Mike Posted June 30, 2017 Share Posted June 30, 2017 1 minute ago, CedB said: @Mike I keep thinking there must be a way of getting someone clever to create something that exports a whole thread, including pictures, to pdf... is this something you've looked at? Have you tried "Print to PDF"? You might have to find an add-on for your browser, but it's been possible for a while now to print anything to PDF. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CedB Posted June 30, 2017 Share Posted June 30, 2017 Thanks @Mike. Yes, I've tried that but the template on the site for printing is, er, 'less than optimal'. I'm on a Mac so if I ask it to print I get this: Print from BM by Ced Bufton, on Flickr You can (just) see from the thumbnail that the system is just printing one page of the thread and this takes up 10 pages! this means you'd have to print / export each page. There's also a lot of stuff in there I don't want saved, like member details and signatures. It would be really great if there was an 'export thread' facility that showed a small banner for each post, had the BM header just at the top etc etc. Is it worth starting a thread somewhere to see what people think? I'm happy to do that if you let me know where you want it (titter). I think that someone with web skills and access to your database might be able to do something? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giemme Posted June 30, 2017 Share Posted June 30, 2017 2 hours ago, CedB said: It would be really great if there was an 'export thread' facility that showed a small banner for each post, had the BM header just at the top etc etc. Seconded! Ciao 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted June 30, 2017 Author Share Posted June 30, 2017 It was a bit rude of us to interrupt the discussion about Halibags, so I've split this off @giemme and @CedB, so we can carry on. I'm sure there's a solution, but we just need to track it down. It's not something I've looked at since we moved to V4, as I've been firefighting hacking attacks and working on the new look for a lot of the time. Let's see what we can find out there, and if we can't find anything, we can ask Invision to add it to their to-do list of features to add. The labour intensive method would be to shot each page and stitch it together, but that's a horrible prospect for anything more than a few pages. What do we know, and what can we find out? 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giemme Posted June 30, 2017 Share Posted June 30, 2017 Thanks Mike There used to be an "export" icon or something like that on the bottom left of the older forum version, but that would disapper as soon as the thread reached a certain number of pages (not many, and definitely too few for my threads ). A more solid function would really be greatly appreciated - but I appreciate all the way more the efforts you are putting in keeping BM safe from hacker's attacks Ciao 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted June 30, 2017 Author Share Posted June 30, 2017 In olden days, there used to be an option for a "printer friendly" page that you could then print. Not no more... I'm having a look myself, if you guys can join me in the hunt, that would be handy. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CedB Posted June 30, 2017 Share Posted June 30, 2017 Thanks for moving this Mike I have had a fairly extensive search on the 'net for Invision export / print facilities and couldn't find anything... I know I've said that I've had my fill of computers after 40+ years on systems design and programming but I do think there should be someone out there that could hack investigate the scripts and templates used to pull together the posts and to produce a modified version that suits export to pdf (a common archive format IMHO). Now I'm retired I'm quite happy to mock up some ideas on what this might look like if that helps to get the ball rolling? I'd be more than happy to make a contribution to the cost too if we can't find someone kind to do it for nowt love. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted June 30, 2017 Author Share Posted June 30, 2017 You've clearly got more experience than me, but I could imagine a script to load the necessary pages etc., converting them as you go. A PDF would be preferable to printing, as if you're printing a 100 page thread and you forget to size everything accordingly, you'll end up being a little unhappy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CedB Posted June 30, 2017 Share Posted June 30, 2017 Thanks Mike From what I know (dangerous) about web based systems like Invision they store the data in a database (MySQL for Invision is it?) and the browser runs a script that accesses the database to bring together the data and format it prettily. The main template we use all the time obviously allows editing and is probably horribly complex, but the one that's used when the user 'prints' should be simpler - from what I can see it's already different to the layout of the 'online' thread? That's about as far as I can go programming wise but I'm happy to mock up a 'hopefully not impossible' layout for discussion and to poke under the nose of someone with appropriate skills. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted June 30, 2017 Author Share Posted June 30, 2017 I'm going to have a look on the Invision site to see if anyone's done the legwork already. You can get/buy Plug-Ins to do all sorts of things, so we might be in luck 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted June 30, 2017 Author Share Posted June 30, 2017 Interesting There's a plug-in that allows you to show a complete topic, which would open up the gates to printing the complete topic, or saving it to PDF. There's a limit to the number of pages you can print, which is to stop overloading the server, but that's only sensible. There's a small cost implication too, but that's not all that important. It's designed to work with the next major update though, which is coming sometime this summer, so we'll have to wait until that's over. We won't go to that version immediately of course, but will wait for the inevitable 4.x.1 that comes after it has been released in the wild. Of course we won't trumpet when it'll be done, as that seems to often trigger a DDoS attack, as those Russian hackers are watching the forum all the time by the looks of things Remind me again after the update kiddies 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giemme Posted June 30, 2017 Share Posted June 30, 2017 33 minutes ago, Mike said: Remind me again after the update kiddies Sure! I just need someone to remind me to remind you ... Ciao Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CedB Posted June 30, 2017 Share Posted June 30, 2017 Giorgio, no problem - don't forget to remind Mike about the new feature. Pleased to help Mike that sounds promising and, if it's an Invision feature, at leat it'll get maintained. I guess we can wait a bit. Is / will the formatting be nice for printing do you know? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Russell Posted July 2, 2017 Share Posted July 2, 2017 I doubt I would ever want to save an entire build thread - food and beer stuff etc - so, to be useful, a system would have to be editable in PDF form or before you save it as a PDF. Given the Photobucket antics, it's almost become irrelevant anyway as i suspect most people have most of their stuff on PB and life's too short to restore it all. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CedB Posted September 28, 2017 Share Posted September 28, 2017 On 30/06/2017 at 17:00, Mike said: Interesting There's a plug-in that allows you to show a complete topic, which would open up the gates to printing the complete topic, or saving it to PDF. There's a limit to the number of pages you can print, which is to stop overloading the server, but that's only sensible. There's a small cost implication too, but that's not all that important. It's designed to work with the next major update though, which is coming sometime this summer, so we'll have to wait until that's over. We won't go to that version immediately of course, but will wait for the inevitable 4.x.1 that comes after it has been released in the wild. Of course we won't trumpet when it'll be done, as that seems to often trigger a DDoS attack, as those Russian hackers are watching the forum all the time by the looks of things Remind me again after the update kiddies As requested a bump as a reminder about the plug-in Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted September 28, 2017 Author Share Posted September 28, 2017 Sorry fella - been way too busy with other stuff to even think about this. Remind me again in a couple of weeks, to give me a chance to catch up 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CedB Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 Hi @Mike - as requested, as reminder! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted October 26, 2017 Author Share Posted October 26, 2017 Gawd! Has it been a couple of weeks already? Leave it with me, and if I nod off, give me another nudge 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted October 26, 2017 Author Share Posted October 26, 2017 Right - I've been back and had a look at the plug-in, and it's now under discussion in the Mod area. Give us a couple of days to reach a conclusion, and we'll come back to you 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Russell Posted October 30, 2017 Share Posted October 30, 2017 Post #14 above is still relevant if you decide to do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CedB Posted May 6, 2018 Share Posted May 6, 2018 Hi @Mike, this just popped up on my 'following' list - did you get anywhere with the developers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted November 3, 2018 Share Posted November 3, 2018 Hi Reviving an old thread - the Print functionality is needed by many. Mike - you can check out https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/442311-print-or-printer-friendly-feature/ Hope you get time to fix this up. Thanks Ran Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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