Re: offline documentation package

Hi Rob, Mary, and all,

   I just spent some time checking into whether it would be easy to use
wget to create a local archive of the NCL web site. I think it would be,
using something like:
wget -m -k -K -E http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/ -o "ncl_doc_grab.log"

This invocation of wget is supposed to convert the links so that the
page can be viewed offline (the -k option). However, when I tried this,
it didn't work, and I think this is because of the way the links are
coded throughout the NCL web site. When I looked at the page source, I
noticed that the links are coded as:

<a href="/get_started.shtml
<view-source:http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/get_started.shtml>"

I think the leading forward slash isn't necessary and messes up wget
when it tries to convert the links (they end up pointing to the root of
the entire drive rather than the local directory). Otherwise, I think it
would work. I'm not an html expert though, so maybe there's reason why
the NCL website is coded the way it was. Anyway, wget would be a
convenient way to create a working archive for offline viewing if there
is an easy fix for this (or some wget trick that I can't find).

Have a good weekend,

Jonathan

P.S. I think another thing that can mess wget up is if a baseref is set
for the site. I don't think that's the issue for the NCL site though.

Mary Haley wrote:
> Hi Rob,
>
> We've gotten a few requests like this in the past, but not really
> enough to warrant doing something like this on a regular basis.
>
> I don't know much about using wget to pull down web documentation,
> but it seems like you could automate this somehow? (Maybe somebody
> else can jump in here.)
>
> Our website depends on styles sheets, so you would need to
> have this set up at your end to work, I think.
>
> You can try it:
>
> ftp ftp.ucar.edu
> <log in as "anonymous">
> <Use email address as password>
> cd /pub/scd/haley
> get NclDocument.tar.gz
> quit
>
> --Mary
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Mary Haley
> haley _at_ ucar.edu
> NCAR/CISL/VETS
> 1850 Table Mesa Dr
> Boulder, CO 80305
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Thu, 24 Sep 2009, Rob Nicholas wrote:
>
>
>> Hey NCL developers,
>>
>> Would you consider providing an "offline" version of the web-based NCL
>> documentation? I often find myself working somewhere with sketchy or
>> non-existent internet access (thanks to the fact that NCL works so
>> well on my Mac laptop) but wanting to look up things like function
>> syntax or a plotting example.
>>
>> Something as simple as a regularly-updated tarball containing
>> everything under http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Document/ (excluding the
>> external NCAR Graphics, PyNGL, and PyNIO stuff) would do the trick. I
>> know I could accomplish this myself by pulling everything down with
>> wget, but this is less than ideal.
>>
>> [If other NCL users would also find an offline version of the
>> documentation useful, please weigh in here (or contact the developers
>> directly) to indicate your support.]
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Rob
>> _______________________________________________
>> ncl-talk mailing list
>> List instructions, subscriber options, unsubscribe:
>> http://mailman.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/ncl-talk
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> ncl-talk mailing list
> List instructions, subscriber options, unsubscribe:
> http://mailman.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/ncl-talk
>
Received on Fri Sep 25 2009 - 17:56:53 MDT