ScanDL - A Download Manager Addon for Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP

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	This is a detailed manual with explanations of all important functions of ScanDL version 1.23: Note: The screenshots are made with Windows XP. If you are using any other operating system, the graphic representation will differ from this one. Installing/ Uninstalling Starting search Configuring search Editing URL list View file information from server Editing URLs found Generating a download list Generating a HTML list Send list to your download manager Save file list Editing file lists Configurations Download manager Search options Ignored URLs Saving Proxy server Miscellaneous Color Drag 'n Drop URL batch creator If you are already familiar with the use of ScanDL and have a concrete question, you will probably find an answer here: FAQ Installing/ Uninstalling Installing: After you have downloaded ScanDL, extract the setup file of the ZIP archive to a folder of your choice. If you have not installed a program that allows you to open and extract ZIP files, please install WinRAR or a similar program. Execute the file "ScanDLSetup.exe" and follow the assistant’s instructions. Uninstalling: If you want to uninstall ScanDL, select the respective option in Control Panel, Software. [top of page] Starting search To search a file for URLs, open a local file with the menu File, Open local file or from the web with File, Open file from web. Of course you must be connected to the Internet if you want to open and search a file from the web. How to make proxy configurations, read Proxy server. Alternatively you can use the symbol buttons on the right of the area Search filter to open a local file or anyone from the web: When you have opened a file, ScanDL searches for URLs automatically. The URLs found will be shown in the list in the area Edit URL list. There you can edit the URL list. If you have searched through an HTML file that exclusively consists of frameset definitions, you will be requested by ScanDL to choose a file to be searched from a list with the files stated in the frameset definitions. [top of page] Configuring search In the area Search filter you can set the search options. You can choose the protocols ("http://" & "ftp://") and the file types (e.g. ".MP3") which the file will be searched for. With the buttons + and - you can add or remove the selection to/from the corresponding filter list on the left. By activating the options ACE, ARJ, RAR resp. ZIP, those types of partial archives (e.g. ".ZIP" & ".Z01") are also searched for and collected into one special file type. ACE, ARJ, RAR and ZIP types are parts of an archive that is divided into several files. With the option Mirrors you can determine if various URLs to files having the same name should be used as alternate (activated) or refer to different files (deactivated). Usually various URLs referring to files of the same name stand for alternative sources of one file. But if you are sure that they stand for different files having the same name, you should deactivate this option. (For example you want to search for index.html files) If you want to search a certain page in the future again and again and you just want to have new URLs displayed, activate the option URL check. Example: A week ago you searched an mp3 page. You have sent your desired files to your download manager resp. saved the URLs. Today you search this updated page again that contains also the old URLs that have been found a week ago. If the option URL check is activated you see only the URLs of those MP3s that have been added after your last search. If you still have opened a file and changed the search criteria after that, this does not affect the URL list immediately. Therefore you should refresh it with the button Refresh download list: Here the origin of the searched file is shown at the top of the area Search filter. If there is no information on this in the file, you will be asked by ScanDL for it, if it is necessary (for relative URLs): [top of page] Editing URL list In the area Edit URL list you can edit the URL list. In the large list there are shown the URLs of the URL list or the recycle bin. By selecting from the list on the left above ("URLs" or "Recycle bin") you can select what URLs shall be shown. From the right list you can select the file type to be shown. If the opened file was searched for URLs referring to any file type ("."), only the URLs found in the opened file are available. If you select ".", all URLs found are shown (except the URLs being in the recycle bin). Under the URL list the number of the URLs being in the URL list (except the URLs being in the recycle bin) is continually shown as well as the selected URL’s description. URL list: If you have selected "URLs" from the list on the left above, you can move the selected URLs to the recycle bin with the symbol button Move into recycle bin that is deleting them from the URL list. You remove all URLs referring to files of the same file type by clicking the button to remove this type. However, you can restore removed URLs at any time. To search for dead URLs, click in the menu on Tools, Search for dead URLs. If the search was successful, a form will be opened that shows you how much URLs of that have been found; now you have to decide whether you want to remove or leave them. If you want to create a list of those dead URLs, activate this option. With the symbol button Copy URL to clipboard you copy the currently selected URLs to the clipboard. This will be efficient if you want to download just the selected files. If you have configured your download manager accordingly, as a result the download manager's "Save As" dialog appears. The way can let your download manager monitor the clipboard you can read here. By clicking the info symbol button at the right bottom of the area Edit URL list you load the last selected URL in your standard browser. This button also gives information for the existence of the file at the server, if you still have received file information from the server. If you select an HTML file in the list you can scan that file immediately with ScanDL by clicking the Continue HTML scan button. Recycle bin: If you have selected "Recycle bin" from the list on the left above, all the deleted URLs in the URL list are shown, i.e. the contents of the recycle bin. On the right of the URL list there are also two symbol buttons to restore URLs, besides the symbol button to copy the URL to clipboard at the top and the information symbol button at the bottom. With the button Restore URL you restore the selected URLs only, whereas you restore all URLs referring to files of the same file type with the button to restore this type. [top of page] View file information from server If you are connected to the Internet, you can call information for the selected URLs in the URL list or the recycle bin. Click on the button View file information from server in the area File information to send a request to the server. The server, where the selected file is saved, responds the following information: Server: installed operating system, hardware, address Size: file size Last modify: date of last file modification MIME type: file type description, e.g. "text/html" for HTML files (may be important to the browser to "know" if the URLed file is to be opened with the browser or to be saved to an optional address, as to do with EXE or ZIP files) Because URLs are transitory, it is quite interesting to come to know if the file is still available under that address. ScanDL reviews the file’s existence at the server after it has received the file information. The following symbols at the right bottom of the area Edit URL list give information about the file’s existence: : You did not send a request to the server or the server did not respond. : The file is at the server. : The file does not exist (anymore) on the server. It has been removed or deleted. : The file is at the server but you need to login first. If the responded information is not sufficient for you, click on the button. The URL will be opened with your standard browser. If the linked file is not available you will be informed about that! Note: It happens that certain information is not responded by the server. The reason is that the administrators configure their servers individually. Unfortunately no standard says that the information has to be available. So sometimes you will be informed only by opening the URL... Should the server not respond after a certain time, it is not likely available. Click on "Stop" to cancel the request. [top of page] Editing URLs found With the button Change URL Properties you can edit the URL itself, its save path as well as the URL description. Click on this button to open the specific form. If you searched for dead URLs or asked for the selected URLs file information you will see here the complete replied HTML header response. You also have the opportunity here to change single characters or file endings in all save paths. Replace characters On the left several characters in all file names of the URL list can be replaced by others. The files will be saved to the accordingly changed file names after the download. For example, you can get replaced all "%20" in the file names by a space, that is in the list "(‘ ’)". To replace a character in all file names of the URL list, select the character to be inserted from the left list. Next select the character to be replaced from the right list. When you have selected both characters, the character to be inserted and the character to be replaced by this, click the button Replace characters to save the changing. Note: The file extensions will not be changed that way. Rename file endings On the left you can replace certain file endings of all files in the URL list by others. The files will be saved to the accordingly changed file names after the download. For example all files can be renamed by changing the file ending ".CLASS" to the file ending ".MP3" after the download. To rename a file ending of all files of the URL list, select the file ending to be renamed from the left list. Next select the file ending to be inserted from the right list. When you have selected both file endings (the file ending to be replaced and the file ending to be inserted) click the button Rename file endings to save the changing. To replace further characters resp. file endings, simply repeat the same procedure. When you send the list to your download manager now or save a file list then (see below: Generating a download list), the files will be saved with your changing by your download manager after the download (Requirement: this feature is supported by your download manager; information about compatibility can be found here). [top of page] Generating a download list After the file was searched for URLs and you have possibly edited the URL list and the URLs as requested, you should save the list. In ScanDL you have three facilities for exporting the URL list: Generating a HTML list (Button HTML in the area Construct download list): ScanDL generates an HTML file, in which all URLs are listed of your edited URL list. The URLs are shown as their descriptions and their file names in square brackets. The HTML file is saved to the program sub-folder \lists (e.g. C:\Programs\Softvisionz\ScanDL\lists) in the design of the ScanDL home page. The HTML list is intended for archiving. Send list to your download manager (menu File, Send list to [...] or button Send in the area Construct download list), as far as this function is compatible with that download manager: Your edited URL list is sent to your download manager. After that you can begin downloading immediately. If you have edited the URLs (i.e. replacing several characters or renaming file extensions), the files will be saved to the accordingly changed file names after the downloads. Save file list (menu File, Save list to... or Ctrl+S): Your edited URL list is saved to a file. That file can be imported to the respective download manager. The information that is required to download and save the files is saved in those files. The file list will be constructed so that your download manager saves the files according to your editing of the URLs (i.e. replacing several characters or renaming file extensions) after the downloads (Requirement: this feature is supported by your download manager; information about compatibility can be found here). Saving the URL list to a file list will be efficient if you want to transmit the (edited) download list to another computer or another person because you probably just have a slow speed Internet connection or no flatrate. [top of page] Editing file lists Instead of searching an HTML file for URLs you can also read, edit and save file lists. You open a file list exactly as you do with HTML files in the menu File, Open local file... or with the button in the area Search filter. You have the same filter and editing opportunities as to HTML files. In addition to these you can edit the different save paths of the several URLs with the new symbol button. If the option Force save paths on all URLs in the area Saving of the Configurations window is activated, the URL list will be saved with one save path for all URLs as usual instead of maintaining the original paths. All other information for the URLs holed in the file list will also be saved when you save or send the URL list to your download manager. [top of page] Configurations In the menu Tools, Configurations you can configure some settings: Download manager In the area Download manager you set your download manager that should receive the edited URL list. All supported download managers (overall a total of 11) that have been installed on your PC are listed in the combo box. Furthermore you can set here miscellaneous configurations for the installed download manager ATTENTION: before you set any download manager configuration, please close the concerning download manager first! In the area Starting you can also determine that ScanDL always starts with your selected download manager. This is recommended if no respective shortcut has been created in your Auto run folder. Search options In the area Search options you can set the following configurations: You can determine if commented URLs which are ignored by browsers should be shown. Also URLs referring to folders and domain URLs are integrated; you can deactivate these URLs here. Because folder URLs may refer to various file types, ScanDL constructs a file name composed of its folder name and the ending ".index". For example the URL http://www.softvisionz.com/Folder/ would be shown as "Folder.index" file. ScanDL supports also URLs to files without extension and indicates them with the extension ".~~~". Example: "http://www.server.com/something" will be shown in ScanDL as a URL to the file "something.~~~". However, these URLs will be sent unmodified to your download manager. This URL could also refer to the folder "something". If you do not know the file types of the files these URLs refer to you should open the URL with your browser. In order to be able to use these files you have to determine them yourself (after downloading or by renaming file endings). A domain URL is composed of its domain and the ending ".index". For example the URL http://www.softvisionz.com resp. http://www.softvisionz.com/ would be shown as "www.softvisionz.com.index" file. Here you can activate the option Log found URLs and write them into database. The advantage of using this feature has been explained in an example. You can assign ScanDL endings as ".com" and ".de" to handle as domain suffixes - ScanDL will consider them while scanning HTML files (URL "www.microsoft.com" is not a URL to its same denominator but a URL to a homepage, in this case Microsoft). > Ignored URLs In the area Ignored URLs you can set advanced filter criteria for the URL searches: Several servers can be ignored. If you enter i.e. "microsoft.com" the URL "http://www.microsoft.com/ie/downloads/ie.exe" won't be shown. If you want URLs referring to certain file types not to be shown after the search (e.g. ".RAM") add the file type to the list of the "Ignored file types". If you want to ignore all URLs that contain a certain string, just as "beta", enter them in the respective list. Placeholder for any characters is always the star symbol "". Saving* In the area Saving you can determine a directory as Save path, where the downloads will be saved. Besides you can determine if GetRight® should add the ending ".GetRight" to incomplete downloads. This marks files which are not downloaded completely. If you want to create the HTML lists with URLs, activate Create HTML list with URLs. Proxy server ScanDL is able to communicate with a proxy server. To do so, you have to give the server's name and its port address. You find the proxy settings in the menu Tools, Proxy configuration. If you want to assume the proxy server settings of your browser but do not know them, do the following steps: Internet Explorer: Activate the option Internet Explorer settings at the proxy configuration. Netscape: Note your Browser's proxy settings you find in the menu (Netscape) Edit, Preferences..., Advanced, Proxies and copy them to the proxy configuration in ScanDL. Miscellaneous For a more comfortable using you should set what a double click in the URL list should cause. Here you can choose also the program language. Color In the area Color you can set dynamic color settings for ScanDL. You can save your color scheme in a file and load it again later. In the folder "ScanDL\colorSchemes" there are some predefined color scheme files. When you have made all the settings you wanted, confirm the changing by clicking "OK". [top of page] Drag 'n Drop You can also open a local saved file by using Drag 'n Drop: drag the file or its address from the address line of your browser into ScanDL. This function can be used also for files from the Web. If you want to open a file from the Web that you have a shortcut to, you just have to drag this shortcut into ScanDL. [top of page] URL batch creator With the URL batch creator you can generate URLs that only differ from an increasing integer or an increasing letter. Example: http://www.downloads.com/start_download.asp?id=13509 http://www.downloads.com/start_download.asp?id=13510 http://www.downloads.com/start_download.asp?id=13511 ... http://www.downloads.com/picture_a.jpg http://www.downloads.com/picture_b.jpg http://www.downloads.com/picture_c.jpg ... Open the respective form with the menu File, Add URL batch. With every modification you make, the first URL that would result from your inputs will be generated as an example in the frame Result like.... [top of page]