Save / Download Thread as PDF [Archive]

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Tralala

05-21-2006, 09:49 PM

Since the users have recently learned that threads can be deleted at any time once a hack is removed, there may be some discomfort when it comes to installing a complex hack that's got thousands of posts of important support issues. We're depending on the health of relationships of people outside of our control, and that resource may disappear at any time.

So, I'd like to be able to save entire threads to my own computer.

Is there a way to "Save this thread" as text? The "Show Printable Version" shows, at maximum, only 100 posts.

How about "Save Thread as PDF? (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=91562)" Could that be installed?

Xenon

05-21-2006, 09:52 PM

Tralala

05-21-2006, 10:05 PM

I like that mod, but it needs a bit of work to work here, but i think, my team will be able to make the needed changes.

i am just not sure about big threads, iirc there were some timeouts mentioned in that thread (i looked at it for another board once)

Thanks for the consideration. For the record, PDF being the resulting file format is a luxury IMHO.

At the very least, if the built-in "Show Printable Version" function could be expanded to show the complete thread (and not just 50 or 100 posts) it would also fit the bill. Users could then just save that page as text.

Xenon

05-21-2006, 10:08 PM

Personally i think that a feature like that should be a default vb feature.

so i will give a definite yes to it, as long as we manage to fix it, but i don't think there should be a big problem ;)

Eagle Creek

05-21-2006, 10:12 PM

I don't have discoverd time-outs with that hack yet.
But it gives an error when I'm trying to PDF a thread and it has attachements.

Dan

05-21-2006, 10:12 PM

Ya, if you fix that it could be a major time saver for those big threads where no one offically supports the hack/mod but there are fixes contributed by people and you don't feel like digging through all the pages.

redlabour

05-21-2006, 10:19 PM

I get this Error after Installing and trying :

FPDF error: Alpha channel not supported: http://www.politikstube.de/forum/images/logo.png

Xenon

05-21-2006, 10:21 PM

yeah, these are the issues i mean :)

well, a said i'll assign one of my team to fix it, and if possible it will be installed :)

Eagle Creek

05-21-2006, 10:51 PM

It would be great!

Tralala

06-20-2006, 06:39 PM

Thanks again for the consideration!

Dan

06-20-2006, 06:50 PM

If you haven't noticed this was implemented. It's under Thread Tools.

Marco van Herwaarden

06-20-2006, 06:52 PM

Is this still an open issue?

If yes then focus on it might has been lost during the recent Staff changes.

-=Sniper=-

06-20-2006, 06:55 PM

cool but I don't think it formats the bbcode tags correctly, e.g. https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=59914 the php code is out side the dashed box in the pdf version.

btw: I am using foxitreader so maybe it could be that http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php ?

Dan

06-20-2006, 06:57 PM

No it works fine Marco ;) I just was pointing out where the option is to download a thread as PDF.

Tralala

06-20-2006, 07:04 PM

No it works fine Marco ;) I just was pointing out where the option is to download a thread as PDF.

Cool, I hadn't noticed it, thanks for this. I assume this is a "fixed" version of the (somewhat buggy) Save as PDF (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=91562) hack I referenced in the first post?

Any chance this add-on will be shared for use on our forums, or was the fix specifically for vB.org?

Marco van Herwaarden

06-20-2006, 07:24 PM

Dan, did you noticed the post by Sniper, or did you miss it? Because the 2 of you seemed to have cross-posted.

Dan

06-20-2006, 07:27 PM

I missed his post, probably typed up my reply and he posted while I was doing other things ;)

Bubble #5

06-20-2006, 07:32 PM

So does this mean that since the this feature is now working that it will be a standard part of 3.6.x?

:bunny:

Paul M

06-20-2006, 07:33 PM

It's not part of 3.6, it's a hack / modification that has been installed.

sabret00the

06-20-2006, 09:29 PM

any chance of getting the save as text file by logician installed also?

Bubble #5

06-21-2006, 04:16 PM

It's not part of 3.6, it's a hack / modification that has been installed.
OK, well in that case let me rephrase my question. Is vb.org going to be kind and share their revisions of this hack with the hack author, so that we can all use it? :surprised:

Paul M

06-21-2006, 05:37 PM

I don't know if that will happen, we would have to discuss it internally - I expect it would also have to be discussed with the original author as well.

Tralala

06-21-2006, 06:38 PM

I think that would be a very kind and appreciated gesture. I'm sure many members here would appreciate it, and that sort of collaborative goodwill would do wonders for the community and its morale.

Marco van Herwaarden

06-21-2006, 06:50 PM

Paul can you please arange that the original author is contacted and request that we can release our version (in his thread i guess).

Paul M

06-21-2006, 07:34 PM

I'm not sure how sucessful that will be, they haven't been online for over 8 months, but I will give it a try. :)

Marco van Herwaarden

06-21-2006, 07:55 PM

Ok if you can not get into contact within a week, add it to the current modfication thread, and add note that this version was added by us, awaiting authors permission.

Paul M

06-23-2006, 06:53 AM

OK, well in that case let me rephrase my question. Is vb.org going to be kind and share their revisions of this hack with the hack author, so that we can all use it? :surprised:
The Author has replied with his permission, so the version we have installed will be released as soon as someone has time to do it.

Tralala

06-23-2006, 07:37 AM

Awesome news, Paul M! Thanks SOOOO much to you and MarcoH64 and Xenon and Dan and Hellcat and anyone else involved for making this happen!

Bubble #5

06-23-2006, 05:12 PM

You guys are GREAT! Thanks for making this happen :bunny:

Wired1

06-23-2006, 07:41 PM

Mind making an announcement somewhere when you update the hack?

Paul M

06-23-2006, 09:01 PM

Hellcat did the work on this so he will update the hack, I don't think he's been on since we got permission.

Tralala

07-07-2006, 02:59 PM

Thanks again for this great gesture. Any updates?

Paul M

07-07-2006, 07:11 PM

I'll go prod him, I bet he's forgot. :)

Tralala

07-11-2006, 06:36 AM

Thanks, Paul M, the prod is appreciated! :)

Paul M

07-11-2006, 11:46 AM

JFYI, He hasn't been on for a week so I guess he must be away. :)

Chris M

07-11-2006, 06:36 PM

You need to get yourself a cattle prod Paul :)

Chris

Tralala

07-18-2006, 03:10 AM

You need to get yourself a cattle prod Paul :)

Indeed. :cross-eyed:

I'm surprised that Hellcat, as a moderator, hasn't logged in at all in two weeks. Are we sure he's okay?

Paul M

07-18-2006, 03:21 AM

I don't know, I asked the same question not long ago, I don't recall him saying anything about not being around for a while.

Chris M

07-18-2006, 06:52 AM

Give him a little more time then find where he lives ;)

Chris

Tralala

07-25-2006, 01:40 PM

Well, now it's been more than three weeks.

Paul M

07-28-2006, 02:47 PM

Well unfortunately we cannot force him back to the keyboard. :)

I have no idea what he did as only Hellcat worked on it, and I'm busy woking on the vb.org 3.6 code atm. If he hasn't appeared next week I'll see what I can find out as the pdf code is probably on the 3.5.4 Dev site.

Tralala

08-04-2006, 10:24 AM

I have no idea what he did as only Hellcat worked on it, and I'm busy woking on the vb.org 3.6 code atm. If he hasn't appeared next week I'll see what I can find out as the pdf code is probably on the 3.5.4 Dev site.

Cool. Thanks.

Tralala

08-16-2006, 06:03 AM

Paul M

08-16-2006, 04:31 PM

simsimt

08-18-2006, 07:23 PM

Hello,

The following error occured when trying to download a thread as PDF while I'm not logged in:
Warning: file_get_contents(clientscript/vbulletin_css/style-968f2479-00013.css" id="vbulletin_css) [function.file-get-contents]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /html2fpdf/html2fpdf.php on line 2211

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /www/vbulletin.org/htdocs/forum/includes/class_core.php:2985) in /includes/functions.php(4391) : eval()'d code on line 55

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /www/vbulletin.org/htdocs/forum/includes/class_core.php:2985) in /includes/functions.php(4391) : eval()'d code on line 56

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /www/vbulletin.org/htdocs/forum/includes/class_core.php:2985) in /html2fpdf/fpdf.php on line 1665
FPDF error: Some data has already been output to browser, can't send PDF file
The same thread was downloaded successfully right after I logged in.

I thought I might draw your attention to this error.

Snake

08-19-2006, 03:48 PM

I'm not sure if this will be any useful.

Tralala

08-19-2006, 09:38 PM

I took a look at what we have installed on the dev site (which is a copy of live) and I cannot see any difference between it and the released hack. The only change appears to be that the plugin and templates have been packaged together as a product.

Wow. Well ain't that a kick in the pants, after all the anticipation...

:tired:

I suppose the more important question now is, what the *bleep* happened to Hellcat? He's a Coding Team Moderator, and he hasn't logged in since July 3. Has anyone corresponded with him? Do we know he's okay?

Guest190829

08-20-2006, 01:14 PM

Wow. Well ain't that a kick in the pants, after all the anticipation...

:tired:

I suppose the more important question now is, what the *bleep* happened to Hellcat? He's a Coding Team Moderator, and he hasn't logged in since July 3. Has anyone corresponded with him? Do we know he's okay?

We do not know what happened to Hellcat, we tried the other sites in the vbulletin network and even Hellcat's personal forum. He's been temporarily demoted for security purposes until we hear from him again. We hope everything is okay on his end.

Tralala

03-05-2007, 06:53 PM

If you haven't noticed this was implemented. It's under Thread Tools.

And now it is gone?

For lots of reasons this functionality was appreciated here, one of which was to save threads for support should the hack be removed at some future date...

Please bring the feature back.

Guest190829

03-05-2007, 10:42 PM

And now it is gone?

For lots of reasons this functionality was appreciated here, one of which was to save threads for support should the hack be removed at some future date...

Please bring the feature back.

Sorry, but if I remember correctly, some of the classes the modification implemented were not compliant with PHP 5.

Paul M

03-05-2007, 11:11 PM

Yep, when the servers moved to php5 it broke it - and no one actually noticed for a few weeks so I'm afraid it's very low on the list of things to be done.

Smoothie

03-05-2007, 11:33 PM

Don't understand what the big deal is. Just save the thread as a PDF file.

Tralala

03-05-2007, 11:56 PM

Sorry, but if I remember correctly, some of the classes the modification implemented were not compliant with PHP 5.
Thanks for the explanation; it's nice to know there's a valid reason for it's removal. How about this simpler Download Thread (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=97217) mod? It saves the thread as a text file, which is the next best thing IMHO.

And yes, it works perfectly with 3.6.x. It also has no PHP compliancy issues and no server load like the PDF hack had.

Yep, when the servers moved to php5 it broke it - and no one actually noticed for a few weeks so I'm afraid it's very low on the list of things to be done.
I suspect nobody noticed for a few weeks because it's been relatively quiet around here (controversy-free) and long threads haven't been pulled by moderators when disgruntled coders disappeared or removed their hacks. If that happens again and there's no way for users have "saved" the support info contained therein those threads, I also suspect folks will notice again. And they'll be loud about it.

Don't understand what the big deal is. Just save the thread as a PDF file.

:confused: I don't understand what you don't understand.

For a short thread, sure, that may work (from the browser app side.) And yes, Mac users have "print to PDF" built in to the OS. But others do not.

But how does one "save the thread as a PDF file" when said thread has more than, say, 1000 posts? Those are the threads that have lots and lots of helpful information. You know, the ones for the major hacks, the ones many vB installations depend on for their communities.

With UserCP set to the maximum of "Show 100 Posts Per Page," that's 10 separate pages to load and "save." So you're suggesting we save each of the 10 pages separately as individual PDF's? Not only does that take lots of time, archiving and searching through those 10 files becomes a pain (if not impossible.)

As we've seen in the past, if a coder pulls their hack, those threads (with all the helpful info) go bye-bye, as well. Hence the desire to be able to save the threads locally for support (and posterity) and why I made this request in the first place. I was happy to see it implemented and thanked the mods for doing so. Instead of feeling helpless to potential strife and whim that had nothing to do with us, it gave some personal responsibility to the users here, allowing us to save info that we really really wanted to save, just in case the moderators decided to remove threads again.

There are other ways to accomplish this though -- it doesn't have to be PDF. An enhanced "Show Printable version" Thread Tool command that includes ALL posts in one single page would work.

Or as mentioned above, "Download/Save as Text" would work too, if it were installed here.