8) What other software has Chaotic Software, Ltd. produced?
9) Where can I contact you?
Web Devil Detailed Instructions
1) Web Devil Documents
2) Download Preferences
3) Application Preferences
4) Using Bookmarks
Web Devil FAQ
What is Web Devil?
Web Devil is a tool for downloading web sites for offline browsing, extracting web site images, backgrounds, HTML, JavaScript, etc., helping to maintain web sites for content authors, and more. It also has filtering capabilities, so it only downloads what you want, and has a simple to use interface. Just enter a URL and it downloads with a single click.
What isn't Web Devil?
Web Devil is not a complete web site management tool. It was mainly designed to make it easy to grab textures and images off of web pages and to make local copies of your web sites for easy maintenance. It doesn't download secure (encrypted) pages and it may not work through some firewalls.
Web Devil does not modify the files it downloads. Because of this, offline browsing will not work with sites that use absolute URL's.
What does Web Devil require to run?
Web Devil should run on any Power Macintosh running Mac OS 8.0 or later with access to the Internet. Web Devil is compatible with all versions of Mac OS 8, Mac OS 9.0.x, and Mac OS X.
How do I use Web Devil?
Using Web Devil is simple: Simply create a new Web Devil window (if one isn't already on the screen) by selecting New Web Devil from the file menu and then type in the web page you'd like to suck. Once you've typed it in, just click "Suck Web Page" and that's it. Web Devil will download the page, scan it for any links, and download them. It's that simple.
If you don't want certain files to be downloaded (e.g. you don't want images), simply uncheck one or more of the options within the Web Devil window.
Balloon Help is supported so turn it on while you're running the application for more help.
What has Chaotic Software produced?
AutoTextTyper • Types frequently used text with a hot key or contextual menu click. $10 Shareware.
BioAssistant • A tool for PCR chemists who develop DNA probe sequences. $15 Shareware.
Drop•Attribute • Fast and simple Type/Creator/Attribute Changer. $10 Shareware
Drop•Rename • A powerful file renaming tool. $10 Shareware.
FlavorSavers • The ultimate iMac screensaver. $20 Shareware.
MacArmyKnife • The swiss army knife of Macintosh utilities. $15 Shareware.
Manipulator • The ultimate file manipulation utility. $20 Shareware.
MP3 Rage • The ultimate MP3 tool. Plays, edits, organizes, renames, etc. $20 Shareware.
Nag • A flexible personal scheduling application. $10 Shareware.
NetClip • Share clipboards over an intranet or the Internet. $20 Shareware.
NOVA • The ultimate Macintosh screensaver. Stable and full-featured! $20 Shareware.
Probe Assistant • A tool for PCR chemists who develop DNA probe sequences. $10 Shareware.
QuickMovie • Make QuickTime movies out of a series of images. $10 Shareware.
Web Devil • Suck down web sites without the need of a memory hoggin' browser! $20 Shareware.
Web Timer • Suck down a single URL repeatedly! Great for webcam monitoring. $10 Shareware.
Web Watcher • Watches your favorite web sites and notifies you when they change. $20 Shareware.
Where can I contact you?
For help or information about this application and/or Chaotic Software, send mail to support@chaoticsoftware.com.
You can also check out our web site at:
<http://www.chaoticsoftware.com>
Web Devil Detailed Instructions
Getting Started
To start using Web Devil, get a new Web Devil window by typing Command-N, or selecting "New Web Devil" from the File menu. A window will appear like this:
The Web Devil window shows the current status of the download, some parameters of the download, and various other controls. To quickly get a download going, follow these steps:
1. Enter an URL (Uniform Resource Locator) in the "Web Page" textfield.
2. Enter your username and password, but only if the site requires authentication.
3. Click "Suck Web Page", and let Web Devil go to work! It's progress will appear in the lower section.
Progress Indicators
Remaining: This is an indication of how many links are remaining in the download. It can grow to a very large number if the Web Devil is set to download a lot of web pages. Each page that is downloaded is scanned for more html links, and if they are supposed to be downloaded (due to your settings in the Download Preferences dialog), that number will be added to the counter. Note that the counter can decrease and then increase again after each new page is scanned. Unfortunately, this means that it is very difficult to tell when the download will be complete. it is merely a rough-estimate indicator of progress.
Level: This is an indication of how many "levels" deep the download has progressed. Levels refer to the number of "link" levels progressed relative to initial link. For example, if the first URL link you entered was:
http://www.theservername.com/index.html
and that page had 10 web page references (URLs) on it, those 10 links would be on level "1". If each of those 10 web pages contained 15 links, then those 150 links would be on level 2. If those 150 pages had 5 links on each, then those 750 links would be on level three, and so on. It is somewhat of a pyramid affect, as more web pages are read.
Errors: Just to the right of the level indicator is a blank area that is used to output the last error encountered during the download. If you want all errors during the download, turn on the option to write errors to a file, discussed below in the Preferences section.
Status: This indicator is the lower most section of the window that contains status messages of the current link, or other general messages that occur during the download.
Customizing the Download
To customize the download, click the "Download Preferences" button in the Web Devil window. This allows you to excercise more control over what is actually retrieved by Web Devil. There are three sections to the window:
Downloads: This section allows you to tailor what URLs are scanned and/or downloaded. Get Textures tells Web Devil to get all background images embedded within scanned web pages. Get Images forces Web Devil to download all graphics on any given web page. Get HTML Links instructs the Devil to scan a web page for URLs (links) and download them. Recursive indicates that the download should scan all URLs for more links, and download those links, which are scanned and then downloaded, and so on. This could result in a HUGE download if allowed to continue forever. However, you can limit the depth of URLs by using the Limit to Level feature. This allows you to set a level of depth the recursion goes. See "Level" above in the "Progress Indicators" section for an explanation of how levels work. If you do not want the download to continue on to other servers, use the Limit to Same Server feature. For example, if you only want images, links and textures from www.chaoticsoftware.com, then activate this limiting feature. Even though there is a link on one of the pages of www.chaoticsoftware.com to www.apple.com, it will not be followed by Web Devil, but instead ignored. If you want links to be followed onto all servers, be sure to turn this option off. If you want the download to only occur within the initial directory, make sure that Limit to Same Directory is active. Finally, you can set how long Web Devil will attempt to make a connection for a specific URL by setting the Timeout Seconds. If you choose the default "120" value, Web Devil will try to download each new link for no more than 2 minutes before giving up and moving on to the next link. This is a great way to allow the download to skip slow sites.
File Handling: Use this section to specify how the download should handle files of the same name. If you are downloading www.chaoticsoftware.com/index.html, and that same link is made referred to somewhere else on the web site, Web Devil can either download it again and Make a Unique Filename (it will append a #1, #2, etc. on to the end of the filename), Overwrite the Duplicate File, Skip Duplicate File entirely, or only Download If Newer than the one already download to disk.
Miscellaneous: These are other options for the Download. Build Folder Hierarchy forces the download to recreate the exact file structure for the URL on your local hard disk. If the url is:
the file will be stored locally in a folder structure like this:
Web Devil Downloads
www.chaoticsoftware.com
Products
WebDevil
index.html
If this feature is unchecked, all files will be stored at the same level in the "Web Devil Downloads" folder. The Put Link in Comments tells Web Devil that you want to have the link, such as:
put it in Comments field of the file stored on your hard disk. You can view the comments by selecting the downloaded file in the finder and choosing "Get Info" from the file menu. This is handy for knowing exactly where a particular file came from.
Finally, the Apply Globally button instructs this and all future Web Devil windows to default to these values. Thus, if you have a set of values you use frequently, it would be wise to apply them globally so you do not have to reset them each time you start the application and open a new Web Devil window.
Preferences
Web Devil has some general application level preferences. They are:
General: New Window on Startup instructs the app to open a new Web Devil window each time it is launched. This is handy for getting a quick start on things. Prompt for Destination forces you to specify a new location for downloading files each time you start a new Web Devil download. If this is turned off, all files will be downloaded into a folder named "Web Devil Downloads" next to the Web Devil application.
Miscellaneous: Clicking the Set Download Folder either allow you to specify a location to store files during downloads, or it launches Internet Config (if installed) where you can specify the location as part of IC's preferences. Edit Filename Mapping also launches Internet Config (if installed) where you can specify the location as part of it's preferences. Launch Internet Config, as you probably guessed, launches Internet Config (if installed). Note that on systems with an Internet control panel, this will be opened and not Internet Config.
Logging: Web Devil can log all actions that occur during a download so you have a history of the download once it is finished. You can specify whether or not you want to Log Actions to a File, and whether or not it Logs Errors Only or Everything, which includes successful as well as unsuccessful downloads. Here's a tip: this feature is handy if you are using Web Devil to test the integrity of all the links on a web site, i.e. checking to see if there are any "bad" links that don't go anywhere. Bad links will be stored in the log file for quick viewing.
Download Preferences: This button takes you to the Download Preferences dialog, where you can modify the default global Web Devil settings that each new Web Devil window. See "Customizing the Download" above for information on this dialog.
User Agent Information: Every Web Browser has a unique way of identifying itself to a website it is visiting. This is called the User Agent string. This textfield allows you to "Masquerade" as anything you want. Mozilla (Netscape), IE (Explorer), or just about anything you like.
Bookmarks
Like any good internet-friendly application, Web Devil allows you to save frequently visited sites. To save a bookmark, select "Add Bookmark" from the Bookmarks menu. A window will appear, where you can give the bookmark a Name, a location (URL), and a Username and Password if necessary.
You can modify an existing bookmark by selecting "Modify Bookmark" from the Bookmarks menu. Select the bookmark you wish to modify in the popup, change and setting you wish, and click "Modify".
Finally, you can remove a bookmark by selecting "Remove Bookmark" from the Bookmarks menu. Select the name of the bookmark you wish to remove, and click Delete.
Epilogue
Well, that's it for the more in-depth look at Web Devil. As you can see it's not a complicated program, but offers a good deal of flexibility. Enjoy!
