                         WebReaper Offline Browser
                         =========================

What is WebReaper?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WebReaper is web crawler or spider, which can work its way through 
a website, downloading pages, pictures and objects that it finds so
that they can be viewed locally, without needing to be connected to
the internet. The sites can be saved locally as a fully-browsable 
website which can be viewed with any browser (such as Internet 
Explorer, Netscape, Opera, etc), or they can be saved into the 
Internet Explorer cache and viewed using IE's offline mode as if 
the you'd surfed the sites 'by hand'.

To use WebReaper, simply enter a starting URL, and hit the Go 
button. The program will then download the page at that URL, 
parsing the HTML as it goes, looking for links to other pages and 
objects. It will then extract this list of sub-links and download 
them. This process continues recursively until either no more links 
fulfil WebReaper's filter criteria or your hard disk becomes full - 
which ever happens first!

The locally saved files will have their HTML links adjusted so that
they can be browsed as if they were being read directly from the 
internet.

The download is fully configurable - custom hierarchical filters 
can be constructed from 12 different filter types to allow targetted 
downloads. Simple filters can be built using the Filter Wizard, or 
more complex ones can be hand-crafted.

Installation
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The software runs on either Windows 95 & 98, NT 4 and Windows 2000. You must 
also have Internet Explorer v4 or higer installed. Simply run the webreaper.exe 
installation program and follow the on-screen instructions to install WebReaper. 
The program has an uninstall option so can be removed simply and quickly.

Y2K Issues
~~~~~~~~~~
WebReaper is 100% Y2K compliant.

How Much Does It Cost?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WebReaper is Freeware for non-commercial use. You may use the 
fully functional application for as long as you like, without 
restriction, and with support from myself.

However, if you like WebReaper, find it useful, or use it in 
a commercial environment, please register your copy, giving 
you peace-of-mind, safe in the knowledge that you've c
ontributed to the development of the application.

Registration costs just $40, and can be done from within the 
application (within the About dialog box, under the Help 
menu), using a secure credit-card payment system.
 
Licence
~~~~~~~
This software is released as FREEWARE for non-commercial use, but it 
may not be sold or be included in a product or package which intends to 
receive benefits through the inclusion of this software. This software may 
be distributed freely over the Internet as long as the file(s) remain 
unmodified. This software may not be included on CD-ROMs without prior 
permission from the author. Commercial users should register their copy 
for $40 using the online secure credit-card payment system on the 'About' 
box.

Disclaimer
~~~~~~~~~~
THIS SOFTWARE AND THE ACCOMPANYING FILES ARE DISTRIBUTED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT
ANY WARRANTIES WHETHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. NO REPONSIBILITIES FOR POSSIBLE
DAMAGES OR EVEN FUNCTIONALITY CAN BE TAKEN. THE USER MUST ASSUME THE ENTIRE
RISK OF USING THIS PROGRAM.

Updates
~~~~~~~
If you would like to be notified about future WebReaper updates, please visit
the website (see below) where you can subscribe to the WebReaper mailing
list.


The Author
~~~~~~~~~~
This software was written by Mark Otway. Copyright (c) 1998-2001 Bluebeam Ltd

You can contact me via email: webreaper@otway.com

Alternatively, visit the WebReaper page - either:
1. Go to http://www.otway.com/webreaper or
2. Click on the link in the about box within the application.

Portions Copyright 1999 Kirk Stowell
