General
- Name and URL
Here you can enter name and URL of a bookmark. The URL field is required. If the Name field is empty, the page's name will automatically be used when the page is checked the first time.
- Alternative Check-URL
If an address is entered, WebSite-Watcher will monitor this URL instead of the entered address in the URL field.
- Date variable in an URL (via button
)
If an URL contains a daily date, you can use date variables to automate monitoring these URLs. See chapter Date variables for more information.
- [Check-Macro] button for password protected pages
If you want to watch password protected pages which are located behind a login page, you have to use Check-Macros. A Check-Macro can be recorded interactively with the integrated tool MiniBrowser and stores all the steps you make while you perform login and surf to the page you want to watch. When you check a bookmark for updates, WebSite-Watcher repeats all these steps to get the target page. Check-Macros can also be used for pages that require more steps to get the target page, for example search queries. See chapter Web based logins / Check macros for more information.
- File type
If WebSite-Watcher is not able to detect the file type automatically, you must choose the correct file type manually. If WebSite-Watcher is for example not able to identify an RSS feed, you have to choose the file type "rss". A reason for such a situation could be that the server identifies an RSS feed falsely as binary file.
- Character set
By default, WebSite-Watcher determines the character set of a page automatically. If neither, the page nor the server log contains any information about the character set, WebSite-Watcher is not able to display the page correctly and you have to choose the codepage manually. The setting "Enforce Unicode/UTF-8" will convert a page to the UTF-8 format, independently of the used original format (also &#NNNN; encoded Unicode characters will be converted). See chapter A web page contains only cryptic characters for more information.
Related topics
WebSite-Watcher supports several checking methods to monitor a page. The default method is "Automatic" which lets WebSite-Watcher choose the best checking method automatically, or dependent from the page type a combination of them. Only in special cases you should select another checking method manually.
- Automatic
Dependent from the page type, this method decides automatically which method should be used to check a page. This can also be a combination of the available methods.
- Check-by-content
This method downloads the entire page and compares the filtered content of the new version with the filtered content of the old version of the page. If differences are found, WebSite-Watcher alerts an update. "filtered content" means, that you can setup a filter which lets you ignore specific parts of the page.
- Check-by-filedate
This method uses the file date of the page to detect updates. It's dependent from the page type, if a server reports that date. This method is typically used for binary files.
- Check-by-filesize
This method works similar as the Check-by-filedate method and uses the file size which is reported by the server. This method should only be used for binary files.
To detect updates, WebSite-Watcher compares the content of the new version with the content of the old version of a web page. If these contents are different, WebSite-Watcher alerts an update. If a website contains changing parts (eg. a daily date, some kind of ad, ...), an update would be reported with each check. With a filter you can ignore specific parts of a page to prevent false update notifications.
If a filter is defined, WebSite-Watcher will compare the filtered content of the new version with the filtered content of the old version of a page to detect updates.
WebSite-Watcher supports different filter types. They must be created with the Auto-Filter system, the Filter-Wizard or manually, and some of them must only be enabled (predefined filters). By default, the filter "Ignore all HTML-Tags" is enabled. This filter will filter out all HTML-Tags and return the real, textual content of a page. This filter should only be disabled under special circumstances.
The feature "Test filter" gives you always the possibility to verify your filter settings by comparing the filtered content of the new version with the filtered content of the old version of the page.
Related topics