Download Manager tips

Site ripping tips

The Download Manager can be used as "site ripper" – a tool used to download a whole section of a website at once, or the whole site, for archival and reference purposes. Below are few tips for using this facility.

Depth

The term "depth" in the context of the Download Manager refers to the maximum depth of the search tree that iCab generates when exploring the site. It does not refer to the maxmimum depth that iCab should reach in the site's directory hierarchy.

For example, this chain of links:

/index.html → /contents.html → /page_1.html → /page_2.html

Has a depth of 4: three links are followed to a total of four pages in the chain. A depth of 1 means that only the original page will ever be requested and no links will be followed, even if you have asked for all pages in the same path.

Other tips

• If you modify (such as change the maximum depth or which files to download) and then restart a download, no files except the top-most page requested will be downloaded again (iCab will only collect files which it has not yet downloaded) unless you quit and reload the application first, or delete and recreate the download.

-- DanielBeardsmore - 29 Nov 2006