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Readability and Reading List

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TaoPhoenix:
As a test I went for a Forbes Magazine article, remembering that they are among the "noisier" sites, but not quite as "tricky" of a test case as Chessbase.

I grabbed a random article from a topic I recalled from last month, Congress mulling suing the President.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddavenport/2014/07/10/boehner-vs-obama-to-sue-or-not-to-sue-that-is-the-question/

My version of the converted article is at:
https://www.readability.com/articles/euy0kpxl

Notes:
1. It seems to matter if you are logged in to your Readability account. So even if the buttons are there, take a look to see if you are logged in. (I'm frowning a little at their processing model, that takes whatever article you are reading from wherever, and then stores the copy on their server. But that's another thread's topic!) So in my tests, when I was logged in, your final goal of saving the page was easier. Before I logged in, copying and pasting the readability version URL was redirecting me back to the original page, which is close to the problem you were having.

Trying to guess ahead of Cranky-IE8 vs your IE11, try saving in something approaching the following ways:
- "Webpage Complete .html"
- "Webpage single file .mht"
- Fiddle with whatever you have as "Compatability Mode"

On my cranky IE8 I couldn't get the first to work at all, and the second came through with "hidden" script text from Readability, in the form of an ugly "how did we (Readability) translating this page?" survey.

2. On my PaleMoon copy of Firefox, I got your full goal of the saved page instantly with a simple as "Save as complete page html". So a new workaround could be, if you really like and must use IE11, install a copy of Firefox anyway, log it in to Readability, and then when you're reading on IE11, once you get the converted page URL like
https://www.readability.com/articles/euy0kpxl

then just flip over to Firefox, paste the URL, hopefully the converted copy comes up, and then just save-as-html like you want to. Two more clicks, but at least not the 12 you were doing!

So I hope those notes are at least closer to what you are trying to do! Do they help?

Hola,

--Tao

Cuffy:
I'm getting suspicious that you and Contro are trying to drive the old man bananas???
Before I go running off looking for Firefox please tell me that the links you posted above don't all go to the same place!
All three links take me to the original page........... no converted page in the whole lot!!!

and Contro.

you were following Virginia Murdock yesterday and that means you were in the Reading Lists feature at Readability.com and a fur piece from Read Now which is my topic of interest.

I've got Google Chrome installed and the Read Now add-on installed easily on that so I'm going to do some testing on that before I chase down Firefox.
Convince me that you have a stripped down web page saved to your HDD in html format........
dare ya!

Cuffy:
Hey Guys,
I quit!
I installed Read Now in Google Chrome. loaded a Windows 7 Tutorials page, clicked Read Now, got a perfect page with all images, just as the ad says!
I haven't been able to duplicate the fear since.
Loaded the same web page into three different browsers.............. Read Now.......... save to disk.
Got three different byte counts with the three saves........ no images?
Read Now is a great idea but it's too flakey to do me any good.
besides, I hate java script!
Thanks again for all the time and effort.
Maybe next time.
Chio!

Curt:
A Readability page is meant to be printed, or virtually printed = saved as a PDF file => so you should click "Print", not "Save", and print to .pdf!

I am and have been using Readability for some years. Yes, it doesn't always save the pictures, but then I save the picture separately, and in my PDF editor I simply insert a new page with the missing pictures. But as you said, this is a frustrating waste of time.

By the way: The reason pictures are not always saved is, that Readability itself has determined that they are adverts or otherwise not related to the article. So, it is not a javascript error, but the article itself that was not designed in a way Readability could fully understand.

TaoPhoenix:
I'm getting suspicious that you and Contro are trying to drive the old man bananas???
Before I go running off looking for Firefox please tell me that the links you posted above don't all go to the same place!
All three links take me to the original page........... no converted page in the whole lot!!!
-Cuffy (July 16, 2014, 11:28 AM)
--- End quote ---

Naw, I wouldn't try to drive you bananas! It's more the reason I was suggesting my other hints before, because a new issue popped up.

It's true the second link was repeated, but I was trying to use the whole link for rhetorical purposes. But you apparently just discovered (see my grumpiness note from above) that they apparently don't cache the "readable" page very long, so you're right that it's reverting back to Forbes, but that is *not* what it was doing for me yesterday!!

"Read Now is a great idea but it's too flakey to do me any good."
You were saying earlier they may have stopped development ... maybe they were finding that each site has its own nasty javascript doing weird things, and it was getting harder and harder to produce "readability profiles" for sites plus different implementations across the browsers.

Plus, the Readability email itself sends a clue - re: the three different byte counts, I wouldn't put it past them based on the other weird things their script does, is to try to auto-detect browsers and produce something customized. In my signup email it says "go get the add-on" and auto-detects the browser and feeds me different instruction pages, when I was testing for you. So your three different versions could have been browser specific!

Yeah, I agree with the conclusion, "good idea, but flaky"!       : (

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