Create a Browsable Copy of the Session Overview
Table of Contents
1. Prepare Your ConfTool Settings
2. Static Agenda Export (ZIP)
3. Using HTTrack
4. Using WebScrapBook
5. Alternative Tools
6. Notes and Hints
You can use ConfTool Pro to create the conference schedule. You will be able to compile the agenda in list or table view, including all the sessions of your conference (see the three examples below). Use this agenda as a starting point for creating your web pages and booklets containing the 'official' conference schedule.
Below are some hints on how to "export" these dynamic pages to a static format, which can still be browsed but also saved and edited. You can then upload the exported pages to your main conference website after the event, hand them out on a USB flash drive, or archive them locally.
1. Prepare Your ConfTool Settings
Before you create a browsable copy of your conference session overview, please set the parameters of the session overview pages in ConfTool:
- Set the accessibility of downloads for each contribution type. Please go to:
Overview → Settings → Manage Submission Types / Conference Tracks
… and, for each contribution type, enable or disable "Accessibility of File No. 1, 2, or 3" in the section "Download Settings". - Check the general settings at:
Overview → Conference Program Scheduling → Main Settings for Conference Session Overview
Here you can enable or disable options such as the display of e-mail addresses. (Please note that all e-mail addresses are JavaScript-encoded against spam robots.) - Define per session whether abstracts and downloads shall be displayed. Go to:
Overview → Conference Program Scheduling → Create and Modify Sessions
… to carry out these settings.
Make the conference schedule publicly accessible first.
Tools such as HTTrack are not logged in to your ConfTool installation. Please make the schedule (temporarily) accessible to the public before you start, otherwise the copy will remain empty.
Then go to:
Overview → Browse Conference Agenda
To create the browsable copy, click on the tab "More…" and activate the "Page View for Export" first. Use this page as the starting point for the copy process described below. For HTTrack, please copy the current address from your browser and use it as the starting address.
2. Static Agenda Export (ZIP)
The easiest way to obtain a browsable copy is the export function built into ConfTool Pro. It creates the static copy of your conference agenda for you, so that no additional software is required.
Please go to:
Overview → Data Import and Export → Static Agenda Export (ZIP)
ConfTool automatically generates a ZIP archive containing a copy of the agenda. Download the archive and unpack it on your computer; you can then open the copy in your web browser, upload it to your own website or copy it to a USB flash drive.
The export does not include any downloads.
All links to presentations and full papers are removed from the exported copy. If you also need the files published in the agenda, please use one of the methods described below.
We recommend this method if no downloads are required.
Because the copy is generated by ConfTool itself, no external tool needs to access your installation. This avoids the issues described in the following sections, such as pages that are not publicly accessible or that are excluded by the robots.txt file of your server.
Please test the exported copy before you pass it on, and run this test on a computer without a network connection as well.
3. Using "HTTrack" to Create a Browsable Copy
To create a browsable copy of the session overview, we recommend the easy-to-use offline browser utility "HTTrack". The software is available for Windows, Linux and macOS, and you can obtain it free of charge under the open source GPL license.
With HTTrack you can create browsable copies (like an interactive series of "screenshots") of any website. These copies are stored on your local hard drive and remain accessible at any time. Simply open a page of the "mirrored" website in your browser and you can browse the site from link to link, as if you were viewing it online. You can also copy this version to a USB flash drive or upload it to a folder on your main website.
Now open the HTTrack software and start a new project by filling in the project parameters: the "New project name" and the "Base path" on your local hard drive.
In the next step, please set the main scanning parameters as shown below: for "Action" select the item "Download web site(s)", fill in the web address of your ConfTool conference session overview and click on the button "Set options…" to set the mirror options.
Please open the tab "Experts Only" and, for the option "Travel mode", select the item "Stay in the same directory".
To define the file types to be downloaded, please open the tab "Scan Rules" and add the required file types (for instance +*.pdf).
Finally, please open the tab "Spider" and set the option "Spider" to "no robots.txt rules" (see image 9). By default, HTTrack respects the robots.txt file of the web server, which usually prevents automated tools from retrieving the ConfTool pages. Without this change, the copy will remain incomplete or even empty.
For all other configuration options, you can use the predefined default settings. Close the options by clicking on "OK".
Then please start the process by clicking on "Next >" and then on "Finish" on the following page. HTTrack will now download the current page and also all linked ConfTool agenda pages and required files. This process takes several minutes, please be patient.
After the download has finished, you will find all files in the "base path" on your local hard drive, which you filled in as a project parameter in the first step (see above).
To browse the HTTrack copy – for example from a USB flash drive – please use the file index.html as the starting page. It is important that you use the file in the subfolder "YourConference" and not the first one in the parent folder – otherwise an HTTrack overview page with a link to your conference session overview is shown first.
Always test the result.
Please test the downloaded version, and run this test also on a computer without a network connection. Only then can you be sure that no content is still being loaded from the live installation.
If you want to use HTTrack on the command line (e.g. on Linux or macOS), please use these parameters:
httrack "https://www.conftool.net/your-conference/index.php?page=browseSessions&print=export" -s0 -D -O "/path/to/your/output-directory"
- -s0 tells HTTrack to ignore the robots.txt rules (the equivalent of the setting in image 9)
- -D means that the scan can only go down into subdirectories
- -O specifies the output path on your local drive
On Windows, use a path such as "C:\YourSubdirectory\" instead. Please keep the address in quotation marks, otherwise the & character will not be passed on correctly.
4. Using "WebScrapBook" to Create a Browsable Copy
Alternatively, you can use the add-on WebScrapBook (by Danny Lin) for the web browsers Firefox or Chrome to create a browsable copy of the ConfTool conference agenda.
WebScrapBook works with many dynamic pages (which use JavaScript, for example). This allows you to make a local copy of a flight booking, a receipt, an invoice or a message from your webmail application. WebScrapBook also transfers the currently valid cookies, so that you can save web pages within the active session.
After you have added the WebScrapBook extension to your browser, please go to the website of your ConfTool conference agenda, click on the tab "More…" and open the Page View for Export (see image 11).
Optional: to ensure that only publicly accessible content is loaded, you can log out of the ConfTool system in another tab.
Depending on the configuration of your browser, you will now find WebScrapBook as a white-turquoise icon directly in the toolbar. Alternatively, select the puzzle piece icon for the "Extensions" menu (see image 12) to get access to WebScrapBook.
Save your settings once.
To avoid having to make all the necessary settings each time you restart WebScrapBook, please select "Options" (see image 13) and store them permanently.
Please only change the following settings. You can leave all other settings as they are by default.
In the section "Capture – content", please enable the saving of the page scripts: for the option "Scripts" choose the setting "Save" (see image 14).
In the section "Capture – capture links", set the option "Download linked files" to the setting "Match URL file extension". Then remove the comment character # in front of the file types you want to download. For example, we recommend the following adjustments if you also want to save linked documents and packed files (see image 15).
For the option "Depth to capture linked pages", please set the value to 7. Finally, click on "Save" at the bottom left of the page to save these settings.
If you are asked for the storage location of every file
– this can happen in Chrome, for example – please go to your browser settings and, in the menu "Downloads", disable the switch for "Ask where to save each file before downloading" (see image 16).
Now open WebScrapBook again as described above, and this time click on "Capture tabs as…".
The following window shows the settings you have selected under "Options". Please check them. In the section "Capture – capture links", select for the option "Included URLs for capturing linked pages" the setting "Same directory" (see image 18). This ensures that you only save the conference agenda.
Please also double-check that you have selected the export view of the conference agenda (see image 11).
Click on "Capture" at the bottom left of the page to start the process. You will then see a window showing all the files that will be downloaded for offline use. Depending on the size of the conference agenda, this will take approximately 1 to 10 minutes. Please be patient.
This window shows the progress of the data download. If pages have been saved outside the context of the agenda, please restart the whole process and check all settings beforehand. When WebScrapBook is finished, "Done" appears at the end of the list.
In your local directory Downloads → WebScrapBook → data you will find a new folder named after the date and time of the download. This folder contains the complete content of your ConfTool conference agenda.
Open the file index.html in a web browser of your choice to view the downloaded conference agenda. Please test this downloaded version and also run the test with a disconnected network connection. You can then upload the files to your own website, for example, and make them publicly accessible.
5. Alternative Tools
We can also recommend the following tools, which allow you to create a browsable copy of the ConfTool agenda in similar ways.
You can use the GNU tool wget to create copies of websites. This command line tool is available for almost any platform and even rewrites the URLs of all "visible" links if you use the parameter -k. To create a browsable copy, please use the following command:
wget -mkxKE -e robots=off "https://www.conftool.net/your-conference/index.php?page=browseSessions&print=export"
The option -e robots=off makes wget ignore the robots.txt rules, just like the HTTrack setting described above.
- "Cyotek WebCopy" is available for Windows. The download process is comparable to the HTTrack process described above. It may be used free of charge, and the authors ask for a donation to help with running costs and timely updates.
- "SiteSucker" is available for macOS. It is shareware, and the author asks for a donation if you decide to use it.
- "SiteFetcher" is also available for macOS, but it is not free of charge (price: approx. 25 USD).
6. Notes and Hints
- Keep the generated file names short. Very long file names can cause problems when the copy is transferred to another computer or storage medium – on Windows, for instance, the complete path is limited to 260 characters. You can change the generated file names at:
Overview → Settings → Main Settings for Paper and Abstract Submission
Scroll down to the section "Defaults for Uploads and Downloads". For the option "Compose format of generated filenames" we recommend the setting "1st Author" "-" "Paper ID". This way, the files will be sorted by the authors' last names, and all file names will be unique thanks to the paper ID. - Hand the copy out on a USB flash drive. Simply place the exported folder on the drive and add a short PDF file next to it explaining that the agenda is opened with the file index.html. Please note that Windows no longer opens files automatically from USB flash drives, and macOS never did.
Feedback is welcome!