"Favorites" sites "Made available offline" vanish

[ggull]

I sometimes like to have a web page, and the pages linked to it, available
offline, as I have a dialup connection. Also, sometimes it is a site whose
content I am afraid will vanish and I want to make sure I'll have it
available "forever".

OK, I save it as a Favorite, check "make available offline", and specify
that it should be synchronized only when I request that from the Favorites
menu.

Everything works fine for a while. On or offline, I can call up the site
(say a favorite newspaper columnist's index) and click on a particular
column's link and be taken to a separate page to read it.

Then after some time-period I haven't figured out precisely yet -- a few
weeks, at least -- it has gone, and I have to go online and re-synchronize.
At best this a nuisance, and if the site has changed or been removed, the
info I wanted is gone for good.

(1) Is there a way to ensure that off-line Favorites do not decide they're
too old and want to call home?

(2) Even better, is there a way to save (as in using "File > Save As") a
web page ALONG WITH THE LINKED PAGES, so it is totally separate from IE's
control, and could be, say, copied to CDR for archival or to take on the
road. "Save as" works fine for individual pages, but I can't see how to get
the linked pages. Using "favorites" was really a work-around.

 

[Maureen Goldman]

(2) Even better, is there a way to save (as in using "File > Save As") a
web page ALONG WITH THE LINKED PAGES, so it is totally separate from IE's
control, and could be, say, copied to CDR for archival or to take on the
road. "Save as" works fine for individual pages, but I can't see how to get
the linked pages. Using "favorites" was really a work-around.

File \ Import and Export
You can create a file with clickable links for use "on the road" via
a floppy as well as simply a Favorites folder to save.

This is also the method for copying your Favorites onto a new computer
so that they'll land in the right place.

 

[ggull]

File \ Import and Export
You can create a file with clickable links for use "on the road" via
a floppy as well as simply a Favorites folder to save.

Hmm ... I tried that, and my only options are to import/export either
Favorites or cookies. Assuming it's not cookies you're talking about, I
tried going through the wizard, and it only lets you work down to the
folder level, not the individual file level. I did export a folder that I
know has an offline page with 1 level of links, but the resulting file is
only 2 KB, so it definitely doesn't have the *content*. I'll see what
happens when I go offline, but don't hold out much hope. Maybe it will link
back to the content that exists as Favorites, but that won't solve the
retention or portability issues. (I'm using IE6.0 under WinME, fwtw.)

Perhaps my question wasn't clear -- however it's done, I want the *content*,
the text or pictures or whatever, actually residing on my hard drive or CDR
or floppy, so that I can view the site with the modem unplugged. (Or "on
the road" in a remote campsite, not in a hotel hooked to the phone.)

If I just want to view one page, I can simply use the "File \ Save As"
function, and everything is fine. There's a nice, safe file that I can
copy to floppy and carry around in my pocket, and view from any computer.

But my question is about the more complicated case where there is one page
with links to a number of sub-pages that have the actual content. Two cases
in point -- a TV series with a page for each year, which basically just
contains links to the individual pages with summaries, credits, etc for each
episode; or a newspaper medical columnist whose old columns are similarly
indexed, with one master page per year and links to individual columns.

If I simply "save as" the master page, the links appear, but only as urls,
and when I click on these links, I have to go online to view them.

Admittedly, I could (when online) go to each link and save that content, but
(1) that's labor intensive, the sort of grunt work a *computer* is made for
[think weekly columns for a year] and (2) the organization provided by a
master page with links can be nice too.

OK, I can make that master page a "favorite" and "make it available
offline", and then have the resulting wizard save pages linked to the master
page. That works fine, except

(1) after a while, it seems to be moderate numbers of week but I've never
experimented enough to pin it down, all of a sudden the browser insists I go
online to re-synchronize. I've tried changing the history retention, but
that didn't seem to be the issue. And when setting it up, I always specify
to synchronize only on my command.

(2) as a favorite, it's sort of swept under the Microsoft system-file rug,
and there's no way (at least obvious, easy way) to archive it, organize it
in a directory with other materials on the same topic (not all information
in the world is on web pages , or transfer to another computer.

This last is why, apart from the retention problem, it would be nice to be
able to save the linked pages as independent files, out from under the thumb
of the "Favorites" system.