How to Create a Browsable Copy for CD, USB Flash Drive or your main Website of the ConfTool Agenda

You can use ConfTool Pro to create the conference schedule. You will be able to compile the agenda as a list or table view, with all the sessions of your conference (see three examples below). You can use this agenda as a starting point to create your Web pages and booklets with the "official" conference schedule.

Below are some hints how to "export" these dynamic pages to a static format, which can still be browsed but also saved and edited. You can also copy these exported pages to CD, to USB flash drive or upload them on your main conference website after the event.

Before you create a browsable copy of your conference session overview, please set the parameters of the session overview pages in ConfTool:

1. Set the accessibility of downloads for each contribution type. Please go to:
   Overview => Settings => Manage Submission Types / Conference Track
   ... and for each contribution type enable or disable "Accessibility of File No. 1, 2, or 3" in the section "Download Settings".
2. Please return to:
   Overview => Conference Program Scheduling => Main Settings for Conference Session Overview
   You can enable or disable general settings for the session overview, like the display of e-mail-addresses. (Please note that all e-mails are JavaScript encoded against spam robots.)
3. For each session you can define, whether abstracts and downloads shall be displayed. Go to:
   Overview => Conference Program Scheduling => Create and Modify Sessions
   ... to carry out these settings.

If everything is fine, please make the conference schedule (temporarily) accessible to public (because tools like HTTrack are not logged in to your ConfTool installation) and go to the page:
Overview => Browse Conference Agenda.

Important: To create the browsable copy, click on the tab “More…” and activate the "Page View for Export" first. Use this page as starting point for the copy process described below. For HTTrack, please copy the current address from your browser as starting address.

Use “HTTrack” for Creating a Browsable Copy of the Agenda

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 OS-X 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 in your browser. These copies are stored on your local hard drive and will be accessible later 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 use this copy on a USB flash drive, a CD 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…” for setting 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 file types to be downloaded, please open tab "Scan Rules", and add file type (for instance: +*.pdf). For all other configuration options, you can use the predefined default settings of the system. Close the options by clicking on OK.

Then please start the process by clicking on “Next >” and then on “Finish” on the next 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 project parameter in the first step (see above).

To browse the HTTrack copy and to use it as a link on a CD or a USB flash drive, please use the file index.html as starting page. It is important that you use the file which you find in the subfolder “YourConference” and not the first one in the parent folder (otherwise a HTTrack overview page with a link to your conference session overview is shown first).

Please test the downloaded version and run this test also on a PC without network connection.

If you want to use HTTrack in the command line (e.g. for Linux or OS-X), please use these parameters:
httrack https://‍www.‍conftool.net/your-conference/index.php?page=browseSessions&print=export -D -O "C:\YourSubdirectory\"

-D means that the scan can only go down into subdirectories
-O specifies the output path on your local drive

Use “WebScrapBook” for Creating a Browsable Copy of the Agenda

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, e.g., 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 10).

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 11) to get access to WebScrapBook.

Tip: To avoid having to make all necessary settings each time you restart WebScrapBook, please select “Options” (see image 12).

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 13).

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 14).

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.

Tip: If you are asked for the storage location when downloading individual files in WebScrapBook (can occur with 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 15).

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 the settings.

In the section “Capture - capture links”, select for the option “Included URLs for capturing linked pages” the setting “Same directory” (see image 17). 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 10).

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 between approximately 1 and 10 minutes. Please be patient.

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 upload the files downloaded with WebScrapBook to your own website, for example, and make them publicly accessible.