Saved .htm pages with hover content stopped working
Hi,
I save some web pages for offline viewing. Some of them have content that shows up only when you hover over them. Examples would be *.wikia.com (navigations) and danbooru (ex. http://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/1675488?pool_id=8335). I save them by Web page, complete option. They used to work but I just found out that now they don't.
I checked with IE and Chrome but found out that it stopped working there too. I tried using Firefox with add-ons disabled and reverted to older versions (30.0 & 24.0) but it's not working there anymore. I even restarted my PC. I thought maybe it was cache related by even newly saved pages don't work.
I am sure they did work because I usually save my files as mhtml to avoid too much clutter but hover content doesn't work there. The last time I saw it working was on September 25, 2014.
Thank you in advance.
Modified
All Replies (6)
mhtml only works with relatively simple pages (like an email). If you are technically inclined, you can read about it here. The reason why those pages you saved used to work and then stopped working is probably that the now missing pieces used to be available online and your browser automatically retrieved them when you opened the files, but then became unavailable.
A more robust way of archiving a page is to use Wayback Machine. And the archives don't take up space on your hard drive :) But you have to view them online.
However, the fidelity of an archived page there is still not guaranteed. Today's webpages are highly dynamic, with a lot of contents retrieved using ajax requests (like the infinite scroll on facebook timeline). There are things that are loaded only when a user performs a certain action, like clicking on an icon. These are almost certainly not archivable.
If you really need to keep a record of a page, try a pdf printer (or xps if you use windows).
Hope this helps.
I know that mhtml cannot handle pages with dynamic content that's why I saved the pages as complete web page (Web Page, complete).
And I don't need to retrieve any information online. Viewing the drop-down navigation from a saved wikia page was possible. I don't even need the cache.
I just want to be able to display the hover content that used to show up with the saved pages.
1) Try this in firefox: Open a blank page in a new tab, then open Network Monitor. Now open the mhtml file. Hover over the content in question. Do you see any failed requests in the Network Monitor? Any request not marked with a green dot is a potentially failed request.
Actually, if you see any request at all, that means some of the page needs to be retrieved from the internet.
2) Also, repeat the above process, except this time with a Web Console. Make sure all the five buttons (from Net to Logging) are pressed down. What do you get in the log?
As I said, I am NOT talking about *.mhtml files. I have problems WITH *.htm
Here are some of my saved files that worked before: http://www.mediafire.com/download/4r5f17mfluzof94/saved_htm.zip Web location: http://ayakashi-ghost-guild.wikia.com/wiki/AGGWiki http://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/1784637?pool_id=8973
For the Ayakashi Ghost Guild, I I could look around the drop-down navigation, from "On the Wiki" to "Special Page". As for the danbooru page, a white box with text should appear when you hover over the transparent rectangles.
I don't need to go to a different page, I don't need to load any other content from the web. I just want to view the hover content in the same page.
We have had a question about this before.
- [/questions/1023587] Save Wikipedia page as complete webpage is NOT complete.
I have checked the offline wikia page you provided. All the images are there. All the js files are there. But some script works and some doesn't. Unfortunately it is impractical to debug the page to see where the failure occurred.
If all your save pages are based on the same template, by which I mean only the pictures vary, but the pages are based on the same underlying mechanism, then it might be worthwhile to learn some simple scripting. It takes just a few lines of code to re-enable the functionality you want (btw, it is not hovering -- you have to actually click the thumbnail).
However, if the pages differ a lot, then I am not aware of any practical way of achieving what you want except trying some of these plugins to see if they work better: Firefox plug-in that downloads a complete webpage? Or google and see if you can find more.
Wikipedia is probably the most archaic website I use. Obviously, if even wikipedia doesn't save properly, as mentioned in cor-el's link, I don't think you can expect to have much luck with wikia. This is just to give you a realistic assessment of the difficulty level of what you are trying to accomplish.
I used to think that my computer was the safest place to keep everything -- when I was using a dial-up connection. So I also carried out similar endeavors to preserve everything useful on my computer, just as what you are doing right now. I know how much work it takes, and I could never get things 100% correct, because webpages are generally not designed to be saved locally.
Now I am sure most of the things on the internet will outlast my computer. And I have a broadband so everything is just one click away in firefox. So I am never bothering again.
Sorry I wish I could help you more, but this is the best I can do. Good luck!