Filter Wizard

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Filter Wizard

The Filter Wizard can be launched in the bookmark properties (by clicking the "Filter-Assistant" button) and offers an easy and comfortably way to create Ignore and Watch filters interactively with only a few mouse clicks.

Ignore filters are used to ignore a specified part of a web page, for example a daily date.
Watch filters are used to watch only a specified part of a web page and ignore everything else, for example the title and version number of a software product or the last post date in a forum.

Creating a filter with the Filter-Wizard consists of two steps

Step 1: Select the text you want to filter (for example: "Downloads: 11,406")

The selected text should be a unique text which can easily be identified by the filter system. The more precise the selected text the better the chances that WebSite-Watcher can identify and filter it.

If you would select only "11,406", then WebSite-Watcher would filter all numbers with thousand separators in the page, but in combination with the text "Download:" the selection can exactly be identified.
Step 2: Select the filter type you want to create (in our case: Ignore selected text with changing numbers)

First you have to decide if you want to create an Ignore or a Watch filter. Each of these two buttons pops up a list of typical filter types where you have to select the filter that suits your selected text. Furthermore you have to decide, if the selected text is a text with or without changing numbers.

In our case the download counter changes frequently, so we have to choose the filter "The selected text contains changing numbers".

After you have selected the filter type, a window pops up where WebSite-Watcher displays the matching results. This can be zero results when WebSite-Watcher was not able to find the selected text, one result if the selection was a unique text, or more results if WebSite-Watcher was able to find more matches which are "compatible" with the created filter.

If WebSite-Watcher doesn't find a result, then you should try to make a more precise selection.

The order of filters is important!

Please keep in mind that filters are always executed from top to bottom. If the filter in the first line filters a part of the content, then this content is no longer available for filters in following lines.

Example:

You have defined the following two ignore filters:

   Watcher
   WebSite-Watcher

The first line filters "Watcher". The second line will never find a match since "Watcher" is no longer available after executing the first filter. The correct order for these two filters would be:

   WebSite-Watcher
   Watcher

Here the first line filters all words "WebSite-Watcher". The second line can filter all remaining words "Watcher".

Outdated filters

Outdated ignore filters are detected and deleted automatically after some time when they no longer find any matches. There's no need to maintain and delete these kind of filters manually.

Outdated watch filters are not deleted automatically, you have to maintain these kind of filters manually.

Don't forget to test your filter settings

The feature "Test filter" gives you always the possibility to verify your filter settings by comparing the filtered content of the new page with the filtered content of the old page.

Open the bookmark properties
Click the "Filter-Assistant" button
Select the text you want to filter/watch
Click the button "Create filter manually"
Click the button "New Ignore filter" (or "New Watch filter")
Select the type of the filter
A window is opened which shows the matching results. If the results are correct, then click the OK button to return to the Filter-Wizard
Test your filter with the "Test filter" button (optional, but recommended)