How to keep offline docs readable when a refresh fails

Why the usual way fails

Saving a page in a browser gives you one page, and documentation is a tree of linked pages where the one you need is usually a few clicks away. Browser caches clear themselves on their own schedule and never tell you what is really stored. A tool that writes a refresh over the old copy can leave you with an error page where your docs used to be if the download times out. And you usually find out only once you are already offline and can't fix it.

How FetchAhead helps

FetchAhead lets you start from one docs page and use Smart Scope to bring in the documentation structure or the section around it, within limits you control. You can mark that content to refresh automatically when your connection, storage and battery settings allow. If a refresh fails, the app keeps the previous good copy instead of swapping in a broken one. It also tracks two things separately: whether a page is stored on the phone, and whether that saved copy may be out of date, so an older copy stays readable instead of vanishing.

Step by step

1. Share the docs page you start from into FetchAhead from your browser, or add its link inside the app.
2. Use Smart Scope to add the documentation structure or the section you need, keeping the scope small.
3. Put it in a pack for the project so it sits next to the related files and PDFs.
4. Choose those docs for automatic refresh and set the connection, storage and battery limits you are comfortable with.
5. Before you go offline, check that the pages show as stored locally.
6. Read them in the offline Reader, and treat a possibly-out-of-date label as a note, not a missing page.

Tips

• Keep the scope tight. Pull in the section you will actually use, not the whole docs site. A smaller capture is quicker to check before you leave and quicker to refresh later.
• Test a page in airplane mode before you rely on it. Some JavaScript-heavy or logged-in docs sites can't be fully captured and fall back to a limited version, and it's far better to learn that at your desk than on the train.
• Search instead of clicking through the tree. Once the docs are saved you can search across what you captured, which is much faster than following a docs sidebar on a small screen.
• If the project also publishes its docs as a PDF or a downloadable file, add that to the same pack. A file doesn't depend on how the website is built, so it makes a good backup for the pages that matter most.

Questions