Best Software to Download Entire Joomla PHP Website with Subpages and Images?

Question

Hello. I have a rather unusual problem. I would like to save a large website on my disk (literally, download the entire page). The website is quite extensive (home page, subpages, forum, pictures, etc.). The forum is temporarily down, so I don't need to download it. The website does not have...

mickpr · Answer

Do you want to download a dynamically generated website?

Anonymous · Answer

Maybe I expressed myself wrong... I want to make a copy of the website

This website will soon "go down", and I intend to "resurrect" it on another server with slightly changed functions, design and a different address.

Yes, I know this amounts to plagiarism, but I'm sure the administrator of that site won't hold any grudges against it. He has not been managing the website for a long time, and from what I found out, it will still be on the server until February (then you will have to pay the server fee again, this will not happen, so the website will disappear). There is no contact with the admin, he does not respond to e-mails.

mickpr · Answer

Maybe something along those lines.

VJ_Adams · Answer

You will not download a website running on PHP, in addition, if it is built on the Joomla CMS, all the content is saved in the MySQL database, which you cannot download in any way.

mickpr · Answer

You're right. However, if your friend wants to have an insight into the current snapshoot of the website, the server will return the HTML code when querying the website, e.g. index.php. The functionality of something like this is almost zero, but the questioner pointed out to me that he wants to have such a temporary look so that he can later create his own version of the website based on it. I think you might as well take screenshots. However, if you have text content, you can always copy and paste it to your website, but you can't do it (so easily) with an image.

Anonymous · Answer

1. I know that I will not be able to copy the database, and therefore I will lose comments, forum content and registered users.
2. The situation is that it is quite an extensive website, and the admin said that he no longer needs it and explains it by lack of time and willingness (for this reason, the website will be completely closed soon). Unable to come to terms with this, I decided to "save" the situation by saving the entire website (without the above-mentioned database content) and subpages on disk, processing it and uploading it back to some server.

Added after 1 [minute]:

Having all the website files (images, indexes, styles, etc.), I will recreate the website using the Joomla CMS package.

Anonymous · Answer

I'm sort of putting together the various files on this page bit by bit. I have (I think) managed to put together the main page and a few subpages. It looks like :

Total Commander. On the left side, files on the server (Joomla CMS). On the right, "recovered" website files. I rebuilt the page structure (folders, subfolders) based on "indexes". And now the question is - is it enough to copy these files to the server to make it work?

If not, how can I "set up" this page?

VJ_Adams · Answer

If you already have article content, you simply create it in Joomla. If you also have a folder with a template from the original website, you copy it to the Templates folder and activate the appearance tab or templates already in the CMS, if it is not already a prepared appearance, you need to build the template from scratch

Anonymous · Answer

So yes...
I played with the Artisteer 2 editor, but I don't like it mainly because it is not possible to open a page file saved in HTML (it only supports files of "its own" format). Another thing is the strange interface. However, I like Joomla's template creator.

Do you know any other programs to create such templates? (with wizard

)

Added after 48 [minutes]:

EDIT:
I would like to write the entire page in Spider (Pajączek 5 Pro NxG), and then use some wizard to convert it into a Joomla template. Would it be possible to do that?

Anonymous · Answer

Very nice, except that I don't want to copy my own website, but the website that I don't have access to (if I had access to the FTP server, I wouldn't ask on the forum) :?

VJ_Adams · Answer

Maybe it will be easier for us to assess something (difficulty level) if you send a link to the website.

Anonymous · Answer

I don't think it will be necessary for now.

I have already dealt with the home page (designed from scratch, based on the finished look).

I have a problem, namely how to create dynamically generated subpages in Joomla? Because I don't see such an option anywhere

VJ_Adams · Answer

There is no such thing as a dynamically generated subpage

Anonymous · Answer

I already have a hook for it Each subpage will be an article not published on the main page, and a link to it will be in the appropriate menu.

rzeszutek1 · Answer

Well, that's exactly how you do it, uncheck the homepage button in the article editor and set the appropriate section and category. All that remains is to copy the content of all articles (subpages) and create articles in sections and categories on the newly created database. Then create a menu accordingly, attaching the article itself or the entire category of articles, depending on the page you are copying. There is no other way to copy this page without access to its database. Once you have downloaded the template for this page, that's half the battle.

Anonymous · Answer

Personally, I don't use sections and directories because I don't understand how they work...

Everything I add to the website (various menus) is added using the "add module" (extensions) method, and instead of the section/category it says "unassigned".

rzeszutek1 · Answer

I had trouble understanding this too. In practice, with a moderately complex website, it is enough to always save articles to, say, the INFORMATION section and select an article category, e.g. news - for articles on the main page, or throw it into some topical category. Thanks to this, we can create tabs where, when clicked, an active list of all articles (or entire articles) from a specific section or category will be displayed. In practice, it is enough to break the articles into one section (information) and specific categories. Thanks to this, you can easily control the website where we publish a large number of articles on specific subpages every day. Thanks to this, we create a tree where we can then create bookmarks with links to entire branches.

Anonymous · Answer

However, mine will not be that extensive

Anonymous · Answer

Do you know how to make donations on the website? The point is that I would have a subpage, I click there and it shows me, for example:

Send an SMS with the text "abcde" to the number "12345"

And the money from this text message would go to me (e.g. as a subsidy to pay for the server)

VJ_Adams · Answer

Read about mPay and SkyCash, you purchase a gateway from the operator. But remember that you will never get 100% of the price of the text message you send

Anonymous · Answer

Just ?

VJ_Adams · Answer

It depends on the operator, they take from 10% to even 80% of the SMS price

Best Software to Download Entire Joomla PHP Website with Subpages and Images?

How can I save an entire Joomla/PHP website with all subpages and images for offline use or later rebuilding?

Topic summary

FAQ

Quick Facts

1. Can I fully download a Joomla site without FTP or database access?

2. Which tool works best for a static snapshot?

3. Why do grabbers miss some images or CSS on Joomla?

4. Can I rebuild the template from the downloaded files?

5. Is there any legal risk in cloning a site?

6. How do I recreate subpages inside Joomla 3-step method?

7. What breaks in a static copy? (edge case)

8. How to accept SMS donations on the recreated site?

9. What revenue share should I expect from Premium SMS?

10. Is there a database workaround like screen-scraping?

11. Statistic: How common is partial backup?

12. Failure fact: What if the site uses CDN-hosted assets?