DownloadStory v1.5.1

Created by StoweMorris Software

Get it from CNET Download.com!

Or download the application from my personal server


DESCRIPTION
DownloadStory downloads and compiles all chapters of a fanfiction story off of some of the biggest fanfiction websites. Once downloaded, the entire story is available even when you are offline - great for installing on an iPhone or iPod to read on the go, or on your laptop or iPad on airplane trips.

DownloadStory currently supports the following websites:

HOW IT WORKS
Once you provide the web page address of the beginning of the story (the first chapter always works, and I try to support index pages as well), then the software will download each chapter in the background, saving the files into a temporary folder created on your desktop. Once the software has downloaded all of the chapters, it combines all of the them together into your preference of a html or text file. Finally it takes that compiled document and puts it in a folder called "New Stories" on your desktop. From there you are welcome to use it however you wish - I personally use the Stanza iOS app with Stanza Desktop to read them on my iPhone (stories saved in html format work best for this).

FUTURE UPGRADES
Creation in epub format Better conversion of special characters such as smart quotes
Support for additional fanfiction sites (requests?)
Support for stories that require logging in at Checkmated.com
Triggering off of an email (such as author alerts, etc.)
Put stories in a queue to download via clicking on a link to them
Other requests?

KNOWN BUGS
Special characters on some sites are displayed badly - anyone know how to convert unicode to readable ASCII text in applescript?
If you encounter other problems from a supported site, please contact me to get them fixed!

CONTACT INFORMATION
Please send any bugs you find or feature requests you have to , or use the contact form - the great thing about shareware is the personal support! Also, I'm hoping that if it is useful to you you'll consider donating a few dollars to support future development. If you do, I'll tell you how to get rid of the startup window, and you'll have my undying gratitude. Not to mention free upgrades for life, and inspiring more upgrades to the program. Even if you can't spare any money, just throw me an email if you use DownloadStory often - it's nice to hear when people enjoy using it.

VERSION HISTORY
v1.5.1 (12/23/11)
Now supports http://www.ashwinder.sycophanthex.com/
Now supports http://www.thepetulantpoetess.com/
Now supports http://www.witchfics.org/
Now supports http://www.obscurusbooks.org/
Improved parsing of FicWad stories to avoid infinite downloads on stories with self-referencing Next links

v1.5 (12/05/10)
Now allows entering another story when done, rather than always quitting
Now checks for new versions on startup
Now supports archive.skyehawke.com - paid request
Added stripping of extraneous text before and after the story for all supported sites
Fixed a bug which made some stories black-on-black in HTML format, making them very hard to read
Fixed support for restricted stories at Checkmated.com
Fixed problem with Portkey.org taking forever to finish
Fixed problem with Sabrina Online downloading infinite copies of chapter 53
FanFicAuthors.net now provides whole story downloads in various formats including ePub, therefore DownloadStory now just refers to user to those
Kinsfire.net is no longer supported, as Kinsfire has an account on FanFicAuthors.net
Vastly improved registration process
Added much more logging to aid in debugging errors

v1.4.1 (11/08/09)
Bug fix for the annoying "corrupted preferences" warning. Special thanks to Terri O. for her bug reporting assistance!

v1.4 (09/12/09)
This update is a direct result of a paid feature request:
Now correctly displays smart quotes, apostrophes, etc., on FanFiction.net
Now displays the correct story title in Stanza
Now supports crvboy.org
Updated to support new type of chapter links at checkmated.com
Added additional error catching

v1.3 (07/05/09)
A user bug report prompted me to post an update to this application!
Now supports automatic separation of chapters when using Stanza
Now writes error text file to desktop if error, and success text file that gets deleted if success dialog box is acknowledged
Now supports Fictionalley.org (Schnoogle.com, etc.), Sink Into Your Eyes (http://www.siye.co.uk), Ficwad (http://www.ficwad.com), and Kinsfire.net
Now supports Sabrina Online the Story (http://www.chrisfoxx.com/), and Zig Zag the Story (http://www.zzstudios.com/)
Now actually deletes temp files instead of placing them in trash
Now strips out excessive pull-down menu items from fanfiction.net pages
Now only puts About DownloadStory prefix in front of first chapter, instead of every chapter
Fixed a couple bugs that resulted when the preferences file was corrupted

v1.2.2 (08/21/06)
Fixed an error when downloading stories from FanFiction.net with only one chapter
Added extra error checking when downloading pages

v1.2 (07/30/06)
Now supports SugarQuill.net, Checkmated.com, and by popular request, PhoenixSong.net
Now supports downloading stories that require logging in at FanFicAuthors.net
Now catches error pages from FanFiction.net
Fixed an issue in which certain links at FanFiction.net were returning error pages

v1.1 (07/12/06)
Now supports The Wonderful World of Makebelieve (http://www.squidge.org/~peja/) per user request
User preference: Download timeout (defaults to none)
User preference: Automatically added file name prefix (defaults to none) - version 1.0 used "HP ", since I only used this for Harry Potter stories
User preference: Output format (defaults to html, to preserve more formatting)
Added chapter URL, story title, and chapter number to the top of each chapter for easy reference
Modified to only add "HP" title prefix to those stories that used to start with "Harry Potter"
Now looks for the next chapter link for Fanfiction.net, saving time by not trying to download a non-existent chapter to figure out the story is finished

v1.0 (07/04/06)
First public release
Supports FanFiction.net, FanFicAuthors.net, and Portkey.org