1. Background Information

Projects

Offline Commander stores all pages in a single project file (project database). When you first launch Offline Commander it prompts you for the name of a new project file. Offline Commander will use this project database every time you launch it until you either create a new project or open an existing project previously saved to your disk.

Offline Commander will not download anything from the Internet until you switch the program to Online mode. To do this, click the Go Online button on the main toolbar. While the program is in the Offline mode all tasks will be queued and be waiting until you switch the program to Online mode. After you switch to Online mode all previously queued Web pages will be downloaded in a single batch.

Browsers

You do not have to use Offline Commander as your primary browser. You can browse the Web with your favorite browser such as Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Opera, or any other browser. If you want to use Offline Commander as a browser refer to the topic How to browse the Web with the built-in browser for many useful tips and tricks.

Tasks

Offline Commander saves Web pages as Tasks. Every task can contain either a single page or several interlinked Web pages. A task can contain even an entire Web site because a Web site is just a set of interlinked Web pages.

2. Using Drop Box to Save Web Pages

A Drop Box is a small window positioned on top of all windows on your desktop. You can drag links from Web pages or from the Address bar of your browser to the Drop Box. Offline Commander will automatically download and save the page referred by the link in the project database.

You can also drop entire text selections to the Drop Box. Offline Commander will automatically download and save Web pages for every link found in the selected text fragment. Using this feature you will be able to save dozens or even hundreds of Web pages with just a few clicks of the mouse.

3. Viewing Saved Web Pages in Offline Commander

Double click a task to view a saved Web page in Offline Commander's internal browser. Sometimes a page will not load but instead will redirect the browser to another page which was not saved in Offline Commander. In this case Offline Commander will enqueue the new page with the same task. You should Go Online and download the page.

You can enqueue additional pages linked to the main page by clicking on a link in the Offline Commander's internal browser. This will create a multipage task.

4. Saving Web Pages to Disk

First make sure the page can be viewed in the built-in browser (see the previous paragraph). Make sure the task you want to save is not queued (i.e. there is no clock symbol to the left of the task). If it is queued the page may not save correctly (you should first download queued tasks). Click Save As button on the Task toolbar. Select the folder you want to save to and click OK. For multipage tasks the linked pages will also be saved along with the main page. Alternatively you can drag selected tasks to a file system folder with the mouse.

5. Organzing Web Pages

Select Windows->Folders from the View menu. The Folders window will appear. You can create folders, subfolders, and move tasks between folders just like in Windows Explorer. Right-click within the folders window to view the context menu of available commands.

6. Common Problems and Resolutions

Not all links can be dropped to the Drop Box. If a link is a JavaScript link you won't be able to drop it into the Drop Box. To see if a link is a JavaScript link, hover the mouse over the link and look on the status bar of your browser. To save such pages you should first click on the link to load it into the browser and then drag the page icon from the Address bar of your browser to the Drop Box.

If a page was downloaded with errors select the task and click the Refresh button on the Task toolbar. To make sure the page will be saved correctly, open the task in the built-in browser while Offline Commander is in the Online mode. To open a task in the built-in browser, double click it or choose Open from the context menu.