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Subject: Re: Is there anyway to do this? (uber selective)
Author: C.B.
Date: 08/30/2006 08:07
 
You should be able to copy the pages you want but you will have a lot of link
excluding to do so that you do not copy unnecessary pages.

A lot is going to depend on how much experience you have with using httrack
already. Knowing what to exclude and how to exclude by "word" when needed, and
when to use the full link.

I copied a forum similar to the structure of the one you linked to but I
really wanted the information it had so I took the time to do it. Generally I
do not mirror forums. Too much of a pain to do it sometime.

Look at the links on the left-hand side of the page. You don't want those.
Look at the links for the "memberlist", "search", "Blogs", "contest",
"NewTopic", etc. you don't want those links and will want to exclude those
links by using a "word" to exclude each of them and all similar links of that
nature.

Click on a forum topic. Now look around for the links you don't want, such as
the private message links and the post new topic links, etc. and exclude those
by using a "word" exclusion.


By "word" I mean look at the link and see if there is a word or word/symbol
structure that can be picked out to exclude a link and similar links without
excluding links that you do want. 

As an example look at one of the private message links:

using this exclusion rule will exclude all private message links: -*privmsg*


I don't know if excluding the community link on the left-hand side of the page
will cause you trouble or not but you will need to try and exclude that link.
If you are unable to exclude it then you will end up copying the bigger forum
that the link leads to. The same goes for the "Forum Index" link.


Basically, if you want to try and mirror the pages you want, then set
exclusions and run Httrack and stop it after awhile to see if it is copying
some links that you might want to exclude and check to make sure it is copying
the pages you do want. Trial and Error. 

Another thing, Httrack doesn't copy forums very well. Do a search on mirroring
forums in this forum if you haven't already to find out information on doing
this. When I copied the forum that I mentioned earlier, Httrack just kept
right on running. I excluded every unnecessary link and still Httrack just
kept right on running. That is because it was creating a lot of duplicate
pages of what it had already copied. It eventually stopped mirroring though.


One area you may run into problems though is if someone in a topic you want to
mirror posted a link to a topic that is in the bigger forum that you don't
want to mirror. You might have to exclude the stray posted link that leads to
the bigger forum, if you find any.  


Maybe someone else can give you an easier answer but basically you have a lot
of link excluding to do. No easier way, at least not that I know of. Look on
all pages, tops and bottoms for links you will want to exclude. Again, Trial
and Error.

Also I wouldn't allow more than two connections while mirroring a forum.



Good Luck








 
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Subject Author Date
Is there anyway to do this? (uber selective)

08/29/2006 20:30
Re: Is there anyway to do this? (uber selective)

08/30/2006 08:07




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