The Punters Lounge - The World's Best Betting Forum - View Single Post - Lesson 1

03-05-2004, 16:02

How can we tell which sites use HTML?

And if they don't, can we still use them in some way?

Good question,
it's not if they use HTML, it's if they use HTML in such a way that the information we are interested in is directly accessible.

Nearly all sites use HTML, some only HTML but most a combination of HTML, Javascript, background databases and possibly site-specific software. Depending on the complexity of the site accessing information can be easy or very difficult. For this course we will look at sites where the information can be accessed directly inside HTML, possibly after going from page to page a couple of times, but no more difficult than that.

How to find out ? Lets use this very page to try.
( i'm using Windows 2000 at work, may be different on other versions ! )

First i left-click in the area i'm interested in to make sure the current focus of the browser is on that area.
Then, keeping the mouse in that area, i right-click and select "Source" or "View source".
This opens a view, in my case using Notepad, of the source code of the page.
( you could save this info in a file if you wish )
On one of the top lines there should be a reference to the name HTML.
Then i do a search of the info i want like "Good question".
( using the search function of Notepad )

If it can be found i know the info is directly accessible inside HTML, and can be extracted fairly easily.

If it cannot be found then some other mechanism than basic HTML is used. In this case it is required to use other techniques to get to the info. Those will unfortunately fall outside the scope of this course.

We will go through the details of all of this in lesson 8 or 9.

So to answer your question, can we get at the info if it is not directly accessible in HTML ? Yes, the info can most likely still be accessed but there is no general method, it will have to be examined case by case.

03-05-2004, 16:02	#4 (permalink)
Lizard7 Guest Posts: n/a	HTML How can we tell which sites use HTML? And if they don't, can we still use them in some way? Good question, it's not if they use HTML, it's if they use HTML in such a way that the information we are interested in is directly accessible. Nearly all sites use HTML, some only HTML but most a combination of HTML, Javascript, background databases and possibly site-specific software. Depending on the complexity of the site accessing information can be easy or very difficult. For this course we will look at sites where the information can be accessed directly inside HTML, possibly after going from page to page a couple of times, but no more difficult than that. How to find out ? Lets use this very page to try. ( i'm using Windows 2000 at work, may be different on other versions ! ) First i left-click in the area i'm interested in to make sure the current focus of the browser is on that area. Then, keeping the mouse in that area, i right-click and select "Source" or "View source". This opens a view, in my case using Notepad, of the source code of the page. ( you could save this info in a file if you wish ) On one of the top lines there should be a reference to the name HTML. Then i do a search of the info i want like "Good question". ( using the search function of Notepad ) If it can be found i know the info is directly accessible inside HTML, and can be extracted fairly easily. If it cannot be found then some other mechanism than basic HTML is used. In this case it is required to use other techniques to get to the info. Those will unfortunately fall outside the scope of this course. We will go through the details of all of this in lesson 8 or 9. So to answer your question, can we get at the info if it is not directly accessible in HTML ? Yes, the info can most likely still be accessed but there is no general method, it will have to be examined case by case.