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RightNote webbooks
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Posted by WSP
Dec 12, 2017 at 09:54 PM
There was a very interesting discussion of this topic here a couple of years ago, which I have been rereading today because I am now looking at RightNote again.
The specific problem I’ve encountered is that the RN webbooks are easily viewable on my computer (I just double click on “web.html” or “mobile.html” in the file directory), but so far I have been unable to make them work on my iPhone or iPad. There I’ve depended upon Dropbox. I’ve done two procedures: (1) from my computer I’ve gone into DropBox’s own directory and clicked on “mobile.html,” and (2) on both my iPad and iPhone I’ve tried to download the webbook to my Readdle Documents app.
I think I more or less understand what went wrong in both cases. The “mobile.html” depends on a whole series of subdirectories, and at the Dropbox site those subdirectories are apparently not recognized by “mobile.html,” while on the iPad/iPhone I can’t figure out how to get the full subdirectory structure from DropBox to Documents.
MadaboutDane, you wrote here in 2015 that “I’ve just used Readdle Documents (the best of the best file management apps on iOS) to copy a web book from my Dropbox account to an iPad, and it runs beautifully (very fast indeed, in fact). And yes, the search function works perfectly, too.” Could you or someone else explain to me how to do this? I assume the principle is the same for the iPad and iPhone. It’s the latter I want to use.
Posted by Pierre Paul Landry
Dec 12, 2017 at 10:34 PM
WSP wrote:
(...) The “mobile.html” depends on a whole series of subdirectories, and at the Dropbox site those subdirectories are apparently not recognized by “mobile.html,” while on the iPad/iPhone
That’s about it. The Dropbox app does not work the same as Dropbox on a computer (storage space constraints most likely)
The files in the Dropbox app are just placeholders. When you click on it, it gets downloaded, but just that file. Setting it as off-line access does not help as it is still only that file which gets stored in a local folder
To get it to work, you must select the file and all dependant files and set it to off-line access. Not really a workable solution
One option is to use another Dropbox sync app. For Android there are a few of these and this works well. One is:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ttxapps.dropsync&hl=fr_CA
Another option is to convert your html file to mhtml / mht which are single files. Works well, I do it all the time
To do this, open the file in Chrome and do ... > More Tools > Save page as
(there is an extension, Save as MHT, to do this for you, a bit quicker)
Pierre
Posted by MadaboutDana
Dec 13, 2017 at 10:26 AM
Yes, as Pierre says, you need to ensure that the entire Dropbox folder is being synchronised to your iPhone/iPad.
The best tool for doing this is, as I mentioned in my previous remark, Readdle Documents (although the new Apple Files app might also be capable of doing this - I haven’t really explored the latter in great detail; fortunately it recognises Readdle Documents as a source, so having one doesn’t mean you can’t use the other, as it were).
In Documents, you set up a single (or multiple, if you like) Dropbox folders to sync with your local repository on your iPhone or iPad; once it’s set up, Documents will automatically sync the entire contents of the folder into the matching folder in Documents. Even better, you can ask Documents to index all data held locally on your iOS device, meaning you can search through it at ultra-high speeds (Documents has a good search function). So once your folder-to-folder sync is set up, it all happens nice and automatically without any further anxieties.
Readdle have a very good support function if you need it, but Documents is very straightforward to use. It’s the first app I recommend to anybody with an iOS device!
All the best,
Bill
Posted by WSP
Dec 13, 2017 at 01:57 PM
Thanks to both of you. I’ll try these methods later today.
My general impression of RightNote is the same as it was a few years ago: an extremely powerful program with rather opaque instructions and help files. If you want to use it, you have to be prepared to spend quite a bit of time exploring its semi-hidden features.
Posted by Mirce
Dec 13, 2017 at 02:22 PM
Although it seems that your question is answered satisfactory, I would still like to make another suggestion, as I try to archieve a similar result (having info from my main database,created and maintained in MyInfo my Milenix and want to access it on my iPad).
MyInfo also creates a web-export (I suppose this is what RightNote does with the Webbook export), however the internal browser in Readdle Documents cannot opet the created index.html file, as it contains a “left-hand” java script menu. After trying out numerous ways to get the info available on my iPad, I came up with the following:
- Zip the MyInfo web-export folder and transfer it to Documents on the ipad.
- Unpack the zip with Documents, and open in double view the iCab Mobile browser.
- In iCab, open the Downloads, make a new folder, and drag and drop all the contents from the extracted zip file from Documents to iCab (if there are subfolders, I have to create them manually on iCab, and darg & drop again their contents).
- In iCab, open the index.html and you have you database with the corresponding menu and working links. Bookmark it.
t.l./d.r: If the Webbooks created by RightNote can be opened with Documents, than you can go with the dropbox variant. If not, user Documents and iCab mobile.
Hope this can be useful to someone.