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Webpage Update Notification


Wai_Wai

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Webpage Update Notification

-- An advanced checker to notify changes occurred between visit

I would like to have a program which can keep track of different webpage. When the pages change, there is an alert/popup which will notify me. It is useful to track changes like new replies in particular boards, site news, version update news etc.

However the problem is a single unrelated change in a page would trigger the notification. For example, a random ad in the forum which will always trigger the alert. I wonder if the check can be more advanced. For example:

  • alert only when the selected part of the webpage is updated
  • decide the threshold on how many changes are needed to trigger the alert (helpful to prevent small unrelated changes from mis-triggering)

Do you have any program you can recommend?

I can pay for the program as long as it is powerful and suit my needs.

Edited by Wai_Wai
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Thanks for your suggestion.

But I can't see how it can solve my problems.

It appears it doesn't offer a way to select to monitor only parts of the page.

It has an advert filer but it is not just the adverts that needs to be filtered.

Other elements like web statistics and non-related layout changes will still trigger the alert.

The main content is what I'm interested, not the rest of the layout.

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Thanks for your suggestion.

But I can't see how it can solve my problems.

It appears it doesn't offer a way to select to monitor only parts of the page.

It has an advert filer but it is not just the adverts that needs to be filtered.

Other elements like web statistics and non-related layout changes will still trigger the alert.

The main content is what I'm interested, not the rest of the layout.

WSW can do that and much more. When you are creating a bookmark (i.e., setting up a URL for monitoring), you can invoke the filter assistant and mark out the parts that you want to be ignored when WSW does its check. Currently, WSW is the most powerful web page monitoring software in the market AFAIK. Do read about all its features once.

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Thanks for your suggestion.

But I can't see how it can solve my problems.

It appears it doesn't offer a way to select to monitor only parts of the page.

It has an advert filer but it is not just the adverts that needs to be filtered.

Other elements like web statistics and non-related layout changes will still trigger the alert.

The main content is what I'm interested, not the rest of the layout.

WSW can do that and much more. When you are creating a bookmark (i.e., setting up a URL for monitoring), you can invoke the filter assistant and mark out the parts that you want to be ignored when WSW does its check. Currently, WSW is the most powerful web page monitoring software in the market AFAIK. Do read about all its features once.

I tried WebSite-Watcher. Unfortunately I had no idea how to tell it to watch parts of the page only.

When I added a new entry to watch, there was no option to allow me to select what to include (watch) or what to exclude (not watch). The wizard told me to highlight texts like forum title, forum time etc. I did highlight the text, but it always complained "Cannot find the selected text. Please try another selection" error. I was forced to skip it completely.

Then I went to Bookmark Properties, and selected filter.

I don't know how to write code to include/exclude parts. I needed to do it the dumb way.

I selected the text i want to include/exclude and clicked on "filter" button. However it complained "Characterset not supported" They are just plain English. What's up?

The whole experience is awful. That part of feature are all broken and unusable. Is it a poorly written application?

Do you encounter the same problem when you try to do these things as well?

Edited by Wai_Wai
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