/web-loader

A website downloader with a built-in JavaScript engine!

Primary LanguageJavaScriptMIT LicenseMIT

Web Loader

A website downloader with a built-in JavaScript engine!

Phantomjs License

Table of Contents

Purpose
Compatibility
Set Up
Functionality
Use Cases
Future Goals

Purpose

The purpose of Web Loader is to give a user the ability to download portions of or entire websites.

Compatibility

Web Loader is compatible with PhantomJS version 2.1.1 and above.

Set Up

  1. Install PhantomJS for your operating system: http://phantomjs.org/download.html.
  2. Clone this repository.
  3. You're done! You are now able to run loader.js from the command line.

Functionality

There are two main ways to download a website with Web Loader:

1. Host Download

A host website download involves downloading every page that is present on a given host.

To run a host website download, run a command of the following form:

phantomjs loader.js https://example.com

2. Path Download

A path website download involves downloading pages that are in a specific path on the host.

To run a path website download, run a command of the following form:

phatomjs loader.js https://example.com /example/path

Use Cases

There are a few use cases for this software:

1. Detect Website Changes

Running this program multiple times over a given time period could allow a user to detect changes that are made to a website. This might be useful in tracking when a business announces a new product or updates an application.

2. Word Search

The resulting text files generated by this program can be rapidly searched, allowing a user to quickly check if website contains certain verbiage.

3. Research

In general, this program may be useful in any sort of research that involves extracting verbiage from the internet.

Future Goals

See Projects.