Special Filter
WebSite-Watcher supports some predefined filter options which must only be checked or unchecked, whether you want to use them or not. These filters work for the whole page and not only for specified parts as the Ignore/Watch filters do.
- Ignore all HTML Tags
This filter is enabled by default and recognizes only the real, readable content of a page while all HTML tags are ignored. This filter should only be disabled under special circumstances, for example if you want to watch any changes in source code of a page.
The source code excerpt [this is a <b>bold</b> word] contains the HTML-Tags <b> and </b> which let your browser display the word "bold" in bold. This filter removes the HTML-Tags, the result is the text [this is a bold word].
- Ignore Upper/Lowercase
By default, all characters are case-insensitive, so changes in upper/lowercase do not cause an update notification. If you want to be notified on capitalization changes, then you have to disable this filter. This may for example be useful when you monitor local directories or mapped Linux drives.
- Sort words
This filter sorts all words in a page and was designed for some special situations. If you watch for example a search result where the order of found items is changed each time, then WebSite-Watcher would alert an update with each check. This filter sorts all words in the page and you won't get an update notification when only the order of the found items is changed.
- Ignore removed elements (alert only if content has been added/changed)
If this option is enabled, you will be notified only if a page content has been added or modified and not, when content has only been removed. This filter is disabled by default, in most cases you don't need it. If any content is added or modified, then the number of removals are counted to the total number of changes (for the predefined filter "Minimum number of changes"). This filter is used automatically for RSS/Atom feeds regardless it is enabled or not.
- Watch all changes in link addresses
If you want to know if any link address in a page has been changed, then you have to use this filter. Link addresses are normally ignored by the filter "Ignore all HTML-Tags".
- Watch all changes in image addresses
If you want to know if any image address in a page has been changed, then you have to use this filter. Image addresses are normally ignored by the filter "Ignore all HTML-Tags".
- Minimum number of changes
Normally WebSite-Watcher makes an update notification, if at least one change is detected. With that setting you can increase the number of changes which must reached to get an update notification. The dialog "Test filter" displays the number of changes.