Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Does anyone know if there is a way to copy all of the pages in a topic in one hit so they can be pasted into say a Word document.

By way of explanation I find it easier (more comforatble) to read off line rather than have to stay on line and click each page in a long topic. So what I would like to be able to do is copy the topic as a whole (it might be 50 pages long for instance) then paste it into a word document so I can read it at my leasure or even print the whole thing out if I want to.

I know I can copy and paste one page at a time but can I do it in one hit?

Thanks
Kevin

I've never found a way to do a whole topic. One page at a time is the best I've managed.

hmm, not sure you can

The forum owners just have to add some more php to be able to achieve this; see:

http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=556543&p=6756715#p3052813

for some codes and discussions on how to achieve this for the forum members.



Scott

it is technically possible, but you'd want to use an app for it I think.
an app may exist already, or you may need to contract some1 to write one fore you.

There's a post-per-page Mod that allows you to set how many posts show per page, ie. you could display say 50 posts per page reducing the number of pages you need to click through in a topic.

Thats standard functionality in vBulletin, don't know why the writers of phpbb ommitted such a feature.

There's so many cool things (Mod / Addons) that can be done to the forums, you need knowledge of PHP & MySQL to get it done though. I'm happy to volunteer my skills and time should anyone wish to take me up on the offer.

Unless its a bandwidth thing. A few people try to copy the whole database and everything slows down.

You could try something like this

http://metaproducts.com/MD.html

Download web sites to your disk and browse them any time fast. Never loose a piece of web information. Freeze the changing web for your convenience, travelling and presentations! Use Offline Explorer - over than 12 years experience with frequent updates to support all modern technologies and sites.

MetaProducts Offline Explorer is a Windows NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista offline browser*** that allows you to download an unlimited number of your favorite Web, HTTPS and FTP sites for later offline viewing, editing or browsing.
(RTSP, PNM and MMS downloads are supported in Offline Explorer Pro version.)

And, no, it won't kill the forum

Steely

No... perhaps not...

But it may breach copyright... and/or result in the unauthorised use of large amounts of pictures, quotes, information etc.... in other published forms... or even "forums"...

I guess it depends what the OP intends to do with the information, certainly, this application only does automatically what he could do manually.

I'll pull my head in

Steely

PS : Nothing in the rules about re-use, perhaps there needs to be?

Well, if all that is going on is downloading it for reading offline, then no big deal. It is all in what the tool gets used for, the tool it's self isn't bad, just some possible uses of it might be. As noted, you can download the pages manually, this would just make it a bit less tedious.

Yeh, there will be "scrapers" which "scrape" information from a site. This uses phpBB so if you look for "phpBB scraper" then you'll probably come up with at least someone else who's asked....

Thanks everyone for the responses. Doesn't seem that what I was chasing exists, at least not in a form that doesn't require one to be a computer programmer.

Tried the Metaproducts suggestion but it simply reproduces what you get on the website but I would like to be able to easily turn a multi page thread into one page. For example I found a thread the other day that TCLynx started that had some really good info in it but it was 93 pages long. If I was able to download it as one long page I could quickly go through it and delete all the "side bars" (which may be interesting but not really relevant to the topic) ending up with a much shorter version which I could print off and read at my leisure.

It's not too bad when you start off with a new thread and follow it as it expands but when you stumble across a full blown thread it can be a bit tedious following it from start to finish.

Just being lazy I guess but there is so much information available to research I'm not sure I have enough years left to explore it all.

Anyway thanks again.

Isn't this a great forum? As a newbie I really appreciate the time more experienced members put into helping with ready advice and info.

Regards
Kevin

hay Kevin,
I understand your situation. I usually tell newbies to read the Basic Info and Useful Info sections of the forum as fully as possible. Then recommend they pick a couple/few of the big long member system threads to read completely (keep a note pad so you can write down the page you got to one day so next time you get back to it you can start where you left off.) And if you have some ideas about what kind of system (where you are/special situations) you want you can ask for some recommendation about what member system threads might be most useful/similar to what you want to do.

I'm often wishing there was a handy way to make a "table of contents" for my thread to make finding the pages with specific info/pictures quicker to find.

I think there are some people out there who got so fed up with how massive this forum has gotten that they have started their own forums where there are strict rules about hijacks and it is a no-no for people to simply answer a question, rather they are to direct the asker to the appropriate place to find where the answer has already been written. Personally, I like this forum best as there is always activity and most questions get answered quickly rather than sitting idle in the forum for weeks till they drop off the new post list. Drawback being that the threads can get mighty long and there is no longer any way to read the "whole" forum. (I think I was coming close when I first found the forum and spent a couple months reading constantly but it has grown much in the past two years and I can now only skim a bit each day.)

Its possible within PM's to obtain a print view... and that sort of thing is common place on many forum sites...

Doesn't seem to have been applied here against threads though....

Perhaps that's an option that could be looked at...