How Can I Create a Working Copy of CSR on My Home Computer?

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How Can I Create a Working Copy of CSR on My Home Computer?

Post by web-ed »

Here, in response to a question no one had asked, is my answer as to how you can have your very own working copy of CSR, or portions of it, at home. Why would anyone want to do this, you ask? Unlike a blog, which could be pulled by the host any time and without warning, CSR is reasonably stable (first one to yell out, "Too bad you can't say as much for yourself, Web-Ed!" leaves the room). My host can't just yank it down, even if they wanted to, and I'm not planning on going anywhere anytime soon, so what's the problem?

Well, even though in good health I tend to worry sometimes about what would happen if I were suddenly to shuffle off this mortal coil. Having gone to a better place (where, no doubt, you can find every comic-book spanking you could want, including The Holy Grail :) ), CSR would remain static, with no updates, until finally the host did yank it down, my estate having neglected to pay the bills! What would my readers do without the superb spankings, critical commentaries, and erudite essays that CSR once provided? Of course, many of you have certainly downloaded the pictures, or at least some of them. Well, here's how to take it a step further and get one or more complete working pages.
Another advantage is that you could browse the site even while offline.

If the later screen shots, which detail how to alter the HTML code to make all the hyperlinks work, seems too involved, don't worry about it for now. If you have completed the earlier steps correctly, the page will work, it's just that not all of the hyperlinks will. Specifically, the ones that link within the same directory on CSR as it stands on the server (see diagram) will work, but the ones that link to another directory (e.g. to the Home Page) will not.

Of course, it would be much faster to simply use FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to transfer the files from the server to your PC (this is how I do the site updates, except in reverse). The only problem is I don't know how to allow everyone to do that without given them complete access to the server, which I can't do for security reasons. Therefore, for now this is the best method I could come up with.
How to save the desired page, step 1
How to save the desired page, step 1
how_to_01_save.gif (156.8 KiB) Viewed 2781 times
How to save the desired page, step 2
How to save the desired page, step 2
how_to_02_save_html_only.gif (132.94 KiB) Viewed 2781 times
You will note that I specify the "Save HTML Only" option in this step. The reason for that is that when you do a "Save Web Page Complete" the browser modifies the code in a way which uses the pictures and other auxiliary files from the web server. We don't want to do this because even though it would work for now, we want it to work even after everything on the server is gone.
How to save an image, step 1
How to save an image, step 1
how_to_03_save_image_as.gif (151.94 KiB) Viewed 2781 times
How to save an image, step 2
How to save an image, step 2
how_to_04_saving_image.gif (135.57 KiB) Viewed 2781 times
We keep the same file name - if we changed it, we'd have to change the HTML code to match, which is a lot of work for no real benefit (the names must match or the picture wouldn't display).
What your folder contents should look like
What your folder contents should look like
how_to_05_folder_contents.gif (63.79 KiB) Viewed 2780 times
The awesome directory structure of CSR revealed at last!
The awesome directory structure of CSR revealed at last!
how_to_06_folder_structure.gif (13.24 KiB) Viewed 2781 times
How to open the HTML file with a simple text editor like Notepad
How to open the HTML file with a simple text editor like Notepad
how_to_07_open_html_file_with_text_editor.gif (64.06 KiB) Viewed 2780 times
Searching the file for the important strings.
Searching the file for the important strings.
how_to_08_search_file_for_string.gif (34.11 KiB) Viewed 2781 times
Selecting the string
Selecting the string
how_to_09_select_string.gif (26.45 KiB) Viewed 2781 times
Editing the string
Editing the string
how_to_10_editing_the_string.gif (27.95 KiB) Viewed 2781 times
Save your work, and you're done!

Of course, this has to be repeated for each page you save, if you want all the links to work.

What about the Comics Spanking Data Base and this forum? You can save a dump of the CSDB at any given time by simply saving its generated-code page like any other. Saving the DB itself would require that you have MySQL and a PHP interpreter already installed on your home computer. If you've gone that far, you probably don't need to read this article! The Forum can be saved only as individual pages since again, you would need a MySQL DB installed on your computer to do more.
-- Web-Ed
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