Downloading a thread

Thread Starter

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,218
How about adding the capability for downloading a thread, say, in PDF form?

If a thread that I find interesting has reached a certain size, or is one of the ever-important sticky-threads, I'd find it very convenient if I could download it so I could read it later offline, or just for backup or reference purposes.
 

Thread Starter

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,218
A bit clunky, but you can use File/Print or File/SavePageAs to print/save 1 page (20 posts) at a time.
Thanks, but I had already thought of that. But my idea goes a little further. After downloading a thread in a more accessible format, one could also edit it and add and remove sections, and maybe also add comments and graphics, so as to preserve only the really important stuff. That way anyone could create an invaluable reference for future use.
 

Thread Starter

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,218
Most of us probably have a pdf reader, but not everyone has a pdf editor.
True, but there are free pdf converters online. Also, pdf was merely a suggestion, export format could be in excel or ms word, or anything else that might be more convenient.
 

t_n_k

Joined Mar 6, 2009
5,455
There is the 'background' issue of owner copyright. While members agree to allow AAC to do certain things with their posts, they still retain copyright over their contributions - according to TOS. If a member (for whatever reason) doesn't want their contributions available for distribution as a pdf or other format (aside from their actual forum posts) to other parties, they may have a valid objection.
 

Thread Starter

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,218
There is the 'background' issue of owner copyright. While members agree to allow AAC to do certain things with their posts, they still retain copyright over their contributions - according to TOS. If a member (for whatever reason) doesn't want their contributions available for distribution as a pdf or other format (aside from their actual forum posts) to other parties, they may have a valid objection.
True, but if I'm not mistaken, this is a public forum.
 

t_n_k

Joined Mar 6, 2009
5,455
True, but if I'm not mistaken, this is a public forum.
Copyrighted material inevitably resides in the public 'space'. It's what one is permitted to do with such materials that comes under the legal umbrella.
Presumably, it would ultimately come down to a decision by the forum owner to determine how they interpret the meaning of copyright as applied to member contributions.
I would guess that the "fair use" provisions might come into play.
 
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tjohnson

Joined Dec 23, 2014
611
A bit clunky, but you can use File/Print or File/SavePageAs to print/save 1 page (20 posts) at a time.
Since many threads have more than 20 posts and are split up over multiple pages, it would be nice to have a button (similar to the Thread Display Options button at the bottom of a forum page) that would allow people to view all the posts of a thread on one page. This would make doing what the TS mentioned easier, but it doesn't seem possible according to some discussions on the XenForo Community.
 
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tranzz4md

Joined Apr 10, 2015
310
I'm not familiar with xenforo, but some of the more popular BBS and forum systems/engines of the past allowed members to set this - paged/posts per page/continuous - choice in the users settings, and I don't see it here. It was easy to quick set for "continuous" and save the page (as HTML) and you could edit to your hearts content.
 

tjohnson

Joined Dec 23, 2014
611
I just came across the Re-Pagination extension for Firefox (written by one of the developers of DownThemAll), which makes it possible to do what @cmartinez mentioned. With this neat extension installed, you can right-click on the "Next >" button of a thread split over multiple pages, and select Load All from the Re-Pagination submenu, which joins the entire thread into one page. After the repagination completes, you can save the webpage as HTML, print it to a PDF file, or convert it to whatever format you want.

The only thing I don't like about this method is that the header and footer get duplicated between every 20 threads, but I don't know of any simple way to fix that.
 
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Thread Starter

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,218
I just came across the Re-Pagination extension for Firefox (written by one of the developers of DownThemAll), which makes it possible to do what @cmartinez mentioned. With this neat extension installed, you can right-click on the "Next >" button of a thread split over multiple pages, and select Load All from the Re-Pagination submenu, which joins the entire thread into one page. After the repagination completes, you can save the webpage as HTML, print it to a PDF file, or convert it to whatever format you want.

The only thing I don't like about this method is that the header and footer get duplicated between every 20 threads, but I don't know of any simple way to fix that.
Nice... thanks for the tip!
 
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