URL Grabber, software and documentation is copyright 1993, 1994 by Howard Harawitz and Brooklyn North Software Works, all rights reserved. ======================================== Brooklyn North Software Works 25 Doyle Street Bedford, Nova Scotia B4A 1K4 Canada Email: harawitz@brooknorth.bedford.ns.ca ======================================== WHAT IS "URL Grabber"? URL Grabber is a small floating tool bar that resides in a corner of your MS Windows desktop. It enables you to easily 'grab' and store URLs from news groups, Email messages and other sources, as you are reading them. With a 'click' of a mouse, URL Grabber will automatically convert your collection of URLs to active WWW links on an HTML page. With another mouse click, URL Grabber will bring up your favorite browser displaying your collected links so you can view Web pages, download files and otherwise obtain information from the WWW almost instantly. HOW TO USE URL GRABBER First, select or create a file for storing your collected URLs. To do this, simply click the "File..." button on the tool bar and use the file select dialog to select an existing file or enter a file name. Then, while you are perusing newsgroups, online publications, Email, or any other text source that permits copying to the Windows clipboard, simply select a URL by dragging across it with the mouse. Use your application's "Copy" (or equivalent) function to copy the selected URL to the clipboard. Next, click URL Grabber's "Paste" button. A small dialog box, displaying the selected URL, will appear. You can edit it if necessary. Optionally, you can add a comment or description which will appear as the "Clickable" text when a browser page is created. If you want to save time, and omit the step of adding a comment, URL Grabber will automatically use the URL as the "clickable" text when it creates a browser page. When you are finished with the dialog box, simply press the key, or click the "OK" button. If you change your mind, and don't want to keep the URL, click the "Cancel" button or press the key. The URLs are stored in "HTML Assistant URL File" format. That is, as a text file with each URL/Comment pair on a single line, separated by a comma. You can view and edit the URL file at any time by clicking the "View" button. The file is automatically updated after any entries or changes are made. There is a file size limitation of just under 32K. That is, to successfully create a browser page, the HTML file must be less than 32K long. That means that the maximum size of your URL file shouldn't be more than 29 or 30K in length. You can usually store more than 300 URLs in each file. AUTOMATICALLY CREATE A BROWSER PAGE After collecting one or more URLs, you can at any time have URL Grabber automatically create a browser page by clicking the "Create..." button. You may enter a title, a main heading and a subheading for your page if you wish. You can add horizontal lines as separators, choose a numbered or unnumbered (bulleted) list, and elect to add extra spacing between lines. When you are ready, click the button with the lightning bolt on it (chosen after the symbol of the wizard, "Shazam", in the old Captain Marvel comics), and URL Grabber will create your HTML page, display it, permit you to edit it, and to save it. DISPLAY YOUR FILE WITH YOUR BROWSER After it is has been saved, you can view your new HTML page with your favorite browser by clicking the "Open Browser" button on the dialog. If you haven't already told URL Grabber where to find your browser, a dialog will open which will permit you to provide this information. Remember to CLOSE your browser after viewing. Because URL Grabber passes the name of your HTML file to the browser on the command line, it must reopen the browser each time you want to display a modified page. If the browser is already open when you click the "Open Browser" button, you will see an error message. You can change browsers at any time by clicking the "Choose browser..." button. That's all there is to it!