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Sure, but i meant to build a portable app, for end users who are not coders, with a GUI, and for a dedicated purpose, like for exemple navigating on facebook.

Sure, but i meant to build a portable app, for end users who are not coders, with a GUI, and for a dedicated purpose, like for exemple navigating on facebook. So i will edit this question to this : Is there a better way to code a portable application with a graphical user interface to scrape a given site ? Thanks for your comment.

chinathrow 8y ago
> like for exemple navigating on facebook. What would you want to scrape there which is not against their ToS and a violation of user privacy in general?
- tyingq 8y ago
  I wouldn't mind a personal scraper that pulls down the family updates and pictures I want and puts them somewhere private where I can see them. Would get rid of the clutter and keep FB from some amount of shenanigans with my browser.
- Nextgrid 8y ago
  I can’t believe there are people still defending this scummy company. Facebook broke both legal and ethical “ToS” countless times and has no plan to stop. Why do you consider what Facebook is doing as OK but a little web scraping for personal usage to be so bad?
  - leetbulb 8y ago
    As the saying goes: "two wrongs don't make a right." Facebook's ToS is still a ToS. If you want to scrape the data that they've collected, either risk your account due to it being against the ToS or collect the data yourself.
rasengan 8y ago
You can access the html of the website and use regular expressions.
- tazeg95 8y ago
  > You can access the html of the website and use regular expressions. Yes but using regular expressions is the last and least recommended solution, please read : https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3577641/how-do-you-parse-and-process-html-xml-in-php/3577662 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3577641/how-do-you-parse...
  - toastal 8y ago
    I thinking that was the joke
    - stareatgoats 8y ago
      You're thinking of another post [0]. Not a joke either, really [0] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags/1732454#1732454 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open...
  - rasengan 8y ago
    If you read that link, it’s only not recommmended because people don’t know how to use it. Regular expressions are powerful.
    - stareatgoats 8y ago
      Read the link. Just wondering how you managed to interpret this: > regular expressions is a waste of time when the aforementioned libraries already exist and do a much better job on this. as this: > it’s only not recommmended because people don’t know how to use it
      - rasengan 8y ago
        > https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3577641/how-do-you-parse-and-process-html-xml-in-php/3577662 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3577641/how-do-you-parse... It says "can make regex fail when not properly written" etc. There are different circumstances where using a premade parsing library versus using raw regular expressions are going to make sense. The answer is not binary.
sansnomme 8y ago
Look up robot process automation and visual web scraping. Web scraping without having to write code is a well established field. Just not very popular with the HN crowd for obvious reasons. Some example would be Scrapinghub's Portia system and the Kantu startup. There are also established players like UIPath and Visualwebripper.

chinathrow 8y ago

> like for exemple navigating on facebook. What would you want to scrape there which is not against their ToS and a violation of user privacy in general?

tyingq 8y ago
I wouldn't mind a personal scraper that pulls down the family updates and pictures I want and puts them somewhere private where I can see them. Would get rid of the clutter and keep FB from some amount of shenanigans with my browser.
Nextgrid 8y ago
I can’t believe there are people still defending this scummy company. Facebook broke both legal and ethical “ToS” countless times and has no plan to stop. Why do you consider what Facebook is doing as OK but a little web scraping for personal usage to be so bad?
- leetbulb 8y ago
  As the saying goes: "two wrongs don't make a right." Facebook's ToS is still a ToS. If you want to scrape the data that they've collected, either risk your account due to it being against the ToS or collect the data yourself.

rasengan 8y ago

You can access the html of the website and use regular expressions.

tazeg95 8y ago
> You can access the html of the website and use regular expressions. Yes but using regular expressions is the last and least recommended solution, please read : https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3577641/how-do-you-parse-and-process-html-xml-in-php/3577662 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3577641/how-do-you-parse...
- toastal 8y ago
  I thinking that was the joke
  - stareatgoats 8y ago
    You're thinking of another post [0]. Not a joke either, really [0] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags/1732454#1732454 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open...
- rasengan 8y ago
  If you read that link, it’s only not recommmended because people don’t know how to use it. Regular expressions are powerful.
  - stareatgoats 8y ago
    Read the link. Just wondering how you managed to interpret this: > regular expressions is a waste of time when the aforementioned libraries already exist and do a much better job on this. as this: > it’s only not recommmended because people don’t know how to use it
    - rasengan 8y ago
      > https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3577641/how-do-you-parse-and-process-html-xml-in-php/3577662 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3577641/how-do-you-parse... It says "can make regex fail when not properly written" etc. There are different circumstances where using a premade parsing library versus using raw regular expressions are going to make sense. The answer is not binary.

sansnomme 8y ago

Look up robot process automation and visual web scraping. Web scraping without having to write code is a well established field. Just not very popular with the HN crowd for obvious reasons. Some example would be Scrapinghub's Portia system and the Kantu startup. There are also established players like UIPath and Visualwebripper.