what`s the Descr.WD3 file ?? how to open it?

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  • what`s the Descr.WD3 file ?? how to open it?
Dr3K
05/17/2004 02:56 pm
hi,
i noticed there`s a file "Descr.WD3" in each folder....
what is this file and how can i view his content?

or should i delete it??

thanks :)
Oleg Chernavin
05/18/2004 04:11 am
Descr.wd3 files reside in each directory Offline Explorer creates and contain information regarding all downloaded files in the directory:
- file name
- original file URL
- date of the last modification on Web server (to check for updates)
- file MIME type as it was returned by Web server (this is useful for offline browsing)
- a sign, if a .primary file was created or not.

Although all these files could be deleted, it is not recommended because this may make Web site updates and offline browsing less reliable.

Best regards,
Oleg Chernavin
MP Staff
Dr3K
05/18/2004 06:17 am
thanks Oleg!!

but, how can i read the file content? to see, for example, what`s the original file URL?
Oleg Chernavin
05/18/2004 06:23 am
It is a binary file. Its structure is the following:

Size 4 bytes
FNSize 4 bytes
URLSize 4 bytes -- always zero
FileName x bytes File name as on disk
URL Name x bytes File name as in URL -- not used
Version 4 bytes
Modif.date 31 bytes
MIME type 36 bytes
Original file length (before parsing) 4 bytes
NeedPrimary 1 byte 0 if Primary is needed, 1 - if not

Oleg.
Dr3K
05/18/2004 02:57 pm
I still cant see how to open it mate... :/

there`s a program can do this?
Oleg Chernavin
05/19/2004 05:49 am
Sorry, there is no program for that yet. It is possible to create one, but why would you need to view/change these files contents? Can you please explain it in details? Perhaps I will be able to offer you a better solution.

Oleg.
Dr3K
05/19/2004 08:10 am
like i said yesterday:
to see, for example, what`s the original file URL...

k? :)
Oleg Chernavin
05/20/2004 03:02 am
There is no original URL stored in these files. I calculate the URL from the filename and path. There are set of simple rules. For example, @ means ?, etc.

Oleg.
Dr3K
05/20/2004 05:37 am
oh.. ok.
so i guess that if i downloaded a whole website just for the pictures stored there... those file are meaningless for me...

thanks for the help, Oleg,
keep up the good work :)
Oleg Chernavin
05/20/2004 06:13 am
Yes, if you don`t update the downloaded site in future and all files have standard extensions, like .htm, .jpg, .gif, then these files are useless for you.

Oleg.
Andrey
10/15/2007 09:14 am
Hello :-)

I always run OE in the mode "Do not download existing files" because i noticed that OE doesnt download everything complete on the first run. And since there's no ERROR LOG for the not-downloaded files (as in minor tools such as Webzip) i need to re-run the task over and over again until i have the feeling that my HDD-folder contents is a 100% complete mirror of the http-server contents.

With a huge download project (~30.000 files. 700MB total), I did the re-runs many times. When i finally checked the folder contents, i noticed that a folder would have 'pic1.jpg.primay pic2.jpg.primary pic3.jpg pic4.jpg.primary' instead of 'pic1.jpg pic2.jpg pic3.jpg pic4.jpg'.

??

So i searched for all *.primary-files (23MB) and for all Descr.WD3-files and deleted them.

Then i tried a rerun of the task, again with in the mode "Do not download existing files", but in the end the example folder would only have 'pic3.jpg' with all other three files missing.

Is my download project now totally corrupted (because i deleted the Descr.WD3's and primary's)? Or how could I go sure, 100%, that in the end i have everything complete on my HDD, incl. the obviously missing ~20-25MB's?

I am really struggling with OE getting everyting down, 100% complete, after the very first run. There are *always* missing files, which need to be downloaded later on (in another run). It would be nice if OE created an error log for the "skipped" files, so that users could download them 'manually' or at least now *which* files should be on HDD but could not be downloaded automatically at that instance, when the project was running (fast and with 20-50 open channels).

Webzip is way inferior to your tool. But it does have an easy way to check the 'download errors' and then re-download the missing pages/files.

Thanks for your attention and help, best regards
Andrey
Oleg Chernavin
10/15/2007 12:38 pm
Well, there is a complete log of all operations and you can easily setup how many details you want to display there. Please press Ctrl+W to reveal it. If you cannot find out why errors occur, please let me know and I will try to help.

Oleg.
Andrey
10/16/2007 06:28 am
> Well, there is a complete log of all operations and you can easily setup how many details you want to display there. Please press Ctrl+W to reveal it. If you cannot find out why errors occur, please let me know and I will try to help.
>
> Oleg.

Dear Oleg,
oh my god. I really didnt know about the LOG logging feature! :-(
...and it is so beautiful (and beautifully implemented), congratulations to such a great coding job!!! :D
The *.chm-Help File doesnt say much about it, actually. Maybe because it is self-explanatory once the user has detected the cool feature. I will for sure come back to post more about my 'problem'. The problem is that OE, on the very first run (and even on re-runs), doesnt grab ALL files (a few GIFs are missing on the HDD)...in such a way that i have the feeling that OE is too "impatient". A channel tries to load the GIF, but the server would respond only after a few seconds, and the channel --impatient as hes is-- simply goes to the next file in queue, etc.
I want the channels to wait longer, much longer.

Compared to Internet Explorer, the IE waits AS LONG AS IT TAKES until the webpage is completely loaded. For large pages (and slow servers) with many GIFs, IE takes up to 60 secs, but with the nice results that each and every pic (gif, jpg) etc. is displayed. I want the OE-download channels to be as patient as IE :)=)

I will now observe the LOG more closely...

Andrey

Oleg Chernavin
10/16/2007 07:11 am
Can you please change the Timout setting in the Options dialog to increase it to 60 seconds or longer, if necessary. Please also set a bigger number of retries there. This will help.

Oleg.
matheus
05/09/2008 05:43 pm


Hi.. Fantastic program...

If I replace (inside a W3D file) all urls containing "nrpag" wity "pag", the file will become corrupted?
Oleg Chernavin
05/09/2008 05:59 pm
Yes, because it has length field as well.

Oleg.
matheus
05/09/2008 06:04 pm
> Yes, because it has length field as well.
>
> Oleg.

Ok. im asking this because i start a project and during the download i noticed that some urls ending with nrpag=XXX are equal to the ones ending with pag=1.

So i wish to delete "nrpag" files from disk. i dont know what to do, since i thing various links will be broken.

Oleg Chernavin
05/09/2008 06:11 pm
descr.wd3 files will not influence links. I would suggest you to use URL Substitutes feature (Project Properties dialog - Advanced section) and add a rule there:

URL:
*
Replace:
pag=*
With:
pag=1

This will force Offline Explorer to load only ....pag=1 links and all links to pag=xxx will be replaced with ...pag=1.

Oleg.
matheus
05/09/2008 06:13 pm
> descr.wd3 files will not influence links. I would suggest you to use URL Substitutes feature (Project Properties dialog - Advanced section) and add a rule there:
>
> URL:
> *
> Replace:
> pag=*
> With:
> pag=1
>
> This will force Offline Explorer to load only ....pag=1 links and all links to pag=xxx will be replaced with ...pag=1.
>
> Oleg.

The names of the files and links will change on disk, too?
Oleg Chernavin
05/09/2008 06:27 pm
Yes, all files and links will correspond the change.

Oleg.
matheus
05/10/2008 02:15 pm
> Yes, all files and links will correspond the change.
>
> Oleg.

ok. Thanks again
Oleg Chernavin
05/11/2008 06:32 am
You are welcome!

Oleg.
Manoj
08/11/2015 04:24 am
You can use Notepad++ to open this file.
Oleg Chernavin
08/11/2015 04:26 am
This file has binary structure, so no text editor application, including various Notepads are unable to view these files correctly. Also, opening Descr.wd3 files with an editor may corrupt them, make unusable and also cause failures in Offline Explorer when accessing them.

Oleg.