Collecting everything for a web page into one file that's browsable?
February 17, 2004 8:17 AM   Subscribe

Is there a way to embed images, applets, or anything that is linked in a web page so that you have a one file entity?

I'm thinking along the lines of a PDF, or a Word .doc, but you get the ability to view this document in a web browser (without plugins) edit it in a text editor, and add functionality via scripting. You could lock it and send it so that it can't be changed, but only viewable. (Think mock-up, without hosting a dev website).

If it doesn't exist, would something like it be practical?
posted by grefo to Education (7 answers total)
 
There's alway MHT Format. In Internet Explorer, click on File --> Save As "Web Archive - Single File (*.mht)

This will embed all images, style sheets and HTML.
I'm not sure if it will embed Applets, and it won't be read-only.
posted by seanyboy at 8:27 AM on February 17, 2004


Response by poster: Ah, I thought I had seen something. Thanks for reminding me!
posted by grefo at 8:59 AM on February 17, 2004


Is .mht proprietary? In Safari, for example, when you save a page you only get the HTML. No other options, afaik.
posted by anathema at 9:43 AM on February 17, 2004


Yeah, it's proprietary. Only IE can save it and view it. It's also not editable. Maybe (shudder) FrontPage can edit them, but the thought of using it makes me cringe.
posted by zsazsa at 9:49 AM on February 17, 2004


Here's a RFE to add this feature to Mozilla using XML "data:" protocol with Base64 encoding.

Here's another that does it using MHTML. Like when you see a mail message that says it is a "multi-part message in MIME format".

Both pages have example documents you can look at.
posted by smackfu at 10:44 AM on February 17, 2004


"add functionality via scripting" is where you're going to hit a limitation. Since most of the scripting functionality on the web (excepting javascript) is executed by server-side software, it would be hard to emulate in a single client-side file. You'd have to include a working PERL binary plus libraries, etc, inside your "file," just to get a run-of-the-mill web form to work.

Still, as far as mockups go, .mht is decent for layout and apperance, though most designers I know simply send a screen capture or host a dev server (woops, sorry!).
posted by scarabic at 3:30 PM on February 17, 2004


Only IE can save it and view it. It's also not editable.

I just opened one up in textpad and changed some text plus the stylesheet fontsize...there's some weird proprietary syntax going on to be sure, but to say its not editable is stretching it a bit.
posted by juv3nal at 10:05 PM on February 17, 2004


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