Below is an announcement of a new app from another app developer (Bruce
Babcock), who isn't signed up for any of the GW mailing lists except the
scripting one.
Please direct any comments or questions to him directly.
From: LB [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2014 6:50 PM
To: Allison and Chip Orange
Subject: Breaking News Web Browser
Hi Chip,
I have not signed up for the apps email because there was too much
posted and not much substance. I was wondering if you could upload this app
description below so people can be made aware of it.
The Breaking News App
this app is going to be an easy browsing tool for web sites.
It's original design was to alert you of changing, breaking news and that
function is not yet in.
at the moment it allows you to brows web sites at your computer instead of
on the web. It loads the web site and lists all the links and a brief
description of the link.
Once you have listed the links you can select to read the web page you have
chosen on your computer and not at the web site.
By reading the web site on your computer you are free of any viruses because
the program strips all such programs from the web site after downloading the
text, thus not allowing them to run.
The app runs when pressing the Ctrl-Shift-Z key combo
this Loads a a initial Tree Listing of web page alerts into a control panel.
The F1 hotkey is used for the list View and Editbox hotkey help.
For the Control Panel help you use only the Help menu F1 option.
This control panel allows you to set the Breaking News alerts based on the
web page you want to monitor.
There are 4 default web pages, Fox News, Headline News, Cnn News, and New
Scientist.
Each web has there own format and Fox News uses the largest header tag,
<h1> or Heading One, to mark breaking news and sometimes it is not there so
searching for the phrase "Next Slide" should be entered in the search
property.
I have also added the ability to search for both, if one is not found it
will now search for the other.
So the Fox news defaults are search phrase: Next Slide and Heading One: is
checked.
The Headline News uses the 2 words "Breaking News" and the largest Header
tag to mark that news.
CNN News is the same as headline news.
The New Scientist web page has many things but has today's news as well
so I use today as the default search phrase.
So in setting the alert search terms you can place the phrase the web page
uses to mark news and
you can state whether you want to search for the header tag instead by
writing True or False in the Header property.
This is done automatically when hitting the Space Bar on the property
because it is a check box.
Hitting the Space Bar checks and unchecks the check box and True or False is
displayed respectively.
If False is placed in the header field than it will search for the phrase
you place in the Search Property only.
If checked and True is displayed than the heading is searched for first and
if not found then the search phrase is searched for.
Thus giving you 2 options to have a starting point on the page to go to.
I convert the header tag into a 2 word phrase: "Heading One"
So, if there are more than 1 of these phrases on a page you can search for
it using the F3 key,
Heading One or the search phrase.
Control Panel alert Hotkeys:
Enter Key: Adds a new web page entry onto the list.
(You must fill in the fields when this entry is inserted.)
Del or Delete Key: deletes the selected web page alert from the tree list.
Alt-End Keys: Loads the web page for viewing only, when exiting you are in
the List view panel.
Alt-PgDn Keys: Loads the web page then lists it and places you in the List
View panel.
When Web Alert Is Expanded:
Tab: Places you into the edit field to enter or edit the web page alert
properties.
Enter: Saves any changes made in the entry.
List View:
When a page is loaded it is listed if you have chosen to load it.
This App will list all llinks of the page in a list view.
you can tab over to the edit field and a default web page will be there from
the
..ini file. This default is saved when using the Alt-S Hotkey Or File Menu S
key.
When in the Edit field enter the page you want then tab once again to
the button to load it, or just hit the enter key.
This also can be done by hitting the Alt-D Hotkey when not in the edit
field.
The button is identical to pressing the hotkey Alt-End or Alt-Page Down
hotkeys when on a List View Item when the list is blank.
It has 2 options and the button function changes when going to the view menu
and hitting the B key.
The View - B key toggles the button from Read to Load.
You can save the present web page settings using the File Menu S option.
This also saves the sort listing type as well.
Saving the settings, the next time running, that web page will be the
default,
and the sort you last selected for listing will also be the default.
Your List view Hotkeys Are:
Enter Key: Depends on View menu setting and will perform Alt-End or Alt-Page
Down hotkeys mentioned below.
Left Mouse Click: Immediately read the web page selected from the list, or
Alt-End Key: Immediately read the web page selected from the list, or
Alt-PgDn Key: load the selected list and list it's links, or
Alt-P Or F9 Key: Immediately read the web page loaded, or
Alt-D Key: Load and list links from the URL web page entered in the text
field, or
Alt-G Key: go directly to the web page selected on the list, or
Alt-R Key: Load The selected Link, list it's links, and Immediately View
the web page, or
Alt-T Key: View a local text file version of the listed web page, or
Alt-W Key: go to a local HTML page of the listed web page without any of the
web page scripts.
This will speed up viewing of the page inside your browser.
Summary:
In this program I go directly to the web page you are on in the list.
Extracting
the text and links from it so it can be displayed locally on your computer.
I then strip out all scripting to keep any programs from
running and save the stripped down version as a .html file in the folder
made in
your default folder, which is the sub folder titled Breaking News.
Note: If you select to read a page immediately the last page loaded is
retained and a view of the selected link is done.
Once I have created an html page I have also stripped out all tags from
the page
and formed a text only file of all the text, or I should say almost all the
text
on the page inside tags and such and there posted in a text file.
Now, when forming those 2 files I also extract out all link text and
place that
in a list in the order the links are seen in the page.
That link list is what gets displayed on the screen in list view form.
Note: I added the option to toggle between list or detail in the view menu,
hitting the Alt-V and
V key will toggle that mode and tell you what setting you will be in.
Now you can either just look at the heading which was inside the link, or
both the
heading and link. The word URL is said after the heading since in detail
mode the header for
the column is also read.
Now, once you have the list made and displayed you can go around the
list using
the cursor keys or use a fast first letter search.
You can also change the sort of the list from original to alphabetical or
reverse alphabetical, for it has 3 options.
So, when traveling around the list at any time you can go to the web
page by using
the Alt-G hotkey, or going to the file menu and hitting the G key.
Or, when on a heading you want to view all the links of then you use a
different
hotkey which is Alt-Page Down for load or use the File Menu hitting the L
key.
This feature loads the link you are on. Now, if no display there is a
default
page placed in the text field. So using the same hotkeys above you will get
the same
result.
Note:
If you want to change the default or at any time not use a link on the
list,
tab once into the edit field and make your change then tab again to the
button,
or use the Alt-D hotkey and that edit field entry will be used for loading a
URL web page instead of pressing the button.
Note:
Some links at the moment do not have a heading inside there link tag,
sad, but
true, and in that case you may find holes in the list where there is nothing
but,
the link itself which is in the hidden second column.
In that case you can look at the link either by going to detail mode and see
it or
using the Alt-E hotkey which will load the link into the text edit field and
you
are placed in the edit box to see it or edit it if so desire.
Then use the Alt-D hotkey or tab once to the button to load that URL.
Use the Alt-S save hotkey or in the file menu hit the
S key to save any menu settings you have made.
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