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OutWit Hub for Firefox - Version History
  • Version 2.1.1.20
    • Feature - Added more options to the browse popup menu.
    • Fix - Corrected issue with the "active" and "matrix" checkboxes of the "queries" view.
    • Enhancement - Optimized the loading and of very large directories of queries.
    • Enhancement - Optimized the launch time before a browse or a fast scrape on very large numbers of URLs.
  • Version 2.1.1.9
    • Enhancement - Kernel update for Firefox 10.
    • Enhancement - Improvements in the upgrade/downgrade system.
  • Version 2.1.1.5
    • Fix - Removed time limitation that was added during beta period (sorry for the inconvenience).
    • Fix - Various fixes.
  • Version 2.1.1.3
    • Feature - Added a preference to make popup links open within the Hub instead of a new Firefox Window.
    • Feature - Added a preference to prevent an alert to be displayed 10 seconds before the execution of a job.
    • Feature - First implementation of POST queries in the Hub (to automatically fill forms). POST data must be added to the URL like ordinary parameters (after ? and separated by &, but the name of each POST parameter must simply be prefixed with #POST# (example: http://www.myWebSite.com/mySearchPage?#POST#field1=value1&#POST#field2=value2&...).
  • Version 2.1.0.53
    • Feature - Added #replace(value,findPattern,replacePattern)# function in scrapers.
    • Feature - Added javascript link support to #nextToVisit()# function.
    • Fix - Corrected glitches in update/downgrade processes.
    • Enhancement - Now filtering out records that are empty or containing only empty fields from scrape results.
  • Version 2.1.0.51 - Release
    • Enhancement - The Hub is now available on all platforms, both as a standalone application and as a Firefox extension.
    • Enhancement - Number of fixes and enhancements in the scraper engine.
    • Enhancement - The ctrl-S, ctrl-F / cmd-S, cmd-F (save & find) commands are now working on the page even if the browser doesn't have the focus.
    • Enhancement - A count of visited and remaining pages is now displayed in the status bar during automatic exploration.
    • Enhancement - A throbber was added in the address bar while loading a page.
    • Enhancement - A list of available tutorials is displayed at first run. It can then be accessed with the Tutorials item of the Help menu.
    • Fix - The addition of a "i" flag is now working properly in regexps, when clicking on the "ignore case" checkbox of the find bar.
    • Fix - Openning a Help window from a tutorial works again
    • Fix - A bug was corrected in the clean text function which was trimming +=- characters at the end of a string in the extracted data.
    • Fix - The #replace# directive could lead to an infinite loop in some cases. This was corrected.
      • browser doesn't have the focus.
    • Known Issue - There are occasional problems in the renaming of queries. (Workaround for now: edit the cell and hit return.)
  • Version 2.0.1.15
    • Fix - Fast Scraping a series of URLs, the process doesn't stop any more when the domain of one of the URLs doesn't exist.
    • Fix - A recent regression prevented macros to export data and download files at the same time. It is working agin.
    • Fix - The #nextToVisit()# function was not working with URLs containing spaces. This was corrected.
    • Fix - Exports respect again the 'Include id column' preference.
    • Fix - Columns that have been hidden in the column picker are not exported.
    • Fix - Various other minor fixes.
    • Enhancement - Works with Firefox 3.6 to 10. Note that this is the last version supporting Firefox 3.6 and that several features are already not working with this version. You should update your browser to enjoy all features.
  • Version 2.0.1.3
    • Fix - The #replace# scraper directive now applies the replacement recursively.
    • Enhancement - Enhanced figure normalization functions.
    • Enhancement - Now resets all views to default and preferences to original values after execution of tutorials and wizards.
  • Version 2.0.1.2
    • Fix - minor corrections in the update system.
    • Enhancement - version management in WitScript.
  • Version 2.0.0.43
    • Fix - Corrected problem displaying some records with very large fields in the Detail panel.
    • Fix - Fast scraping works on very large selections of datasheet or catch rows.
    • Fix - The export button at the bottom of the datasheets now works even if the datasheet doesn't have the focus.
    • Fix - Fixed the overwriting of existing files when manually saving export files.
    • Fix - Running several macros in a row during the same session could fail in some cases. This was corrected.
  • Version 2.0.0.41 - Release
    • Feature - The right-click menu of the datasheets has changed: Automatic browsing and Scraper application are now gathered under "Auto-Explore Selected Links". In this submenu, you will find the exploration and scraping functions: 'Browse','Dig', Fast Scrape selected URLs (with the new possibility for the latter, to include the selected data fields in the scraping results) as well as the possibility to apply generic macros (i.e. macros that are not specific to a given URL) to the selected links.
    • Feature - You can now set the preferences so that FF runs OutWit Hub automatically on launch.
    • Feature - Empty/Export/Download buttons were added to the datasheet bottom panels depending on the context, to export selected content.
    • Feature - You can now access and scrape either the "original" source code as downloaded by your browser or the modified "dynamic" source code as altered by Javascript scripts. This allows you to scrape AJAX pages that couldn't be scraped before.
    • Feature - It is now possible to completely disable images and plugins (like flash) in the Hub, for faster browsing: Use the right-click menu on 'page' in the side bar.
    • Feature - New settings were added to the time preferences, including temporization and pauses at set intervals for the fast scraping mode (XHR queries).
    • Feature - First implementation of the WitScript engine to run tutorials, complex scripts and wizards.
    • Enhancement - Scrapers were optimized, should be easier to produce and more forgiving.
    • Feature - One major change is that scrapers can now reuse a same marker in several lines and use overlapping markers, which was not possible in the previous version.
    • Feature - Many new directives were also added to scrapers to help the debugging: #showSource#, #showMatches#, #showResults#, #showDelimiter#, #showScraperErrors#, #showServerErrors#, #simulate#, #showAlert#...
    • Feature - Added the new directive #variable#myVariableName#. The occurrences of the variable (#myVariableName#) are replaced, at application time, by the scraped value in all other lines of the scraper.
    • Feature - Added a #nextPage# directive in scrapers, allowing you to tell OutWit Hub how to find the link to the next page in a series when it doesn't find it automatically. For the moment, this is only applied when the scraped view is active (bottom panel not at default settings).
    • Feature - Added the #nextToVisit(#myURL#)# function which, in the 'Replace' field, instructs the Hub to give the variable #myURL# the next scaped value which is not found in the list of visited URLs. This means that, used in conjunction with #nextPage# and #BACK# you can create complex scraping workflows. You can, in particular, create multi-level scraping processes.
    • Feature - Added new replacement variables in scrapers: #URL#, #BASEURL#, #DOMAIN#.
    • Feature - Added new replacement functions: #(term1 operator term2)# and #if(condition,valueIfTrue,valueIfFalse)# or #if(condition;valueIfTrue;valueIfFalse)#. Works with the following operators: <,=,> (comparison operators); a=A (case-insensitive comparison); a==a (case-sensitive comparison); a!=b (not equal, case insensitive); a!==b (not equal, case sensitive); a+b (addition of integers: 1+3=4; concatenation of strings: out+wit=outwit; incrementing characters: c+3=f), a-b (subtraction of integers: 5-2=3 or decrementing chars: e-3=b ), a*b (multiplication), a/b (division) and a^b (power). The terms can be literals, variables or functions.
    • Feature - When using equality operators on strings (=, !=, ==, !==), you can now use the wildcard % in the second term to replace any string. (ex. these three statements are true: headstart = Head% ; homeland == h%d ; lighthouse = %HOUSE).
    • Feature - Added URL alteration functions: #getParam(url,parameterName)# and #setParam(url,parameterName,parameterValue)#. When used with #URL# in the #nextPage# directive line, you can easily set the value of the next page url in some cases. ex.: #setParam(#URL#,page,#(#getParam(#URL#,page)#+1)#)# in the replacement field will generate the next url, incrementing the parameter 'page'.
    • Feature - Added Lookup list replacement: #lookUp(value,listOfValuesToFind,listOfReplacementValues)# or #lookUp(value;listOfValuesToFind;listOfReplacementValues)# for replacing lists of values. The elements of the first list will be respectively replaced by those of the second.
    • Feature - The right-click menu on a scraper field in the scraper editor now allows you to highlight the matches in the source code. The same feature used on the description field, highlights matches for the whole scraper line.
    • Feature - In the scraper fields right-click menu was also added a small library of sample scraper lines and directives.
    • Feature - Added 'insert line' to the right-click menu of all datasheets, with a keyboard shortcut. This allows easier data manipulation in all datasheet but is particularly useful in the 'queries' view.
    • Feature - Regular expressions can now be used in the find bar (ctrl-F or cmd-F) of the 'page', 'source' and 'scrapers' views! Just begin and end your patterns with "/" (i.e.: /yourRegularExpression/ ).
    • Fix - The slideshow function now works even in on-demand images mode.
    • Fix - Large number of fixes and performance optimizations throughout the code.
    • Fix - Corrected encoding problems in the Dynamic Source that could happen if the meta declaration was not UTF-8.
    • Enhancement - Complete refactoring of all datasheets in the application (views and catch): they are now able to handle hundreds of thousands of rows.
    • Enhancement - Refactoring of the export functions to be able to handle very large volumes of data as well.
    • Enhancement - When downloading files, an increment or a date was added to those with duplicate filenames. It is still the case, but when the url contains parameters, OutWit now adds these to the filename before testing for duplicates. This is more effective when the images come from databases.
    • Enhancement - Some cosmetic work was done on the User Interface.
    • Enhancement - More next page links are found, in more languages.
    • Enhancement - Fully compatible with Firefox 3.6 to 9.
  • Version 1.0.9.4 - Last version before 2.0
    • Feature - updater to version 2.0.
    • Fix - some fixes were backported from v.2.0.
  • Version 1.0.8.4
    • Fix - Several fixes in scrapers, in particular unwanted blank lines added in fast scraping mode.
    • Enhancement - Compatible with FF3.6 to 9.0
  • Version 1.0.7.41
    • Feature - A few new debug directives were added to the scrapers: #showRecordDelimiter#, #showServerErrors#, #showAlert#
    • Fix - multiple fixes and changes in scrapers: altered/optimized scraper algorithm to work with Firefox next versions (7 & 8), modified the cleaning of space characters. (Please report any unlikely negative changes in the behavior of your old scrapers.)
    • Fix - Corrected a bug in query generation matrices with FF7+.
    • Fix - Corrected a bug in the recognition of URLs in plain text and in the HTML export module.
    • Enhancement - compatible with Firefox 7.0 and 8.0 (Beta, Aurora).
  • Version 1.0.7.23
    • Feature - A few debug directives were added to scrapers: #showSource#, #showResults#, #showErrors#.
    • Enhancement - Works with Firefox 3.6 to 6.
    • Known Issue - Mostly works with Firefox 7 but, at the moment, because of a regression in the RegExp engine of the current FF7 beta, the scrapers may return partial results. The bug was reported to Mozilla.
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