Hello,
I was working for some time at an application that lets you download fanfiction to your hard drive (like widely known DeFFNetIzer, but from many different archives). I just finished first version, it lets you download files from FF.net, fictionalley.org and adultfanfiction.net. There will be much more soon, becouse up till now I worked mostly on interface.

Templates used to save your fanfiction are very simple and similar to DeFFNetIzer, there is only one at this moment, but more will be added.

here is the link if you are interested: www.serdel.co.nr

Almost forgot to mention: if it is not working for you, it is possible you dont have .NET Framework on your system. Download one from Microsoft website (it's ~20MB). If it not working still, pm me here on forums

Screenshot:


Serdel

 

Building an application using .NET Framework is fail. That said...

The thing that DeFFNetIzer and FanFiction Downloader (http://www.home-eisele.de/downloader_e.php) have going for it that yours currently doesn't, is system portability. DeFFNetIzer is built with Python, which is GREAT for system portability. I'm not quite sure about FanFiction Downloader, but it works 100% in WINE, so I'm not going to complain or bother trying to find out. I can't even get yours installed in WINE, because of it needing .NET Framework. Not all of your users will use Windows, and support for .NET Framework in Linux is spotty at best at the moment. (I don't know about Mac because, quite frankly, Mac blows giant whale balls.)

 

Honestly, I didn't know about Fanfiction Downloader when I was developing this. That said, the market share of systems other than MS Windows is low. Precisely Windows has 88,26% as of September 2008, MAC following at ~9% while Linux has >1%. This application was designed for Windows and it will stay that way. There is a console version on a horizon though, which is going to be without .NET (can be run on Wine).


The difference between my application and Fanfic Downloader is, that It has plugin system in perl, that lets you write your own plugin files for each archive very easily, which will cause this to have many different archives available very quickly. It also has template system that lets you design your own templates easily.


I'll consider moving this to older versions of MS Visual, because as far as I know, they don't require .NET Framework to work. They should work on WINE. Sad thruth is, I don't like .NET also, but if amount of work to move this will be to big, I wont do it.

 

And how exactly did you come to that conclusion, I ask? O_0

 

I believe he explained it fairly well.

I happened to prefer Linux to windows, and if I cant run this in WINE, I dont want it. I can save a page quicker with File>SaveAs than I could having to restart to Windows to use this.

 

http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iVersionId=3754 Here is thing about installation of .NET Framework 2.0 in WINE. I don't know if it works, but it says that small applications work ok with it. I cannot test it atm as I don't have any PC with Linux available.

PS. If installer reports lack of .NET when it is installed on WINE, just click ok and install it anyway.

 

Mono is currently upto .Net 2.0. See whether you can port your application to it? http://www.mono-project.com/Guide:_Porting_Winforms_Applications That might help. Thing is, topic starter, although windows has 88% of the market, the demography you are targeting with your application is quite different.

 

Well, the DLP demography is quite different. The general fanfic demography is, I think, more normal.

 

RE Mono: For some reason, I can't get programs that need .NET to use Mono. They don't detect it as being installed. It's not a big deal though, because like Vash said: If it doesn't work in WINE, I don't feel the need to use it.

@OP: Your screenshot looks nice. I like the idea of Perl plugins as well. DeFFNetIzer already has templating, so it's not really anything to get excited about (especially since I bet we'd have to recreate the DLP template to work with your template system).

To be honest though, your downloader would be way ahead of the market if the only other thing you added was support for PatronusCharm. None of the other ones can do it. (I'm sure if I put some time and effort into it, I could modify the DeFFNetIzer code to add PC to it, but I'm lazy and have other coding projects to work on.)

 

Done. The newest version changelog:
1.0.1 (4.3.2009):
-added plugin auto update
-added support for patronuscharm.net
-added support for thesilversnitch.net
-added support for archive.skyhawke.com

 

@ Militis: I've been using FF Downloader the whole time I've been reading HP fan fiction, and didn't know there might be a better way to do it. Are you saying there's a DLP Template for use in Graffer or DeFFNetizer or FF Downloader? I've done a search of the forums and can't find such a thing, except as a template when actually viewing FF.net.

I like what I've seen from Graffer's downloads, and am about to try out DeFFNetizer to see if it's better than FF Downloader. Wish me luck.

Thanks for the help.

 

Somewhat irrelevant, but can you download fanfiction through Kindle, iPod or something like that?

 

@Protus
Both DeFFNetizer and Graffer have working template systems (which means that anoyone with half decent knowledge of HTML can make nice looking templates. Graffer is on internet for a very short time and it has only one template now (the simple one, for reading at mobile phones and other mobile devices). In next release, alongside with fixing few bugs that appeared, I'll include one or two better looking templates. The difference between Graffer and DeFFNetizer is the former can download fic's from different archives (6 and slowly growing) while with DeFFNetizer you can download only from ff.net.

@Grubdubdub I'm afraid that the tools that are available now are not portable enough to do that (maybe DeFFNetizer as it is written in python). You have to download fiction to your PC and then send it somehow on IPod.

 

Older version of DeFFNet supported multiple sites. Don't know why that was removed.

 

I don't know how hard it would be, but would it be possible to add an option so that it merges all the chapter files into one .html file? would save me using another program to do this for when I'm transferring the books onto my iphone using stanza.

Luke

 

Isn't it possible to use the feed or something to send full chapters on update?

 

When in doubt, Fanfiction Downloader will work for what you're trying to do.
I believe Militis gave the link above.

http://www.home-eisele.de/downloader_e.php

 

It nearly works under wine. Main menu works etc., but for some reason it doesn't load the information about fanfic, maybe I am doing something wrong. I doubt that it is because of the .NET, so don't shit about .NET fail under wine. Just install it. And I loled at all the perl files you included with your program. WTF do you need them for? HTTPS.pm, telnet.pm, POP3.pm etc.?

BTW, if anyone need, i can create a simple command-line program for Linux, that will grab from the same sites (using author`s ready perl files).

 

I wanted to let you know that new version (1.0.2) is going to be released shortly. Some features will be saving as a one file, choosing chapters to download, word count, improved logs and getting new fiction links from system clipboard. Also, new templates (2) will be relased, here is example of one: http://serdel.co.nr/templates/Graffer It was tested only in firefox and IE, so it may have some errors on other browsers (let me know).

I will release console version of this in near future, still, it would have to be used on wine as far as i know (Without .NET though).

 

Seems like something useful, and it hasn't broken yet, which is amazing considering how easily I can destroy the simplest of programs by simply opening them. Maybe it's not the best, but it's all I need - thanks for sharing it.

On a side note - I recognized the name of the author from adultFFnet on your screenshot, and it scares me to think of her writing porn. Some things shouldn't be known. Ever. I just hope it's not the same person I know.