Web Loader is written entirely in the Java (TM) programming language. Web Loader downloads web sites to your computer's hard drive. Web Loader gives you many options to specify which files you want to download. Use this handy tool to copy your favorite web sites to your hard drive for off-line browsing, presentations, archiving and site mirroring. Web Loader runs fully automated, multithreaded and link-following. It saves on-line time and money. Once the download process finishes work, you can browse it off-line using internal or your favorite external web browser. Web Loader supports "http", "ftp" and "file" protocols.
First you should unzip Web Loader's archive (with subdirectories) to any folder.
To run Web Loader without diagnostic messages enter:
javaw -jar WebLoader.jar
(on Win32 you can run Start.bat).
To run Web Loader with diagnostic messages enter:
java -jar WebLoader.jar
(on Win32 you can run Start_diag.bat).
After you have Web Loader unpacked and run for the very first time, you need to perform four simple steps to enjoy off-line browsing.
1. Setup Proxy Server
For the very first time you run Web Loader, you should setup proxy server parameters. It is required, if your browser is usually connecting through proxy. If you not sure about the proxy server or its settings, please consult your network administrator.
2. Creating a new Project for downloading
The Project defines from which web page the download should start and how many pages Web Loader should download for you. Create a new Project using File | New | Project menu or pop-up menu on "Projects" tree or toolbar button. Enter the URL you want to download. You can also adjust many other properties (each properties has a ToolTip). You will see the new Project will be created.
3. Downloading
To start downloading left-click your mouse on the "Download" button. There is a sample project "AdaSoft" referring to our web site, you can download it (about 100 Kb). The green arrow on the Project icon will indicate that the download is going on. When Web Loader finish downloading the Project, the green arrow will disappear.
4. Viewing downloaded files off-line
Now you may browse the web site off-line. Right-click your mouse on the downloaded Project and select Browse. It is good for pre-view purposes. For final viewing you'd better use your favorite external web browser (explorer, navigator).
To change Web Loader Options, select Edit | Options... menu or toolbar button. There are three tabs: "HTTP Proxy", "FTP Proxy" and "Advanced".
Tabs HTTP Proxy and FTP Proxy are used for http and ftp protocols respectively. If your computer is behind a firewall or is located inside of an Intranet, you probably have a proxy server to access Internet servers. Currently, Web Loader supports HTTP and SOCKS type proxies. If you are not sure which kind of proxy server you have, you may start your favorite Web browser and look at it's settings. To set up proxy settings you should know the address of your proxy server and port on which it is listening for requests. You may also need a user name and password to access some HTTP proxy servers. If you are not sure about proxy server parameters, you should consult with your network administrator.
On Advanced tab you can edit fully-qualified path where downloaded and project files will be stored.
A Project is a file with ".prj" extension. You can use folders to organize your Projects. You can also change root projects' folder in "Projects" field.
Web Loader stores all downloaded Web sites and files in the Download directory. All files are stored under original names and grouped by Web sites, so the download directory structure is kept as close as possible to the original Internet structure. You can change root download folder in "Download" field. Please make sure that the disk where download directory resides has enough space to store all your downloads.
It is not necessary that the "Projects" and "Download" directories should exist. Web Loader will create all required directories itself. Just make sure that the disk is not read-only.
You also can specify Command to start your favorite external browser (with fully-qualified path) on "Advanced" tab.
The Project defines from which web page the download should start and how many pages Web Loader should download for you. Create a new Project using File | New | Project menu or pop-up menu on "Projects" tree or toolbar button. Enter the URL you want to download. You can also adjust many other properties (each properties has a ToolTip). There are four tabs:
In Project Name field enter the Project file name (without extension) as it will appear in the Projects tree.
In Address field enter Internet Address (URL). Web Loader begins downloading a Project starting from this URL.
Currently Web Loader supports three URL types:
Please don’t forget to supply "http://" or "ftp://" prefix when entering a URL.
In Level limit field enter value defines how deep Web Loader will search for HTML documents.
And so on...
In other words, Level is the number of mouse clicks on Web links necessary to get from the starting page to the last desired. The usual value of the Level is 0 through 3. Setting Level to higher values may cause too many Web pages loaded.
File modification check defines how Web Loader will update downloaded Web sites.
The following settings are allowed:
File filters allow you to selectively download files by file type and size.
With File types selection you may restrict downloading by content types (file extensions). You may enable or disable loading the whole file types categories, by setting or removing checks.
File sizes filter allows you to load files using maximum file sizes. To enable file size filtering, select:
Load only the selected file sizes radio button and fill Maximum size field - Web Loader will not load any file, which size is more than the value entered (in kilobytes).
URL filters allow you easily shape Project downloads by setting which files could be loaded and which should be skipped.
All URL Filters are divided into three parts:
Each filter has two similar modes:
Custom protocol configuration section of Protocol URL Filter allows you to select or deselect each protocol directly.
Downloading a Project means that Web Loader starts retrieving files from Internet according to the settings described in the Project Properties. To start download a Project, you should first select the desired Project you want to download. Then you can choose Download | Start from main or pop-up menu or press Download button. Web Loader can download many Projects simultaneously.
When download has been started, Web Loader begins loading files located under the Project URL. Every link in the file is checked against various limits, set in the Project Properties: Limit number, File Types, File Sizes, URL Filters, etc. Since Web Loader can download only a limited number of files at one time, many files are placed in the Queue and wait for the download. The Status bar will display number of processed (downloaded) files and how many files are still waiting in Queue for all Projects. When all files are downloaded and no files are left in Project Queue, the Project download has been completed.
When a Project is downloading you will see a small green forward-arrow added to the Project icon. When download is completed, the Project icon is returned to its normal state. You may view downloaded files off-line at this time.
There are two ways to stop downloading. Project will change its icons.
The best way is Suspend downloading the selected Project. When suspending, Web Loader will not break the connections immediately. Instead, it will wait until every currently downloading file has been downloaded (queue = 0), so there may be a pause before the Project is suspended.
Then you can Resume downloading at any time.
You also can Terminate downloading the selected Project. But it is not safe (some files may be not saved and resources may be not released). So if you decide to reload the Project, you may have to select "Download all files" in "Project Properties".
While downloading a Project you will see a small green forward-arrow added to the Project icon. When download is complete, the Project icon is returned to its normal state. You may view downloaded files off-line at this time.
Right-click your mouse on the downloaded Project and select Browse. You can use Internal or External browsers (to use external browser first specify it - Web Loader Options).
You also may click on the Sites tab to see the downloaded Web sites map. The server level has special icon. Right-click on any file, directory or server will show a context menu with ability to browse.
Internal browser is good for pre-view purposes and selective downloading (in next versions). For final viewing you'd better use your favorite external web browser (explorer, navigator). Note: the first page (content) of web server or web directory is saved in the file "_index.html", so you should start external browsing with it.
For working with trees you can use items from menu File:
and from menu Edit:
All these functions are available for "Projects" tree; for "Sites" tree only "Delete..." is available (other functions seem useless).
Note: items in menu "Edit" are destined for trees only. For editing text fields use pop-up menu and keystroke combinations.
In unregistered version of Web Loader you can't set level of downloading more than 1.
How to pay is described at our web sites.
In several days after payment you will receive your registration key. Then select Help | About in the Web Loader main menu. Next, click on the Registration tab and enter your user name and registration key and press OK. Registration is valid for all further versions.
You can obtain Technical Support by sending e-mail to ugoltsev@yahoo.com
When requesting support, please remember to state which Java platform you are using.
Although we have worked hard to make sure that Web Loader is as bug free as possible, no software is perfect. As a result, if you do find a bug, please let us know. There may be other people that are having the same problem and it won't be fixed unless we know about it.
New versions of Web Loader are released when new features are suggested, or a bug is found. New releases can always be found on our web site at http://www.oocities.org/ugoltsev/
Copyright (c) 2000 AdaSoft CIT, Kostroma, Russia: adasoft@kmtn.ru http://www.softexe.com
Author Pavel Ugoltsev: ugoltsev@yahoo.com http://www.oocities.org/ugoltsev/
Parsing technology is completely changed and is more stable with malformed HTML pages.