This Software (webcow.exe) is in a Beta State. It's on your very OWN HIGH RISK to copy, execute or whatever this Program. Hans Krentel is not responsible for any damage that could caused by Webcow.
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Content
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1. Basics
1.1 About Beta
1.2 Installing
2. Webcow
2.1 What is Webcow ?
2.2 Why Webcow ?
2.3 How does Webcow work ?
2.4 Import and Export Lists
3. Advanced
3.1 Tip No. 13
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1.1 About Beta
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Webcow is Beta. So you may get Errors. I need feedback on this to continue developing this Project. Because of this, I implented a Version Check since 0.51.6021. If you find a Bug, you can check if a new version is avaible for download. If your bug still exists in the new version, please tell me.
At this point i would thank the people who contributed some feedback and bug reports to the tool.
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1.2 Installing
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Installing of webcow is as easy as running an installer. Just extract the archive in the folder you like webcow to be installed and that it is.
To start the program just run webcow.exe. It is a need that you have got the visual basic 6.0 runtimes installed. Win2k users have them on their disk already for every other person you can download them from microsoft (www.microsoft.com) or take the download link on the website.
If you downloaded your distribution through winsite, nonags or similar, be shure to get the latest version: http://webcow.cjb.net/
webcow will automatically create it's webcow.ini and webcow.hst (history) in the local directory.
To uninstall webcow, just remove the exe,ini & hst file and the auto created tmp directory (if you want to delete the standard download folder) and webcow is off your system. no reboot, no registry settings.
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2.1 What is Webcow ?
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Webcow is a small and handy tool, to get the links out of directory listings or webpages. It was first created to get all files of an Apache directory listing. Within the development, i was asked for publishing and improvements, some errorfixing options and file-filters were added.
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2.2 Why Webcow ?
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It really saves your time :-). Instead of clicking each link on a page from top to the button or 'rightclick save as' or whatever, Webcow just does it. I use it for all my personal needs.
The following features are supported by webcow:
- http & ftp
- http redirects
- selectable user-agent
- supports accounts (username & password)
- referrer (the get-textbox is used for this)
- proxy settings (taken from windows internet settings)
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2.3 How does Webcow work ?
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You just enter an internetadress (url) and press get. It's quite like browsing. After this, the returned data will be parsed for links and all links will be listed. Now the FilterCowPad' provides some filtering options like prefix and suffix, and new since version 0.51.6030, the OneWildcard* filter. After pressing Apply, the filters will be applied on the list of links. If something went wrong, just press reset to get the originally list back. If options are entered, both filter will apply.
After this press start download, and each link, one after one, will be downloaded. If you use the BASE textbox, this text will be applied as base for every link in the list. (With this base you can even do some usefull stuff in combination with the list - sometimes the links parsed from the page are wrong. In this case you can easily use your own BASE to fix problems for all links.)
You can check out the tutorial on the website: http://webcow.cjb.net/support.php?page=tutorial
There are often placed tooltips for help in the Program directly.
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2.4 Import and Export Lists
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With right mouse button on the list, you'll get a long menu with different copy & paste options. entry is one part of the list, list means the complete list. if you copy the list, all links are exported to windows clipboard, seperated line by line.
This data can be useed to import into other downloadmanagers or into an editor (like notepad or metapad) where extended list manipulating is possible. you can paste it back later.
With this method you are able to build long lists. Do not forget to use 'apply base' first to get the base in front of every link.
While pasting a list or any link into the list, every duplicate link will be automatically removed.
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3.1 Tip No. 13
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Here is a list of features good to know for the hardworking league of beta testers:
- Pressing crtl in main window will switch the 'Get' button into an 'Add' button. Enter or modify the URL and press the 'Add' button, all LINKS from the URL will be added to the list instead of making a new list.
- Entering a program file in the URL textbox and pressing F12 or menu 'extra > open current url in browser' will open the program
- Using multiple processes: if the bandwidth is running low (i.e. you use 3 webcows on a isdn), sometimes webcow seems to hang - don't kick the app out. it takes some time until continuing. webcow will refresh it's visual interface every 512 bytes downloaded.
- Filtermaster. Lucky one. I know that it's at start hard to get the base/filter combos, but try the filters out. suffix is just the end (no * needed), prefix just the start. OneWildcard* is very powerfull but maybe hard to learn: you can use two text-blocks with an * inbetween. no text* or *text, this won't work. try the options out & happy testing.
