Web Research Data Management Collection

[TaoPhoenix]

Okay gang,

Time to pull together a post on a larger theme spread among some of the components I have been working on.

Problem: How to start a web research project with as little of the rote maintenance of hand-creating pieces as possible.
Note - Focus on Firefox. Tweaks may be needed for other browsers.  Start by creating a simple master project folder in Wndows.

I: Browser
1. Firefox Extension - Session Manager
In Firefox, either under Tools/Addons (or possibly a different path if you use one of the altered menu bars) install the Session Manager addon. This will probably require "restarting" Firefox so try not to do this with any sensitive windows open because it might break the connection. In Tools-Session Manager-Session Manager submenu-Session Manager Options, you might be interested in changing the location that it saves the sessions. (I happen to hate "My Documents".)

2. Open your batch of research as a series of tabs. Rearrange them as you like, etc.

3. Tools-Session Manager-Session Manager submenu-Save Current Window (or save the whole session.) So this means that you can reconstitute the browser with the tabs to review again later.

4. MilesAhead put in something called "BBSS" aka "Browser Bunch Session Save".
From this thread -
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=30913.0
https://www.donation...30913.0;attach=68638

This makes a paired list of browser tab titles and URLs that you can paste into a spreadsheet. Importantly, the text file of URLs has a second use below.

[TaoPhoenix]

II: PDFs and folders
This is where my NANY entry comes in. It's a Pdf batch saver designed to work off the list of URLs that came out of Miles' program.
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=33349.0
http://www.freevoteu...20Alpha1%2012-19.zip

Select the inbound text file with the URLs, and the output directory somewhere in your project folder.
When it's done, there should be a list of numbered PDFs in the same order as the URLs in the text file and on your spreadsheet. It appears to work with Trandesk, which is a multiple desktop splitter, found here:
https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=4793.0
The PDF exporter has some code to attempt to handle duplicate copies of a webpage, so as not to halt the batch export just because of a usual windows double. So you can try opening the PDF exporter in its own desktop, then go back to working while it processes out.

Now that you have your list of PDFs, you can use one of the File-to-Folder programs from this snack thread:
Skwire's version is here:
https://www.donation....php?topic=19770.125

My machine misbehaved with it, so I found some alternate versions of the concept here:
https://www.donation...;topicseen#msg313429

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Result: A complete set of folders, with a starter PDF inside, ready for further documentation, a pair of raw source text files, a browser session, and a spreadsheet! Here's a screen shot based on Monster.com job lists: