Cannot view WebArchives on iPhone

DEVONthink Tips
1

Hi,

I am currently testing the combination of DTPO´s server and my iPhone.

When I try to access WebArchives on my iPhone, the iPhone-Safari does not show the archive but instead, tries to open the WebArchive´s original source URL. If this URL doesn´t exist anymore, the access fails. So DTPO´s server doesn´t seem to deliver the WebArchive but only the link.

At least to me, this is definitely not desirable behavior but an error.

Can you reproduce this and/or can I be of any assistance to fix this error?

Thanks!
Kenny

2

To be compatible to any browser, DTPO’s server uses only the original HTML source and the original URL right now. But version 2.0 will return the stored web archive to WebKit compatible browsers.

3

Unfortunately no WebKit browser (including Safari) is able to display remote web archives, they’re always downloaded.

4

Thanks for your reply.

Hm, just for my understanding - does that mean that:

  1. I will not be able to view the WebArchives saved on my server because
  2. clicking the WebArchive will inevitably link to the original source URL
    ?

Kenny

5
  1. You can only download them
  2. Yes and no. The server returns the original HTML source & URL. Other resources have to be loaded and might or might not exist.
6

If you need to transfer the information content of a WebArchive to your iPhone, remember that the WebArchive document can be converted to another file format that’s less problematic.

“Print” it as PDF within the database. Search for/download the PDF to the iPhone. Note: the WebArchive file format is proprietary to Apple, so isn’t a “universal” file type like PDF if you need to share documents with colleagues using other than Mac computers. Here’s the trick, as the Print to DEVONthink Pro.scpt won’t work on a document inside the database: invoke the Print command, click on the PDF button in the Print panel and choose Save as PDF. Print to the Finder, then use File > Import > Files & Folders to capture the PDF back into your database. I’ve simplified that by saving the PDF to a Finder folder to which the Import Folder Action script (found in the Extras folder on the download disk image) is attached. So that results in automatic import of the PDF conversion of the WebArchive file.

Convert (Data > Convert > to Plain text (only the text content of the page) OR to Rich text (text, hyperlinks and images of the WebArchive document). Search for/download to the iPhone.

The PDF conversion will retain the text, images, hyperlinks and general layout of the WebArchive document. Search for/download to the iPhone.

The rich text conversion will retain the text, images and hyperlinks of the WebArchive, but the original page layout may differ considerably.

Personally, I usually make rich text captures from Web sources, as I rarely want to capture the entire page and its layout – I’m primarily interested in the text/images/tables of an article, and want to capture only that content and leave out all unrelated material that’s usually on the source page.