Use WebDesktop as a handy HTML reader
Oct 31, '05 05:06:00AM
Contributed by: K9garms
A previous hint described how to use the free WebDesktop for keeping up with sports news on the desktop. I've found that it is also useful as a 'desktop reader' for HTML files in general, especially those obtained as Web Archives from Safari saves. It also makes it easy to quickly refer to HTML-formatted documentation and help files included with some software distributions. The program is essentially a Safari clone.
Three steps are involved in setting up a document to be 'read:'
- Open the HTML file you want to refer to, or read, using your web browser
- Copy the path to the document as it appears in the browser's address field (this will be the path on your system or on the Internet, depending on the file's location).
- Open WebDeskTop and click Open Location... in the menu under the logo (or just hit Command-L) to open a field for pasting the path you just copied.
The HTML document should open just as it did with the browser, and active links within the document or those referencing other web pages should function normally. Navigation within the document is done by Forward and Backward menu selections, or by hotkey equivalents.
The 'reader' will go to background when the Finder or any other app comes to the front. Bring it back to the front by double-clicking an alias to the WebDeskTop program, located on your Desktop for convenience, or by a hotkey set up for this purpose. I generally keep at least a couple of copies of the program running, so I can have two or more documents open for ready reference as I'm trying to learn AppleScripting and Unix.
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