01-11-2007, 06:45 AM

I'm looking for an application and have searched several sites, but haven't found one that does quite what I'm looking for - perhaps y'all would have some suggestions.

I'm wanting to schedule automatic download of some specific URL's. I only need single pages (in other words, it doesn't have to take sublinks off the pages), but there will be a long list of them. The downloads need to be scheduled periodically (once a day for some, once a week for others).

I'm doing a study of language used in headlines at various news sites, looking for changes over time and similarities in language among multiple sites. So, in a folder, I might open the pages downloaded on a particular day in Safari and examine each one, copying and pasting some of the language used into a document to make a summary for the day or week.

The "web grabbing" apps I've found seemed designed to grab a link and several sublinks only once to facilitate downloading of an entire site or section of the site; they also don't seem to allow me to keep a set of URL's in place that I can check on a schedule - they do it once and I have to enter them all over again.

Any suggestions?

01-11-2007, 06:58 AM

oh, i'm sure automator can do this.

not on my mac now, but i guarantee it can pull this off. if no one else can help (or you can't figure it out yourself), i'll try it when i can.

automator is pretty easu to work with, but has some sticky bits. apple's automator page might be helpful in figuring this out too...

01-11-2007, 08:36 AM

ok, automator does have an action for this:

make a new action add:

from safari library > get specified urls
add the urls to download here and make sure they stay checked

then add from safari library > download urls
make sure this adds under the first action.
you can specify a folder here.

then save the action.

i'm pretty sure you can save this as a plug in in ical and make it run as an alarm action at your discretion. you may also be able to either attach a folder action to a folder the automator script sits in to have it run at a given time, but i know even less about that...

01-11-2007, 08:59 AM

There's a workflow does this at www.automatorworld.com. As eric says, save it as an iCal plugin an shedule as required. If you want some pages downloaded weekly, save that as one plugin, save as another for daily downloads, etc.

01-11-2007, 09:04 AM

i saw there was an option in ical to have the alarm either open or run the script, i'm guessing you want it to run rather than open.