The Filter-Assistant lets you create Ignore/Watch filters interactively in a very comfortably way. Main steps are to select the text you want to filter and then to classify the selected text (eg. the text a permanent text, a text with changing numbers, etc).
The Filter-Assistant can be started directly in the internal browser (simply hold the Alt key pressed while selecting the text you want to filter) or in the bookmark properties (by clicking the "Filter-Assistant" button).
Filter types
There are two types of filters that can be created with the Filter-Assistant:
| • | Ignore filters An Ignore filter ignores specified parts of a page, for example a text with changing numbers, a daily date or everything from the page beginning to a defined text. |
| • | Watch filters A Watch filter watches specified parts of a page and ignores everything else. It can for example be used to only monitor the software version number on a download page. |
Creating a filter in the internal browser
| • | Step 1: Select the text you want to filter |
(for example: "Downloads today: 3,333")
The selected text should be as unique as possible. A unique text can easily be identified by the filter system.
If you would only select "3,333", then WebSite-Watcher would find and filter all numbers with separators. The combination of the text "Downloads today:" and the number makes the selection unique and can exactly be identified and filtered.
After selecting the text, click the "Page" button and click "Create new filter" to start the Filter-Assistant. If you hold the "Alt" key pressed while selecting the text, the Filter-Assistant will be started automatically.
| • | Step 2: Select the filter type you want to create |
(in our case: Ignore selected text with changing numbers)
After the Filter-Assistant popped up, you have to select the filter type you want to create. You can change between the Ignore/Watch-Filter view and select the filter type by clicking onto one of the buttons.
Based on the selected filter type, the assistant will guide you through the rest of the creation process. The next step is to classify the selected text, on our case it is a text with changing numbers.
After you have classified the selected text, WebSite-Watcher will display all matching results for verification before the filter is finally created.
There can be zero results when WebSite-Watcher was not able to find the selected text, one result if the selection was a unique text, or more results if WebSite-Watcher was able to find more matches which are "compatible" with the created filter.
If WebSite-Watcher doesn't find a result, then you should try to make a more unique selection.
The order of filters is important!
Filters are always executed from top to bottom, that means that the filter in the first line is executed before the filter in the second line, and so on.
The content that is filtered with the first filter will then no longer be available for filter definitions in the following lines.
Example:
You have defined the following two ignore filters:
Watcher
WebSite-Watcher
The first filter ignores (deletes) all words "Watcher". The second filter will never find a match since "Watcher" is no longer available. The correct order for these two filters would be:
WebSite-Watcher
Watcher
Here the first filter ignores (deletes) all words "WebSite-Watcher". The second filter can then ignore all remaining words "Watcher".
Outdated filters
Outdated ignore filters are automatically detected and deleted after some time when they no longer find any matches. There's no need to delete ignore filters manually.
Outdated watch filters are not deleted automatically, you have to maintain these kind of filters manually.
Don't forget to test your filter settings
The feature "Test filter" lets you always verify your filter definitions by comparing the filtered text content of the new page with the filtered text content of the old page.