Offline HTML Viewer

[Bjorn Simonsen]

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.

If you want to convert to html to txt, and don't mind working from the
command line with 8+3 filenames only (no LFN support), then you should
give HTMSTRIP a try: <http://users.erols.com/waynesof/bruce.htm>.

HTMSTRIP is one of my all time favorites. Very configurable with a
lots of options you can set via commandline or ini file.

All the best,
Bjorn Bjorn

 

[omega]

A tiny correction. I swear that it was immediately after having successfully
dragged an htm onto an open window of OHV that I posted about it. However,
I've not once been able to replicate that. (The remaining methods mentioned
do still work.)

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

Huh?!! Perhaps on his machine, he's using a more recent compile, separate
from the one he put up for download on his website. Or who knows.

The only time, in the gazillion execs I've run, where I /might/ have seen
Open functions not working: It would have been in the case of small "code
demo" types of downloads, not intended to be complete programs, compiled
skeletons released merely as convenient "starter samples."

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.

By taskbar, do you mean its toolbar +- its menu bar? Here, the other
functions work. Just not anything to do with Open.

Plus the forward & back buttons are greyed. Since cannot use Open,
there is no history of opened pages (and sendto launches new instances).

.. . .

An update, the author does not reply to 2 emails, so I don't look soon
for any changes to make the program work.

His non-responsiveness is disappointing. Thank you for the work, on emailing
him. Saves others like me having to consider similar efforts.

I don't think it's an active development.

A shelved alpha.

It's too bad, it had possibilities.

Agree, c'est dommage. A standalone viewer w\ independent html rendering
engine is so rare.

.. . .

At least OB1 is still around, for quick launch of htms. (I guess my only
serious qualm with OB1 is that horrid background color that defaults, when
there is none defined in the html of the page being viewed.)

 

[ms]

If you want to convert to html to txt, and don't mind working from the
command line with 8+3 filenames only (no LFN support), then you should
give HTMSTRIP a try: <http://users.erols.com/waynesof/bruce.htm>.

HTMSTRIP is one of my all time favorites. Very configurable with a
lots of options you can set via commandline or ini file.

All the best,
Bjorn Bjorn

I used it briefly in the past, but prefer the usual W9X GUI and LFN
capability. Now I use Web2Text, then eCleaner.

Mike Sa

 

[ms]

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

Cancel the above.
Just now, the author answered with a revised edition, which seems to
work fine to open files, still playing with it. See what you think.
-------------------
Re[2]: Offline HTML Viewer
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 17:58:24 +0700
From: Roman Pivovaroff <[email protected]>
Organization: Stratopoint Software
The problem is hopefully fixed. Download the new version from
http://roman.stratopoint.com . There also a solution for Windows 95
appeared (it totally didn't work on Windows 95).

HTH

Mike Sa

 

[D F]

In ms posted:

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.

I used to do this frequently (save .html files, for later viewing).
Then I upgraded from IE 4.0 to IE 5.5 (and now IE 6.0)... Then I
learned that these later browsers have an option to SAVE AS a .MHT
file (Web Archive, Single File). This file is a MIME-type Pack-up of
the file you are reading and ALL incorporated images, style sheets,
etc. ... everything you need to view the file again. In some cases
it also includes the supporting javascript (.js) files, too.
(However, I have also seen cases where it didn't...) Anyway, you have
a single file package you can double-click, and IE will open it and
read it off-line, just as you see it now.

Unfortunately, this file type is not supported by all Browsers, so if
you use Netscape (I believe) this will not work for you. Although,
you then have a package that you can 'haul around' easily, if needed.
(I used to SAVE AS an .htm, or .html file, and let it save the file,
AND the subdirectory with all the images, but that get's real messy if
you save several files.)

A useful tool to read and extract the components of the .MHT file is
UUD32WIN, "UUD32 for Windows, written by Mark Spankus - "UUD32Win is a
hassle free Windows 32bit compatible program designed to make it easy
to quickly extract binary files encoded in a variety of formats
commonly used to send data through Email and the Internet."

Home Page: http://my.execpc.com/~mspankus/
Download: http://www.execpc.com/~mspankus/UUD32inst.exe or
http://www.execpc.com/~mspankus/uud32-216.zip

Some may find this approach useful to download and extract all the
images that appear on a given Web page (... SAVE AS .MHT, then run
UUD32 to extract the images), but you can also get that result just
Saving the .html file anyway.

Now, back to the subject of saving pages for later viewing. If you
are only interested in READING the page later, then a very slick
approach is to simply PRINT the Page to a PDF file on your computer,
using the AcroSoft CutePDF Printer (or others that do the same
thing...)

Home Page: http://www.acrosoftware.com/Products/CutePDF/Printer.asp
Download: http://www.acroform.com/download/cuteprinter.exe (File
Size: 4.17 MB; Version: 1.2; Date: 07/25/03)

I have tried other "Print to file" techniques, but I found this one to
be easy to install (worked for me without any additional setup). It
appears in your printer collection as just another printer. When you
select it, you can choose a few convenient 'PDF related' options, and
then name the file to save to... and you end up with a PDF file that
looks (usually) just like the web page you are reading, complete with
header references showing the URL you happened to be at.

POWER USER - The CutePDF printer works for Anything that you can
print. However, I have had very strange behavior when (for reasons I
cannot fully account for) I try to print a PDF file as a PDF file...
(Strange, very strange... ) Often the FONTs are missing, and I think
it is because the tool defaults to 'use the fonts installed in the
printer' which don't happen to be there in every case...

LAST - Very Cool Capability - A MOST useful capability you have, when
printing to a file using CutePDF, is that you can Select a portion of
the Web Page, and Print just that selection... When the Printer window
comes up, (note that my experience is with IE6.0), you can check
'Print Selection' and the output PDF file will be just the selected
part... (Yaaay... Note all the side menues, ads, or unnecessary text,
are NOT included...) This works VERY WELL for some of those noisy
commercial pages. And, if you can PRINT it at all, you can SAVE IT as
a PDF file. Wow! You can also request it print a table of all
links, but that is a feature of the IE HTML Print driver, not just the
CutePDF driver. I use this feature all the time to capture check-back
documentary information for freeware that I download.


Dale Fordberg

 

[omega]

Just now, the author answered with a revised edition, which seems to
work fine to open files, still playing with it. See what you think.

The problem is hopefully fixed. Download the new version from
http://roman.stratopoint.com .

Great news! I just downloaded v101, and it seems to work quite well.

I'll have to observe over time how well it displays various pages....

There is one thing I noticed already. Load speed, compared to OB1. Smaller
files, there is no way for me to really compare, as OB1 is pretty instant
here for those. But with the several larger files I tested, 300-500k, OHV
did finish loading those notably faster than OB1. A remaining test along
these lines that I'll look at, it will be with even larger files. OB1 has
some certain threshold, larger-sized htms, where it doesn't have the
muscle. So later, when I dig up some X-Large htms, I do expect that OHV
might prevail on that test.

Initially, I'll be leaving OHV on my sendto menu, using it mostly that way.
In time, I'll be able to see -- it might well make the winning candidate for
default action handler of *.htm.

Nice find, Mike.