I’ve recently started using a lot more web pages in DTse. (previously, I’d select text and add a rich note, or print-to-DevonThink-as-PDF, but now I just drag the page into DTse).
Currently, I have to select the imported page, and "Capture Page" so that there is a persistent copy (for offline reading once the WebKit cache is cleared). That works, but leaves 2 copies of the page, one "real", and one simply a bookmark to the "live" page.
It would be cool if I could set DTse to automatically capture the page when dragging a page from Safari into DTse, such that it is already cached, and no bookmark reference is created.
This would sometimes be handy for me, too, for eliminating the step of manually deleting original Link items after Capture.
Also, sometimes displaying captured documents accesses the net, e.g. to load images referred to in the HTML. I’d like control over whether or not that’s attempted. In other words, have a true “offline mode” of operation.
And there could be some type of page loading status, indicating if/when loading is fully/partly finished. Any timeouts and partly loaded pages are invisible except by manually inspecting the result. There are other places in the interface where some operation’s success/failure isn’t immediately apparent and often any “manual inspection for confirmation” step slows my efficiency.
Ideally, at any moment in any context, I’d like an obvious way to determine exactly where I am (e.g. item/input focus, as I’ve previously written about) and which operations (e.g. document rendering) are still in progress. The DT interface hasn’t quite reached that goal for me… yet.
Yeah. It would be ideal if DTse would create a true snapshot of a web page, including images etc. required to display the page. I’ve been using DTse to store stuff that may go offline (forum comments, search results, documentation) so it would be cool if I could just trust that it will be there when I go looking for it, rather than worrying about having a 'net connection or valid cache.
Real offline viewing and a download manager/site sucker will be part of DT Pro. Then you’ll be able to drag links from Safari (or any other application) to the download manager and just sit back and wait.
That’ll be very nice indeed. Will there be a way (even with AppleScript) to schedule that download manager / site sucker using preexisting links? Ideally I’d like to automate capturing a few important sites that change every day, browse them at my leisure (e.g. weekly instead of daily), and preserve any specific content that’s of long-term interest.
I’m not aware of any single Mac software that fully provides that functionality, or a “convenient” way to integrating different apps to achieve it. DT is already close and DT Pro sounds like it has potential to handle it all.
