Showing posts with label Automatic Parser. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Automatic Parser. Show all posts

24/02/2008

New Parser Widget perfect for my Airport Flight information tab on my Netvibes Universe


I was expecting this widget since the beginning of my Netvibes page.

I wanted to grab a just a piece of a website page. In fact I was looking for the Arrivals or Departures from a chosen airport. But I just needed the landings not the ads ;) or the multiple options for travel fares, car rentals, ...

I could not use the Page Web widget from Netvibes because the data I was looking for were not in the upper left corner ... and this widget has no "padding" option. (And when I requsted if it could be added, Netvibes answered me that they had more urgent matters)

So , I could just get my links and check manually outside Netvibes :(

But this new Widget: AUTOMATIC PARSER from Twisterss is simply what I needed !

So easy to use, and I have tried many "self-called" magic widgets!

For me it is a 5*****/5 Widget : a must have if you need frequent updated data not available sous RSS feed.: graphs, timetables,...

UPDATE: here is an other very positive review from Widgetlab.com:

If this reads as something familiar or known is because it is..this is the way Clipmarks or Listas from Live Labs work.

The only difference is that they do not have the High Spread Distribution model offered by the UWA platform from netvibes and that is reason enough for this to triumph over them and also because neither Clipmarks or Listas Offer any comparable Widget to users from the data collected in their respective services.

This Widget generator service is just the kind of thing that could finally lure some users from their competition and it is now just a matter of seeing how the new Netvibes Engine (ginger) works for them.



Here is the description on the Netvibes Developers Blog who has introduced it to me ;)

"Built by Netvibes user Tristan “Twisterss” Groléat, it features a state-of-the-art HTML parser that allows users to pull just about anything out of any web-page, as long as it can be found using the DOM.

The instructions are sparse, and the usage is quick to grok:

  1. Enter the URL of the webpage
  2. Select the information you are interested in on the preview of the page: one block or many blocks of the same type
  3. Check that the widget really selects what you want
  4. Confirm your selection
  5. The widget displays the information you want, and refreshs it automatically every 20 minutes."
The only modifications I can ask at the moment are:
  1. the option for a SCROLLING up & down for a web page to long like my London Heatrow
  2. the option for a SIZE (W x L) for the final widget

Of course, it depends on the original page to work. So I have arranged an INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT FLIGHT INFORMATION Tab on my Universe:

At the moment I have: New York JFK Airport Arrivals, Brussels National Airport Arrivals and London Heatrow Arrivals. I am not able to get the French Paris CDG .
If NY and Brussels are Ok, the London Heatrow is too big and not well centered but is working.