Thoughts, tips, and updates on screen-scraping
Todd Wilson Periodically people ask if screen-scraper can extract data from PDF files, as well as HTML. We’ve never had a very good answer for this (it can’t, out of the box), but lately we’ve been forced to come up with a solution, as a project we’ve been working on has required it. When I initially researched … Read moreExtracting data from PDF files
This is a question we get from time to time, so I finally decided to add it to our FAQ. If anyone else has experience with this kind of thing feel free to post a comment. I’m unaware of many packages that can do this. Here’s the posting from the FAQ: The short answer to … Read moreExtracting data from Java applets, ActiveX controls, and Adobe Flash movies
Pfew. Well, sorry it’s been so long. We’ve been swamped with work lately, but I’m happy to report that we’ve recently carved out enough time to get a new alpha version of screen-scraper out the door. For the impatient, here are some quick install instructions (which differ from the usual): Back up your scraping sessions … Read moreVersion 2.7.2.9a of screen-scraper available
Enterprise Content Management (ECM) encompasses a wide variety of software and technologies for retrieving and managing information and applications so that they are accessible to users throughout a company’s network. Integration of these applications and content sources is usually best accomplished not by reprogamming all of them to accomodate a common interface, which quickly becomes … Read moreUsing screen-scraper with Enterprise Content Management Software
We’ve been swamped lately, but I’m happy to report that we’ve finally completed a version of screen-scraper that includes folders. This has been one of the most oft-requested features, so I hope it makes using screen-scraper just that much more pleasant. Upgrade your instance via the “Check for updates” option from the “Options” menu. Hopefully … Read moreFolders! Folders! Folders! screen-scraper 2.7.2.6a available
This is a pretty small upgrade, but fixes a couple of bugs I’ve personally found to be obnoxious in screen-scraper. They were easy to fix, so my apologies to the world for taking so long to fix them. The first bug deals with the little divider between the tree on the left and whatever else … Read moreVersion 2.7.2.2a of screen-scraper available
Today on our support forum we had someone inquire about calling scripts from other scripts within screen-scraper. This has been requested a number of times in the past, and I’ve kind of hummed and hahed about it, not sure if it would be opening a can of worms. Some of our internal developers have wanted … Read moreVersion 2.7.2.1a of screen-scraper available
I just posted several example scraping sessions that may be of help to those starting out with screen-scraper: http://www.screen-scraper.com/support/examples/scrapbookfinds_examples.php. Back when screen-scraper was just a babe in my arms I used to include scraping sessions in the download. The scraping sessions extracted stuff from Slashdot, Freshmeat, and Weather.com. The trouble was, the sites would change … Read moreExample scraping sessions available
This is just a minor bug fix release, but anyone invoking screen-scraper from the command line should upgrade. Somehow a semi-critical bug slipped through our radar on the 2.7 release. In 2.7 if you have the workbench open, then run screen-scraper from the command line, when the command line instance ends it will close screen-scraper’s … Read moreVersion 2.7.2 of screen-scraper available
Astute screen-scraper Fred came up with a scenario that arises from time-to-time: you’ve got a page containing one or more HTML tables, all of which are nearly identical in structure. You want to pull the data from each table, but need to be able to distinguish which row came from which table. Standard old extractor … Read moreScraping data from similar tables