02.13.07
Posted in Updates at 3:56 pm by Todd Wilson
Just an eensy-weensy bug fix in this one. Don’t bother to upgrade unless you know you need it.
If your screen-scraper was updated from a 2.7.x release, you can go ahead and just update in the usual manner (i.e., select “Check for updates…” from the “Options” menu).
If you installed a fresh copy of version 3.0, you’ll need to download the updater.jar file here, and copy it into your screen-scraper folder. After that you can update in the usual manner. Either that, or you can just re-download a version 3.0 installer, and install a fresh copy (just be sure to back up your work first if you do that).
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02.09.07
Posted in Updates at 12:19 pm by Todd Wilson
Just a couple more little bug fixes in this one. Most won’t notice any difference between this and 3.0, but feel free to upgrade, if you’d like.
If your screen-scraper was updated from a 2.7.x release, you can go ahead and just update in the usual manner (i.e., select “Check for updates…” from the “Options” menu).
If you installed a fresh copy of version 3.0, you’ll need to download the updater.jar file here, and copy it into your screen-scraper folder. After that you can update in the usual manner. Either that, or you can just re-download a version 3.0 installer, and install a fresh copy (just be sure to back up your work first if you do that).
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01.31.07
Posted in Updates at 2:02 pm by Todd Wilson
So it turns out that there were a couple of issues that slipped through our 3.0 screen-scraper testing. One is a bug where null session variables cause problems when they’re interpolated (e.g., ~#FOO#~) in a POST or GET parameter. The second was the omission of a file needed for screen-scraper to update itself.
If your screen-scraper was updated from a 2.7.x release, you can go ahead and just update in the usual manner (i.e., select “Check for updates…” from the “Options” menu).
If you installed a fresh copy of version 3.0, you’ll need to download the updater.jar file here, and copy it into your screen-scraper folder. After that you can update in the usual manner. Either that, or you can just re-download a version 3.0 installer, and install a fresh copy (just be sure to back up your work first if you do that).
Yet another issue we discovered deals with exporting and importing scraping sessions that use the “Mappings” feature with extractor pattern tokens. Currently if you export such a scraping session, then import it into another instance of screen-scraper, the mappings settings won’t import. We’re working on a fix, and should have that out shortly.
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01.12.07
Posted in Updates at 5:13 pm by Todd Wilson
This is definitely the largest release we’ve ever done. It contains all kinds of bug fixes and new features over 2.7.2, so we highly recommend upgrading.
If you’re currently running version 2.7.2.9a or higher you can upgrade via Options -> Check for updates, then follow these steps:
- After downloading and installing the update via “Check for updates”, launch the screen-scraper workbench.
- Open the “Settings” dialog box by clicking on the wrench icon in the button bar.
- Click inside one of the text boxes (it doesn’t matter which) to give it focus.
- Close the “Settings” dialog box. This causes certain properties files to be re-written with a new property related to the new HTML renderer.
- Close the workbench.
- Launch the workbench again.
If you’re upgrading from anything prior to version 2.7.2.9a, follow these instructions (see this page for details on why you need to follow these steps):
- Back up your scraping sessions (check here for help on that).
- Ensure screen-scraper isn’t currently running (close the workbench and server, if running).
- Download this file, and unzip it.
- Copy the contents of the zip file on top of your existing files in the screen-scraper install folder. For example, the zip file contains a “screen-scraper.jar” file which should be copied on top of your existing “screen-scraper.jar” file.
- Edit your “resource\conf\screen-scraper.properties” file in a text editor. Change the “Version” property to “3.0”.
- Launch the screen-scraper workbench.
- If all of your scraping sessions have disappeared, don’t panic!
- Follow steps 2 through 4 in the upgrade instructions above this one (the instructions corresponding to upgrading from version 2.7.2.9a or higher).
- Close the screen-scraper workbench.
- Re-open the screen-scraper workbench.
You’re done!
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12.28.06
Posted in Updates at 12:54 am by Todd Wilson
Mostly just some minor fixes and clean-ups in this one. Our to-do list is officially empty, and this time we’re *really* not throwing in anything new. We still have quite a bit more testing to do, but, who knows, maybe this one could be the gold release…
The usual caveats apply–this is alpha software, so use it at your own risk. Thanks, though, to anyone willing to help us test.
If you’re currently running version 2.7.2.9a or higher you can upgrade via Options -> Check for updates, then follow these steps:
- After downloading and installing the update via “Check for updates”, launch the screen-scraper workbench.
- Open the “Settings” dialog box by clicking on the wrench icon in the button bar.
- Click inside one of the text boxes (it doesn’t matter which) to give it focus.
- Close the “Settings” dialog box. This causes certain properties files to be re-written with a new property related to the new HTML renderer.
- Close the workbench.
- Launch the workbench again.
If you’re upgrading from anything prior to version 2.7.2.9a, follow these instructions (see this page for details on why you need to follow these steps):
- Back up your scraping sessions (check here for help on that).
- Ensure screen-scraper isn’t currently running (close the workbench and server, if running).
- Download this file, and unzip it.
- Copy the contents of the zip file on top of your existing files in the screen-scraper install folder. For example, the zip file contains a “screen-scraper.jar” file which should be copied on top of your existing “screen-scraper.jar” file.
- Edit your “resource\conf\screen-scraper.properties” file in a text editor. Change the “Version” property to “2.7.2.23a”.
- Launch the screen-scraper workbench.
- If all of your scraping sessions have disappeared, don’t panic!
- Follow steps 2 through 4 in the upgrade instructions above this one (the instructions corresponding to upgrading from version 2.7.2.9a or higher).
- Close the screen-scraper workbench.
- Re-open the screen-scraper workbench.
You’re done!
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12.18.06
Posted in Updates at 12:26 pm by Todd Wilson
This new version contains one more encoding issue that should fix garbled characters in some Latin character sets. Please let us know if you find any web sites containing characters that screen-scraper incorrectly renders as boxes or question marks. Aside from that, we’ve implemented a new HTML rendering engine, which, while still not perfect, seems to do a much better job than the previous one. This new rendering engine requires, however, that you upgrade to this version in a slightly different way, so please carefully follow the instructions you’ll find below.
The usual caveats apply–this is alpha software, so use it at your own risk. Thanks, though, to anyone willing to help us test.
If you’re currently running version 2.7.2.9a or higher you can upgrade via Options -> Check for updates, then follow these steps:
- After downloading and installing the update via “Check for updates”, launch the screen-scraper workbench.
- Open the “Settings” dialog box by clicking on the wrench icon in the button bar.
- Click inside one of the text boxes (it doesn’t matter which) to give it focus.
- Close the “Settings” dialog box. This causes certain properties files to be re-written with a new property related to the new HTML renderer.
- Close the workbench.
- Launch the workbench again.
If you’re upgrading from anything prior to version 2.7.2.9a, follow these instructions (see this page for details on why you need to follow these steps):
- Back up your scraping sessions (check here for help on that).
- Ensure screen-scraper isn’t currently running (close the workbench and server, if running).
- Download this file, and unzip it.
- Copy the contents of the zip file on top of your existing files in the screen-scraper install folder. For example, the zip file contains a “screen-scraper.jar” file which should be copied on top of your existing “screen-scraper.jar” file.
- Edit your “resource\conf\screen-scraper.properties” file in a text editor. Change the “Version” property to “2.7.2.22a”.
- Launch the screen-scraper workbench.
- If all of your scraping sessions have disappeared, don’t panic!
- Follow steps 2 through 4 in the upgrade instructions above this one (the instructions corresponding to upgrading from version 2.7.2.9a or higher).
- Close the screen-scraper workbench.
- Re-open the screen-scraper workbench.
You’re done!
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12.01.06
Posted in Updates at 3:05 pm by Todd Wilson
This one includes a few more bug fixes to some of the annoying quirks in the most recent alpha versions. The big breakthrough, though, is that we now seem to have worked out all of the issues related to internationalization. With the most recent set of fixes screen-scraper seems to be handling sites in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese just great. We’re not throwing any confetti just yet, but all tests have checked out perfectly so far.
The usual caveats apply–this is alpha software, so use it at your own risk. Thanks, though, to anyone willing to help us test.
If you’re currently running version 2.7.2.9a or higher you can upgrade via Options -> Check for updates. If you’re using anything else, follow these instructions (see this page for details on why you need to follow these steps):
- Back up your scraping sessions (check here for help on that).
- Ensure screen-scraper isn’t currently running (close the workbench and server, if running).
- Download this file, and unzip it.
- Copy the contents of the zip file on top of your existing files in the screen-scraper install folder. For example, the zip file contains a “screen-scraper.jar” file which should be copied on top of your existing “screen-scraper.jar” file.
- Edit your “resource\conf\screen-scraper.properties” file in a text editor. Change the “Version” property to “2.7.2.21a”.
- Launch the screen-scraper workbench.
- If all of your scraping sessions have disappeared, don’t panic!
- Close the screen-scraper workbench.
- Re-open the screen-scraper workbench.
You’re done!
Permalink
11.28.06
Posted in Updates at 12:19 pm by Todd Wilson
I’m happy to report that any Python lovers out there can now invoke screen-scraper from their scripts. Thanks much to Litao Wei for creating a Python driver for us. The code is excellent.
Those interested can find documentation on the topic here. We also included an example in our fourth tutorial here.
Along these same lines, we’d love to do the same thing with Ruby. If there are any Ruby experts out there who have any interest in working with us on this, feel free to drop me a line. My email address is my first name @screen-scraper.com.
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11.14.06
Posted in Updates at 5:53 pm by Todd Wilson
Well, so we found a few annoyances/bugs that we decided to slip into a new build. There will likely be at least one more before we do a public release. In addition to a few bug fixes, this version contains two slick new methods: session.saveVariables and session.loadVariables, which will respectively save session variables to a file and load them from a file. Can be very handy if you need to save the state of things so that you can pick up where you left off when you restart a scrape.
The usual caveats apply–this is alpha software, so use it at your own risk. Thanks, though, to anyone willing to help us test.
If you’re currently running version 2.7.2.9a or higher you can upgrade via Options -> Check for updates. If you’re using anything else, follow these instructions (see this page for details on why you need to follow these steps):
- Back up your scraping sessions (check here for help on that).
- Ensure screen-scraper isn’t currently running (close the workbench and server, if running).
- Download this file, and unzip it.
- Copy the contents of the zip file on top of your existing files in the screen-scraper install folder. For example, the zip file contains a “screen-scraper.jar” file which should be copied on top of your existing “screen-scraper.jar” file.
- Edit your “resource\conf\screen-scraper.properties” file in a text editor. Change the “Version” property to “2.7.2.20a”.
- Launch the screen-scraper workbench.
- If all of your scraping sessions have disappeared, don’t panic!
- Close the screen-scraper workbench.
- Re-open the screen-scraper workbench.
You’re done!
Permalink
10.24.06
Posted in Updates at 5:07 pm by Todd Wilson
This may be the one that becomes the next public version. There were a few little annoying GUI quirks that we fixed. Feel free to give it a try and let us know if you notice anything out of the ordinary.
The usual caveats apply–this is alpha software, so use it at your own risk. Thanks, though, to anyone willing to help us test.
If you’re currently running version 2.7.2.9a or higher you can upgrade via Options -> Check for updates. If you’re using anything else, follow these instructions (see this page for details on why you need to follow these steps):
- Back up your scraping sessions (check here for help on that).
- Ensure screen-scraper isn’t currently running (close the workbench and server, if running).
- Download this file, and unzip it.
- Copy the contents of the zip file on top of your existing files in the screen-scraper install folder. For example, the zip file contains a “screen-scraper.jar” file which should be copied on top of your existing “screen-scraper.jar” file.
- Edit your “resource\conf\screen-scraper.properties” file in a text editor. Change the “Version” property to “2.7.2.19a”.
- Launch the screen-scraper workbench.
- If all of your scraping sessions have disappeared, don’t panic!
- Close the screen-scraper workbench.
- Re-open the screen-scraper workbench.
You’re done!
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