Download Thread
 

This hacks allows you to download a thread into your computer (desktop etc.) as a text file with one click.

The hack adds a "DOWNLOAD THREAD" link next to "Subscribe to this Thread" and when clicked entire thread is downloaded. (See Screenshot)

It's useful when:
a) You want to archive and save the thread,
b) Want to read it offline,
c) It's a long thread and you want to browse it faster as a text file, use better searching features of your text editor. For example wouldnt it be nice to download and search a keyword in the text file in, say, Lesene's Store Hack Thread which has 921 replies? :p

Anyway the hack works with ALL vb versions and very easy to apply (2 steps/ 2 minutes..). If you install it, please click INSTALL, thank you.

Note : Download function is tested with IE v.6.0 and Netscape v.4.7 and it's working in both browsers. I dont know other browsers or older versions though

Note : For Italian Translation (and instructions) of the hack, see this post. Thanks to Geminy.


UPDATE AT 13.OCTOBER.2002 : Due to a small bug, I updated the hack code. If you are downloading now, the code you dowload is already updated. If you installed the hack prior to 13.October.2002, you may want to reapply STEP 2, if you encounter problems.

Enjoy the hack. :)
Logician

Screenshot

Looks good. I will probably install this :D

Installed and working great. Thanks :)

Works great. Very nice hack. That would be cool if this hack needed no support hehehe. It works for everyone hehe. Great hack. I love the layout of the TXT file also. Great work indeed.

think i will install it, good work pal!!

just a question: does it have any problems on large threads like servertimeouts or something?
do you know anything like that, or that a posters username disappears (as happens sometimes in my archiv hack, and i don't know why ;))

excellent work logician. :)
congrats on this great idea. i will use it on my tutorials forum.

I didnt test with very long threads so I dont know what would happen if it is applied to Store Hack thread for instance..
But I really dont think it would be a problem, because even a long thread should not take more than 30 seconds to compile. Depends on your MYSQL performance too of course.

yeah I know! Same happened to me in this hack. I didnt bother to trace its reason but I applied a LEFT JOIN in my query to get the username from user table, instead of using the username in thread table. Strange but thread table usernames sometimes disappear as you mentioned.. Anyway take a look at my query and you can adopt the same method in your hack too. It obviously works..

Thx but I cant say its my idea. I'm highly inspired by Bira's "Download PMs to a file" hack (great hack BTW)..

In fact I requested this hack in that thread months ago, but nobody coded it, so I did.. ;)

Another excellent hack, sir. Installed without a hitch and works great! There is one thing, though. Is there a way to parse out the font color codes and other codes like that before it writes the message to a text file? :)

yea ! This is very very cool & usefull !

what a wonderful hack u did Logician......:D:D:D

[high]* squawell like this one too.... installed.....[/high]

great hack, nice work

/me clicks install

it can be possible but it requires some work. I cant promise it done soon, but I can try to add the feature when I'm more available.. :)

Sounds good to me. :) Let me know if and when you need some testing done on it. :)

hmm not sure if there is something wrong but, the savefile name looks weird.
See attachment.

You should be able to download/save the thread anyway, could you? BTW what was the exact thread name you were trying to DL?

Yup . It viewed fine :)

Threadname was : "[News] 4 Jul: Minister's Speech at ITE East (Macpherson)'s Opening "

So maybe that was a problem .

I tried parse out special characters from thread title so that file name will be nice but some may be missed. In your example it was : char. It's no big deal but if it bothers you, there are 2 possible solutions:

1- edit line:

$filename=preg_replace("/[.!\\\?\^\'\"\$]/", '', $thread[title]);


and replace it as:

$filename=preg_replace("/[.!:\\\?\^\'\"\$]/", '', $thread[title]);

(This will parse out : char too)

2- If you are not interested in naming the file name after thread title, replace the same line as:

After the change all file names will be like "Thread1244.txt" and no more file name bugs. However I personally prefer to use thread title as file name, it is much better IMO..

Your call :)

I followed your first soloution .

Worked out well :)

Thanks for the hack!

The original line in your text file had an extra \ in it (right before the '). You didn't add that to what you told him to replace. Is it supposed to be there? (It isn't showing in here for some reason)

[disable]$filename=preg_replace("/[.!:\\\?\^\'\"\$]/", '', $thread[title]);[/disable]

parsing in board playing tricks on us.. Just add a : in my original code right before ! char

Technical info: This line removes some special chars from thread title when forming file name and by adding : char we make it remove that char too..

Ok, I just wanted to make sure in case the extra \ was needed. :)

Great hack ;)

my best wish...

LORD :)

Nice one Logician.
Works great. :cool:

Thanks for pointing that out !

*Goes to fix code*

No problem. :)

Looks like a great idea, can someone post the format of the .txt file...

i.e. download a thread then paste it (or part of it) here in the [code] tag?

Thanks :)

sample downloaded thread.. here you go..

You uploaded the template instructions as a text file and hence vB.org is parsing the replacements. So everyone is leeching sortasc.gif from this site. ;) Besides that, great addition to my forums; working well on 2.2.6. Thanks. :)

corrected.. thx.. :)

i like thise hack tankX :glasses:

Good idea - I've instaled it :)

but there's a problem - i'm using iuso-8559-2 with polish chars and that causes problems in output .txt file (polish characters are printed badly)

Weird.. I also use a non-english ISO in my own board but I dont have any problems with non-english chars. Unfortunately I cant provide you with a solution for this but just give this a chance:

edit hack code, find:
After that add:
Actually this header is not for attachments, so I dont think it will work, but your wont lose anything by trying anyway..

Blah - still there's a bug :(

Works with 2.2.7. ;) Cheers!

i have installed this hack and when i click on download thread it opens another blank page and no pop up window to save.... what did i do wrong?

Which browser (and its version too) do you use? If you have any other browser (Netscape, IE, Opera), please check with that one too. Also try this: left click on the download thread link and choose open in new browser window. Does it still happen then?

<a href="http://www.cardtrix.com/forum/showthread.php3?threadid=321&action=download" target="_blank">http://www.cardtrix.com/forum/showth...ction=download</a>

IE6 that is the browser i am using and above is the link it is attempting to send me to.

still opening another blank window, can someone please help