Webpage Update Notification

Wai_WaiWai_Wai
edited September 2007 in Internet & Media
Webpage Update Notification
-- An advanced checker to notify changes occurred between visit

I would like to have a program which can keep track of different webpage. When the pages change, there is an alert/popup which will notify me. It is useful to track changes like new replies in particular boards, site news, version update news etc.

However the problem is a single unrelated change in a page would trigger the notification. For example, a random ad in the forum which will always trigger the alert. I wonder if the check can be more advanced. For example:
  • alert only when the selected part of the webpage is updated
  • decide the threshold on how many changes are needed to trigger the alert (helpful to prevent small unrelated changes from mis-triggering)

Do you have any program you can recommend?
I can pay for the program as long as it is powerful and suit my needs.

Comments

  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited September 2007
    You might want to look into google reader, I don't know much about t but I read about it a small bit a while back and it seems to do exactly that.

    Also check out some firefox extensions... like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5516 and https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4808

    Here's another one...https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4337 this one seems to be exactly what you are looking for according to the description.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited September 2007
    The tech you are looking for is called RSS.
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited September 2007
    primesuspect wrote:
    The tech you are looking for is called RSS.
    RSS would do exactly that, but some sites don't have RSS so how do you check for updates without constantly visiting the site? I think that's what he's looking for judging from how he worded his request at least.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited September 2007
    google reader is really just an RSS aggregator. If a website he visits doesn't support RSS, he could always request it of the webmaster.
  • Wai_WaiWai_Wai
    edited September 2007
    primesuspect wrote: »
    google reader is really just an RSS aggregator. If a website he visits doesn't support RSS, he could always request it of the webmaster.
    Not all websites offer RSS.
    Also RSS is to track the changes of the website. What if I only want to track the change of one single webpage only.
    Requesting the webmaster will not work most of the time. :(
  • Wai_WaiWai_Wai
    edited September 2007
    RWB wrote:
    You might want to look into google reader, I don't know much about t but I read about it a small bit a while back and it seems to do exactly that.

    Also check out some firefox extensions... like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5516 and https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4808

    The first one seems to check the website server statistics.
    The second one is Google reader addon. But Google Reader seems to be a RSS reader only.

    Here's another one...https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4337 this one seems to be exactly what you are looking for according to the description.

    A nice addon but unfortunately it suffers the same problem I described which is common among this type of products.

    For example, a random banner on the page will always trigger the alert since every time the script visits, the banner will change, making the alert pointless.

    The best solution is the ability to monitor only the part I'm interested in. For forum, it would be the thread/posts themselves, ignoring the rest of the layout.

    It is weird that people who created webpage notifier program doesn't realise such a problem. The problem above makes such programs useless in many cases. :sad2:

    Thanks for your suggestions and help after all. :)
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited September 2007
    Wai_Wai wrote:
    The first one seems to check the website server statistics.
    The second one is Google reader addon. But Google Reader seems to be a RSS reader only.




    A nice addon but unfortunately it suffers the same problem I described which is common among this type of products.

    For example, a random banner on the page will always trigger the alert since every time the script visits, the banner will change, making the alert pointless.

    The best solution is the ability to monitor only the part I'm interested in. For forum, it would be the thread/posts themselves, ignoring the rest of the layout.

    It is weird that people who created webpage notifier program doesn't realise such a problem. The problem above makes such programs useless in many cases. :sad2:

    Thanks for your suggestions and help after all. :)

    Well I didn't mention this because I figure you have a PC, but I know for sure with a Mac you can monitor any part of a page with a widget. You select the area of the page you want to monitor and that's it. It creates an RSS feed type of thing. Though it might have been part of the demonstration for Leopard.

    On another note, if I were not so busy with other projects I have a rough idea for designing a tool that could do that. Basically all you would need to monitor the content in the coded tags(be it DIV, P, H1, etc...) of the page, and have a file that stores the last updated information of that tagged area and... well... monitor it. I am sure I could do this with XUL and create my own add-on for firefox from what little I've read on it so far. But I have no experience with it yet and like I said, I am too busy right now, but it's an idea I'd like to try soon perhaps.
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