noticed. Then recently, online more often, I am noticing OB1's
little throbber hopping about a lot, showing that it's talking to external
servers, whenever it's been handed pages that I've not cleaned. This would
be particularly annoying for folks who have an always-on connection.
An offline html viewer would be great.
Click to expand...

I've searched pretty exhaustively, for several years, for a good one. OB1
turned out my best overall choice Yet, amongst its several more minor
flaws, there is that important matter you bring up. That it is not truly
an offline viewer. It will talk to servers no matter what, and it cannot
even be asked to switch to "offline mode."

Maybe there might lie some hope with this new one that Mike brought up,
at least as soon as it emerges from alpha ?
 
(e-mail address removed) (walterbyrd):
omega wrote

But even with that, my system tries to connect when I try to view an
html file offline. An offline html viewer would be great.
Click to expand...

Your post caused me to think of something to try. In OB1, under the
Options menu, Proxy Server Setup... here I just entered a couple of
bogus entries, like x for server and 5 for proxy port. This seems to
make OB1 stay offline totally.

It's not as handy as an online/offline toggle right on a menu, but
it's a workaround which, at first glance, seems to put OB1 into true
offline mode.
 
omega wrote in said:
I've searched pretty exhaustively, for several years, for a good one. OB1
turned out my best overall choice Yet, amongst its several more minor
flaws, there is that important matter you bring up. That it is not truly
an offline viewer. It will talk to servers no matter what, and it cannot
even be asked to switch to "offline mode."
Click to expand...

If you can settle for a viewer that displays only the textual content
(and links!) of a html file, not the proper html page with layout and
formatting, may I suggest Lister - a freeware viewer for text, binary,
hex, html and unicode files <http://www.ghisler.com/lister/>.

<COPY from readme>
Lister is a standalone viewer for text, binary, hex, html and unicode
files. It can also display bitmaps and multimedia, and other bitmap
formats through Irfanview as a filter.
</COPY>

This is a standalone copyrighted freeware version of the viewer that
is integrated in the TotalCommaner (formerly known as Windows
commander) - the shareware file manager.

I never tried the standalone freeware version of Lister my self, but I
use the TotalCommander version all the time. Excellent for quick
browsing content of html files, like when I just want read the text or
lookup a link, without having to load them into a proper browser
first. You can also use it to view html in raw format.

All the best,
Bjorn Simonsen
 
Browsing thru this thread I see there seems to be a demand for offline HTML
browsers. Try looking thru www.jansfreeware.com. He has a few of them, each
designed for different purposes. The one I like is Bolero although it is
only a full-screen viewer. Any links have to be within the document -- there
is no such thing as a Favourites menu. There are several others including
Act10 that I haven't tested. Also some HTML exe compilers.

Might find something there that works for you. . .

-M-
 
Further to my just posted reply, there is a text editor called Delphad that
will let you open and view HTML files. No editing or printing of them
though. I don't think it can cope with frames either. It has a bug too in
that if you choose "File | Open" and specify *.htm for file types you won't
see any listed, even if there are some in the directory. You have to choose
"all file types" (*.*) to see them listed.

Don't have URL handy right now. . .

-M-
 
Browsing thru this thread I see there seems to be a demand for
offline HTML browsers. Try looking thru www.jansfreeware.com. He
has a few of them, each designed for different purposes. The one I
like is Bolero although it is only a full-screen viewer. Any links
have to be within the document -- there is no such thing as a
Favourites menu. There are several others including Act10 that I
haven't tested. Also some HTML exe compilers.
Click to expand...

I used Act10 for a while when I needed an offline browser. All Jan's
stuff is highly recommended.
 
omega said:
You're right. Open is broken. Maybe we're at alpha stage?

The other methods work. If you have it open, you can drag an htm onto it.
Or, in explorer, drag an htm onto either it exe (or onto a .lnk that
points to its exe). Sendto works. And the registry context-menu works.

But no, not Open file. It's good you contacted the author. It seems he'd
want to fix this at the earliest point.


Yes. I was very surprised. I was highly expecting it to be one of the many
that use the MS WebBrowser control. The usual way I check this right away,
is by seeing what happens when I click the context menu of such a program,
when an htm file is loaded, to see if I see the global msie menu. That
menu doesn't appear with this one.

Since the programmer can code to suppress that menu if he wants, while
still using the MS WebBrowser control, I next checked out its dependencies
with Faber Toys.

Notably absent from the list of its loaded modules are shdocvw.dll and
mshtml.dll, the essence of the trident/MSHTML rendering engine.

It does use shlwapi.dll, and I do not know if this signifies that it will
only run on systems with msie installations.

Possible conclusion? It looks to me a rare find. An independent rendering
engine; and /possibly/ an independent browser totally, like OB1. A browser
that doesn't belong to a known family.

For me, then, Mike, I'm glad you posted about this. And I'm leaving it
on my sendto menu, to start watching for how well it could serve for
viewing offline html.

I sure hope the programmer answers and acts upon your email, to get the
normal Open function fixed.
Click to expand...

He did answer- it works fine on his machine, maybe I'm missing some
DLL's?

I asked what DLL's the program wants to see, waiting for his answer. I
notice nothing in the program taskbar works. I will look at the others
noted in this thread. You noted interesting stuff about OB1.

Mike Sa
 
WinHTTrack
http://www.httrack.com/
WinHTTrack is the Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP release of HTTrack,
and WebHTTrack the Linux/Unix/BSD release.

HTTrack is a free (libre/open source) and easy-to-use offline browser
utility.

It allows you to download a World Wide Web site from the Internet to a local
directory, building recursivelyall directories, getting HTML, images, and
other files from the server to your computer. HTTrack arranges the original
site's relative link-structure. Simply open a page of the "mirrored" website
in your browser, and you can browse the site from link to link, as if you
were viewing it online. HTTrack can also update an existing mirrored site,
and resume interrupted downloads. HTTrack is fully configurable, and has an
integrated help system.

RoseW
 
Bjorn said:
snip

If you can settle for a viewer that displays only the textual content
(and links!) of a html file, not the proper html page with layout and
formatting, may I suggest Lister - a freeware viewer for text, binary,
hex, html and unicode files <http://www.ghisler.com/lister/>.

<COPY from readme>
Lister is a standalone viewer for text, binary, hex, html and unicode
files. It can also display bitmaps and multimedia, and other bitmap
formats through Irfanview as a filter.
</COPY>

This is a standalone copyrighted freeware version of the viewer that
is integrated in the TotalCommaner (formerly known as Windows
commander) - the shareware file manager.

I never tried the standalone freeware version of Lister my self, but I
use the TotalCommander version all the time. Excellent for quick
browsing content of html files, like when I just want read the text or
lookup a link, without having to load them into a proper browser
first. You can also use it to view html in raw format.

All the best,
Bjorn Simonsen
Click to expand...

Lister is a nice HTML viewer, and a small executable. It has the copy
function, but of course, not an edit function. It does a decent job of
stripping code to convert a HTML file to a text file.

Mike Sa
 
Lister is a nice HTML viewer, and a small executable. It has the copy
function, but of course, not an edit function. It does a decent job of
stripping code to convert a HTML file to a text file.
Click to expand...

I have just nominated it for Pricelessware. I included a tip for
easier use of Lister (use of SendTo/Context Menu).
See my msg w/comments in nomination thread
<
All the best,
Bjorn Simonsen
 
In ms posted:
This was mentioned in
"FWT Newsletter - Weekly" - November 3, 2003

Offline HTML Viewer v1.0

The program screen opens, when I key Open to browse to a html file,
nothing happens.

Has anyone else tried this small executable? Results?
Click to expand...

I find it adequate to save any html code in a text file as name.html.
Opening name.html file (in windows os using expl.exe) allows the file
to be viewed as html; and with a right click, the source can then be
viewed, changed, and saved again.

DanlK, FYI Services
www.FYIS.org
Visit our www.FYIS.org/estore
Need a different Christmas card this holiday season?
www.FYIS.org/xmascards
 
Bjorn said:
I have just nominated it for Pricelessware. I included a tip for
easier use of Lister (use of SendTo/Context Menu).
See my msg w/comments in nomination thread
<
All the best,
Bjorn Simonsen
Click to expand...

I just clicked on it- "no such message in the group" ??

Mike Sa
 
Bjorn said:
I have just nominated it for Pricelessware. I included a tip for
easier use of Lister (use of SendTo/Context Menu).
See my msg w/comments in nomination thread
<
All the best,
Bjorn Simonsen
Click to expand...

BTW, if Lister was able to delete all the dead space resulting in a
stripped HTML file, I would replace eCleaner as a "converter" of HTML to
text.

Mike Sa
 
omega said:
You're right. Open is broken. Maybe we're at alpha stage?

The other methods work. If you have it open, you can drag an htm onto it.
Or, in explorer, drag an htm onto either it exe (or onto a .lnk that
points to its exe). Sendto works. And the registry context-menu works.

But no, not Open file. It's good you contacted the author. It seems he'd
want to fix this at the earliest point.


Yes. I was very surprised. I was highly expecting it to be one of the many
that use the MS WebBrowser control. The usual way I check this right away,
is by seeing what happens when I click the context menu of such a program,
when an htm file is loaded, to see if I see the global msie menu. That
menu doesn't appear with this one.

Since the programmer can code to suppress that menu if he wants, while
still using the MS WebBrowser control, I next checked out its dependencies
with Faber Toys.

Notably absent from the list of its loaded modules are shdocvw.dll and
mshtml.dll, the essence of the trident/MSHTML rendering engine.

It does use shlwapi.dll, and I do not know if this signifies that it will
only run on systems with msie installations.

Possible conclusion? It looks to me a rare find. An independent rendering
engine; and /possibly/ an independent browser totally, like OB1. A browser
that doesn't belong to a known family.

For me, then, Mike, I'm glad you posted about this. And I'm leaving it
on my sendto menu, to start watching for how well it could serve for
viewing offline html.

I sure hope the programmer answers and acts upon your email, to get the
normal Open function fixed.
Click to expand...

An update, the author does not reply to 2 emails, so I don't look soon
for any changes to make the program work. I don't think it's an active
development. It's too bad, it had possibilities.

Mike Sa
 
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