I've exported my Tinderbox document to HTML files – how do I get them on my iPhone?

Inter-app workflows
1

I’ve exported my Tinderbox document to HTML pages. I want to take this private website with me on my iPhone. I want it to be accessible offline, only from my iPhone, not from a public website.

So now I’ve got a folder full of HTML files. I’d like to run an app, and visit the index page of my site, and navigate to other pages by clicking links. Bonus points if I can navigate using a file-system-like approach. Extra bonus points if I can search.

Anyone know how to do that? I’ve tried every sync service I can think of, and none provide HTML link-based navigation. I’ve searched for iOS web servers, but those all expose a web server, whereas I’m trying to simply look at my own files on the iOS device.

2

OK, so this is hitting the problem that iPhones don’t (didn’t) have a file-store akin to your Mac/PC hard drive for general storage. Photos & Music have their own silos - indeed in the iOS would I think that - pre-cloud era - data was app-associated and thus handled/stored by the app.

Years back I used iFiles (now iFiles 2 - in the App store) on my iPhone£ to take PDFs of important things like tickets before there was easy roaming data/wifi/etc. Hm - iFiles doesn’t work now so I guess you’d need iFiles 2 or a similar app now.

I don’t know if non-devs can easily make an iOS app and install it. If so one could likely make an app which is essentially a browser wrapper and uses your content (HTML, above) as the app content. I’m assuming the content doesn’t have external links (i.e. out to the Web) as I’m not sure how those might work or not.

Interesting question to which I too would like to see an answer!

3

Would a markdown capable (renders HTML) capable app like 1Writer work ?

4

Textastic for iOS will do this. You can even put the HTML in a Git repo, sync them with Working Copy app for iOS, then textastic will automatically pull them in that way too.

1 Like
5

you can navigate by file structure, but I’m not sure how the search will work for your purposes. It will probably search the source files rather than the display.

6

Hi Pat
you might need a dedicated application - I am using HTML Presenter (from the appstore).

Regards.
Frederic

7

This looks like exactly what I want – the HTML viewing at least. Not sure about file-system-style navigation or search, but viewing is a good start. It appears to be iPad-only, and I don’t have one. At least I know the sort of software I’m looking for now (HTML prototype presentation apps).

Thanks to everyone else for the recommendations. For anyone interested in this, I have a little example repository. The basic test is to view Home.html, click the link to view folder/a_nested_page.html, and then click the link to go back to Home.html. If someone who has one of these paid apps is willing to try that out and report back, I would be super grateful :slight_smile:

8

Textastic does what you’re asking for on this repository. However, it seems (to me on a quick look) it will only do search on the open source file, not on the rendered HTML, nor on all the files in the directory. It does have a file hierarchy navigation.

Also: textastic can send the rendered HTML to safari, where all the links still work. This is pretty interesting.

Lots of ways to get folder into Textastic, doesn’t need to be Working Copy git app. There’s a WebDAV server built in, and it can pull from the iOS 11 files app.

9

That is SUPER interesting.

iOS files app can access DEVONthink databases, so this might get me there.

  1. TB export to HTML
  2. Index HTML to DEVONthink, sync to DTTG
  3. Use textastic to navigate to the file and open in Safari

I’ll give it a shot… (I already tried DEVONthink and Files directly for opening the HTML files in Safari, but neither one has that option)

10

There’s an “open in safari” button but it’s not doing anything for me. I’ve tried DTTG, iCloud Drive, and Working Copy as sources.

Can you walk me through how you did it? Here’s what I tried:

  1. Add working copy source (working copy has the repo)
  2. Navigate to Home.html (it shows the source)
  3. Press sunglasses icon in lower left (it renders the HTML)
  4. Press typical “open in” icon, choose “Open in Safari”
  5. The menu disappears and nothing happens
11

seems like what I did. here’s a movie

12

Wow thank you so much for taking the time to record that. Yeah, I think that’s what I did too. I’m not sure what the difference is. Very strange!

I’m running iOS 11.2.6 – what version are you using? (I see there’s an 11.3.1 update, I’ll give that a shot)

13

Oh man, that looks amazing. I’ll be watching this thread.

of course, I still need to figure out basic HTML exporting first!

14

Dears,
for such a purpose I have two main options:

  1. using the “Documents” IOS App + iCloud sync.
  • export HTML to some iCloud directory
  • open Documents on the Ipad (connected to the same icloud account) , and wait for iCloud to sync
    It works, but not instantaneously - Document app is slow to Sync.
  1. I have a Web server (hosted together with my domain/email address) where I can upload the resulting HTML
  • upload to Web Server
  • browse from Ipad
  • if needed, do a local copy with “SiteSucker” iOS app.

I believe it is also possible to do this “intra LAN”: i.e. have a web server on your desktop/laptop, and connect site sicker to this Web Server to do the copy.

Globally I have some concerns to put “sensitive” information of my web server or on the iCloud (privacy issue) - Some of my notebook contains marketing plans for next years and sensitive budget information, so I dont’t do this often, and delete right after usage. Hence the usage of SiteSucker.

Hope this helps.
Regards.

15

do you mean “Files” ? I’ve tried using that, but links between HTML files don’t work – or at least didn’t, the last time I tried it

Yeah, I’ve thought of using that, but I don’t want some files publicly available.

I’m pretty surprised there’s not an app that lets you dump / sync a folder of HTML files and view it within the app.

Ah that’s interesting, I could point this at a private web server on my laptop and pull it to my iPhone.

16

do you mean “Files” ?

No, this the “Documents by Readdle” app.

I’m pretty surprised there’s not an app that lets you dump / sync a folder of HTML files and view it within the app.

There are: GoodReader (and Documents) can connect to local Samba/AFP share and do a local copy.
Might be OK for some users, but for any reason, does not work with my export ==> some links do not work anymore when in Goodreader, whereas they are ok with the others two methods.

I did not succeed to do the same with apple native “Files” app, which seems to connect only to cloud locations, but no AFP and no Samba. And we are in 2018…

There are some design choices made in iOS I do not understand. But Apple has always had a “closed ecosystem” approach.

Sharing back and forth is a lot easier with Android…

If you want to do it purely local, then a Web Server on your desk/laptop + site sucker is probably the way to go.

1 Like
17

Here’s another possible option. The new Scriptable app on iOS is basically just a playground for JavaScript. The script linked here will apparently render any HTML file stored in iCloud Drive. Scriptable is free so no barriers to trying it out.